Can we have one ?
For English independence from Scotland ?
One week after a deeply divided US re-elected Barack Obama as its 44th president, citizens unhappy with that outcome are using the White House's own We the People website to create petitions promoting the secession of 35 of the country's 50 states. The Obama adminstration set up the website in September 2011 with the goal of …
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By 2025 they claim that the US will have a white minority. The influx of so many Hispanic people and their higher birth rate will change the balance of the country forever. In some parts of the US only Spanish is spoken as there is no need to speak English.
Could the country split along these racial lines?
Will there be a vote to change the national language to Spanish?
By 2050 that may be the case.
Typical AC grey matter-disadvantaged racist. AC because you're afraid to get downvoted and if it weren't for the internet you wouldn't know anything about the outside world.
If you had ever completed education past the third grade and didn't look to family reunions as potential hookup time you would remember that this country is supposed to be the largest melting pot in the world.
"The influx of so many Hispanic people and their higher birth rate will change the balance of the country forever. In some parts of the US only Spanish is spoken as there is no need to speak English."
An influx of foreigners into the Americas you say? Possible extinction of the native language you say?
Surely this is unprecedented! Its ancient culture and traditions must be saved.
This is a bunch of bull. When I lived in San Francisco in the 50's, I could survive by speaking only Chinese. America was founded on immigrations and 'French Towns', 'German towns' and other communities where native languages were only spoken and the US survived. This is about hatred for a President solely because he is black! I remember in the 50's people used to say, 'I have a lot of black friends, but I would not want my sister to marry one --- or have a black president'
No, the crap is coming from you. I grew up in one of those "German" towns. Back in the day the paper was in German. But it didn't last long that way because those Germans wanted to Americans not Germans. So they learned English, and now it is what they