What the heck is "soft secession"?

[kswheels]

So I got into a "discussion" with a guy on Facebook. He runs the whole gauntlet of crazy from birther to benghazi. I jokingly told him not to cry too hard on election day. He responded back with something to the effect of "I'm not worried, soft secession is plan B."

Google is little help. It just sends me to crazytown websites. What the hell was this guy talking about?

[BootinUp]

1. I assume he means without

any violence.

[Tumbulu]

2. I just heard the term the cold civil war

and wonder if it is not the same thing.

I for one would be relieved if these states that take all the federal monies but only give back obstructionist republicans would leave the union. It would be a relief really and we could just move on.

Sorry if I am upsetting anyone here, but what is the point really. Let them go. See how long they last on their own. Do a tough love thing to them.

[kswheels]

3. Like the great Jed Bartlet said

"Can we have it back, please?"

[Bucky]

5. Woah, slow down, tiger

Us RedStaters ain't going nowhere.

Everyone who says shit like that is just blowing smoke. I've lived around this sourpuss conservatives my whole life. They're like those kids on the playground who, when they miss a throw in a basketball game or fumble over their feet and fall on their faces, they just get up, dust themselves off, and say "I meant to do that."

It's all talk. No serious person favors secession. People who mention it can be immediately ignored as irrelevent brats.

[Zalatix]

20. The Redstaters will kill us from within. It's called "Starve the Blue Beast", look it up.

A soft secession / cold civil war is a VERY real possibility. And given the level of organization and discipline that the Right Wing has shown over the last 30 years, they could pull it off.

They don't have to secede to break the Union: they can do it financially. They are doing it financially. Look at our roads, look at our schools, look at all the money leaving the country, look at how far they've dragged us down already.

They can lose every election from now until 2040 and still drag the country down.

[Art_from_Ark]

31. "Red staters"?

You mean, like Kevin McCarthy and Darryl Issa from California? Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin? Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota?

And of course, three of our last 4 Democratic presidents have hailed from the South.

And California voted for Ronald Freakin' Reagan TWICE

[Zalatix]

34. Yes, red staters.

Those solid bastions of Conservatism which will continue to put up Republican legislative majorities to enact their poisonous agendas despite what happens in Washington, DC.

I know you're seething with anger and you so desperately want to remind me that there are liberal Democrats in Mississippi, and yes that is true, but Mississippi will always be a majority Republican area, a bastion of Conservatism. That is reality. And liberalism will not flourish there at least for the next 50 years, if ever. The Conservative majority in that state, and several others, will continue to shit where everyone eats.

Nobody wants to come to grips with the fact that we have WHOLE STATES with Conservative majorities who will rule their territories with Conservative agendas. They will continue to drag down those areas with welfare cuts, education privatization, right-to-work laws, you name it. And they're not just poisoning their own wells; now they've spread their cancer to places like Michigan with Rick Snyder's shock doctrine bullshit. These areas will remain millstones around America's neck because 1) the Conservative statewide majority; and 2) we want to keep screaming "BUT ... BUT Ryan, Sensenbrenner AND Bachmann!!!"

Look, I don't want liberals in Mississippi to be trapped there in the event of a split any more than you do. What needs to happen, though, is America needs to wake up. We cannot, will not convince these huge, majority Conservative populations to see the light. They will fight us in the state houses, they will fight us from community to community, they will engage in a soft secession - a CULTURAL schism which will grow until one day we simply have ZERO common cultural ground with each other. Meanwhile they are engaging in an ACTIVE effort to "Starve the Beast" - to bankrupt the Government so they can start all over in their racist Republican paradise. If we stop them in DC they will keep "Starving the Beast" in Jackson, Mississippi, Baton Rouge LA, and the way things are going, Lansing Michigan, too!

[Art_from_Ark]

37. In 1980 and 1984, just about every state was a "red state"

in that they voted for Ronald Freaking Reagan, who helped to start this mess. During that time, many of those states that are considered "blue" today also elected Republican senators and representatives, as well as governors and legislatures, who also helped to change things for the worse. And it wasn't too long ago that "blue" Californians went gaga over the air-headed Terminator, who helped to shut down the energy crisis investigation that Governor Gray Davis had been conducting.

On the other hand, the past 3 out of 4 Democratic presidents have come from what are now considered "red" states. And speaking for my own "red" state, Arkansas, we suck at voting in presidential elections, but we consistently elect Democrats to state offices and almost always have a Democratic legislature. We are the only state that has had only 2 Republican US Senators since Reconstruction. We also produced two of the most progressive US Senators of the 20th Century: Joseph Robinson, who was FDR's right-hand man in the Senate for getting New Deal programs passed, and J. William Fulbright, one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam War who wrote a very compelling book called The Arrogance of Power which should be required reading for Democrats.

[Zalatix]

38. Okay... and?

How does this change the fact that you have large swaths of this country that will cling to poisonous Republican policies that will keep having disastrous effects for much of the rest of the nation? How does it explain the fact that they've spread to Michigan?

So you say Republicans are dwindling in numbers or influence. How does this change the fact that America simply doesn't have enough time to wait for Republicans to decline until they're no longer a significant force?

The time between Reagan's years and now is a period of 30 years. We don't have that kind of time left. There are, and will for many decades be, enough Republicans concentrated in red states that they will privatize enough public services, move enough money out of the country, fight pollution laws, and run up enough deficits that they will bring us all to ruin. Between all the bankster corruption, the jobs bleeding overseas, and our crumbling roads and schools, we just don't have time to wait for their ideology to simply drop dead.

They'll bleed us out before then.

[Art_from_Ark]

39. Let me tell you something about "redstaters" and "bluestaters"

as they pertain to my part of Arkansas. Up until the time I entered high school, my county was solidly Democratic. A lot of the "old-timers" I knew would get all sentimental when someone mentioned FDR. or JFK or RFK. Most of the adults I knew growing up were die-hard Democrats.

But a paradigm shift in the demographic started to occur in the '70s-- there was a huge in-migration from so-called "blue" states-- particularly Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. And guess what? My county suddenly started voting Republican in big numbers. A large part of that shift was due to an influx of rich retirees from the Frost Belt settling down in the retirement community of Bella Vista, which is now overwhelmingly Republican. The same could be said for Rogers and Bentonville, the two largest cities in the county, which have both experienced a huge in-migration of rich people from out-of-state and now vote overwhelmingly Republican.

So most of the people who moved to my county (and probably other counties throughout the South) from the Frost Belt helped to make their home states bluer while making my state redder.

[dixiegrrrrl]

40. I gotta agree with your insight.

"we just don't have time to wait for their ideology to simply drop dead. "

My fear is that the dumbing down of the population for the last 30 years has been very effective.
The nation's history is being forgotten and is not being taught in schools.
Even here on DU, I read comments that show absolutely NO awareness of the issues we fought for in the '60's and '70's, never mind all the labor fights and strikes in the 30's and 40's...
You are correct..we do not have time to wait.

[Zalatix]

41. The worst part is the media. The media has completely shifted to the right. Not only that, but

so has the Democratic Party itself.

DRONES??? Summary executions of Middle Easterners whom we've arbitrarily declared "enemies"? Senate Democrats (Dick Durbin for instance) talking about cutting Social Security? UNION BASHING??? Those things were unimaginable to us 30 years ago.

[dixiegrrrrl]

43. widespead syping on people...elimination of due process..etc etc etc

Seems we are now going thru a phase of actually "getting" how deep the shit hold is.

[BlueCaliDem]

6. There are only two from that region of the country

around here (or it could be one with two monikers) who explode into cursing and jeering when you mention this. But I'm with you 100%.

I'm tired of those states below the Mason-Dixon that take gobs of Federal money and as a Fuck-You-Very-Much, send ultra-rightwing Republicans to eff it up for the rest of us.

I'm beginning to see them as the enemy within.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. In terms of tax dollars received versus tax dollars contributed,

only 3 of the Top Ten are states that were in the old Confederacy, unless you count West Virginia, which seceded from Virginia in 1862 and joined the Union in 1863.


States receiving the most federal funding per tax dollar paid:
1. New Mexico: $2.63
2. West Virginia: $2.57
3. Mississippi: $2.47
4. District of Colombia: $2.41
5. Hawaii: $2.38
6. Alabama: $2.03
7. Alaska: $1.93
8. Montana: $1.92
9. South Carolina: $1.92
10. Maine: $1.78.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021492482#post3

And some of the worst Republicans in Congress are from so-called "blue" states, including Kevin McCarthy and Darryl Issa from California, Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota, and Jim Sensenbrenner and Paul Ryan (the guy who's Romney's running mate) from Wisconsin.

[HiPointDem]

33. it's not a question of red v blue, or south v. north. it's more complicated than that, & looking

at it from that perspective guarantees you'll miss the trend.

[Art_from_Ark]

44. I agree

It is definitely more complicated than that.

[coalition_unwilling]

10. Hope you'll allow ethnic minorities, LGBT and Dems there to relocate to the United

States of Canada before sending the secessionist states on their way to Jesus-Land.

[Tumbulu]

12. Well I lived and worked in one of those states

and am back in a blue one and I will not go back. It takes such a hero to live there and be a real democrat or a liberal. The hate radio 24/7 has made it so much more dangerous than before.

I think that anyone who wanted to leave should be able to.

I don't really think it will happen- these guys really wanting to seceed. But if they made the demand, who in this day and age would wage a war to keep them in? Not me. I had my time in hell and do not want to go back to it.

[CoffeeCat]

24. I think our country would be...

...paradise if these divisive, childish loons decided to leave or group in one area. I'm so fucking tired of trying to reason with them. I'm so tired of watching Fox News and Hannity--trying to understand what is going on with them. They are so amped up on Fox News mind control. They are like children stuck in Piaget's second stage.

And they do not see it.

It's not fair that climate change causes untold suffering--because a selfish, ignorant minority can't reason or understand basic science. They are being fed mental slop 24/7 from Fox and right-wing radio. They've become cultish and bizarre. They believe everything Fox says.

If they want to go somewhere else, or secede a few states and live in some kind if ignorant bubble--I think that sounds like a dream scenario.

[aquart]

4. A right wing fantasy where they forget their dependence on federal money.

And imagine Obama won't drop 'em with drones.

[BlueCaliDem]

7. +1000 eom

[BlueCaliDem]

8. I'm assuming here he meant they'll never abide by the Union,

but take billions in Federal welfare dollars (taking more than they send in) while they continue to vote for Republicans to ruin it for the rest of us as a "fuck-you-very-much-Libruls!".

I guess "soft secession" means it guarantees they have all the benefits but none of the responsibilities of being part of the Union.

[mick063]

9. Here is a guess.

I really don't know, but I'm trying to think like a Freeper here.

If enough wing nuts move to a specific state, they can overwhelm the political process in that state and radically change it through state constitutional amendments via referendum. All of this hinging on States gaining unprecedented power from the Supreme Court in a major "State's rights" case to set precedent.


For example, Washington State legalizes Marijuana, the Feds file suit, and the State wins in a States rights case that sets precedent for future similar rulings. In other words, you "break free" from the Federal Government without actually seceding.

I dunno. Does it seem like something a Freeper would believe in?

I'm scaring myself.

[BainsBane]

11. Let them go

I'm sick of their bitching. Plus they only cost us tax dollars anyway.

[davidpdx]

23. Better yet deport them to an island with their guns

Let'em kill each other. Republicanism is a disease.

[Marr]

13. I've always loved how the self-proclaimed "only true Americans" also want to destroy the country.

They don't even realize that they are the America-hating traitors they're always complaining about.

[RagAss]

14. The south lives on the Federal dole anyway. Get lost !

[cordelia]

22. Bigoted. Ignorant. Intolerant.

[defacto7]

15. so they're going to secede from the United States.... right

translation... "I'm gonna take my ball and go home!"

What's he going to do? Not pay taxes? Throw tea overboard? Refuse to go to kindergarten?

[Recursion]

16. Backing out of the New Deal state by state

Step 1 is Medicaid, which SCOTUS just handed them the ability to do.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. It's the medical term for the what happened to Rush Limbaugh's dick.

[lunatica]

21. LOL!

[no_hypocrisy]

19. Aside from the Red States seceding and foregoing federal aid,

what do they plan to do? Build a fence along their northern border? Boxed in by the North/Blue States and Mexico?

[Chiquitita]

25. Hey you blue staters -- f'ing move here and fight!

We're down here on the frontline, fighting to turn these states blue and this is how you support your red state dems????

[CoffeeCat]

26. Are they finally realizing that Obama will win?

I am relieved to hear that, at least, some of these lunatics are realizing that Romney will lose on Election Day.

It's scary how Rove and other right wing personalities have bamboozled the right into believing that Romney will win.

It's like they're purposely being propagandized, so they'll be completely shocked at Obama's re-election. I "get" trying to keep the base enthusiastic, but they are perpetuating lies and fantasies at this point and doing them no favors.

I worry that they'll be so shocked on election night that they will be violent.

It's very sad that these people can no longer think for themselves; and it's equally sad that they're being played and harmed by people who will use them to fulfill their own agendas.

[Chiquitita]

27. Some will be very shocked

I was on Free Republic this morning and they think R's going to win based on crowd size and the tone of his campaign's last email vs. the tone of the President's. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2954545/posts

But they also have the same fears about us being violent... it's like a hall of mirrors.

[CoffeeCat]

29. Oh yeah, it's cherry-pick central over there...

They hitch their wagons to one or two Romney large crowds. However, they ignore Obama's huge crowds and focus in on a few venues that have had smaller crowds for Obama. They completely ignore the small crowds for Romney--such as the crowd of 2,000 in Dubuque Iowa.

The only thing that matters right now--is the swing state polls. Not the national polls, not data themes pulled from specific polls--such as how the Independents are voting.

They are being ridiculous at this point. However, Fox News is giving them these talking points--and feeding them 1/3 of the story.

I will never understand, this close to the election, why Fox would do this? They're going to look like fools when Obama wins. All of the Fox viewers will be wondering what in the hell just happened.

It's just like other issues with these people. They see what they want to see--not what the reality is.

They live in a fantasy world.

[Chiquitita]

42. I have the same q: Why would Fox do this?

I think that they are creating an expectation that will cause fox viewers to think that the election was somehow illegitimate, stolen. Would they really admit they got it wrong?

[ldf]

28. it's a setup

they have arranged for all the "polls" to reflect a close vote, then when obama wins big THEY will scream that the votes were manipulated and the election was stolen.

the irony....

they will then challenge, and the democratic party will either fold, or give in in so many precincts that the pubes will still be able to stop everything we attempt to do (pretty much like the last four years, when they LOST THE ELECTION).

strange. i always thought the losers no longer dictated the course of the nation. that is no longer the case.

sometimes my rose colored glasses tend to turn clear and i see the future as the past, since we have had chances in the past to deal with these issues, but failed to do anything about it...

[Posteritatis]

30. Probably selectively ignoring federal legislation without formally seceding

Picking and choosing which rules to run by, ignoring the ones they find inconvenient, and pulling out the Andrew Jackson impersonation when the courts call them on their behaviour. Maybe thinking they can defund or ignore programs required under law - think less subtle versions of what Alabama's trying to do with the right to government-financed education this time around, stuff like that.

The whole thing's exactly as feasible as it sounds, of course.

[AtomicKitten]

35. shrinkage

[lexx21]

36. This thread is really sounding

just as crazy as the "live in a bunker with ammo and MRE" sites. I'm from a "red state" and voted straight ticket Democrat as did my S/O. Succession is NOT an answer and sounds quite a bit like the crap that Pat Buchanan wrote.

I seriously hope this is simply a case of magical thinking and nothing that you honestly believe.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

45. That'll get you soft time in a federal penitentiary n/t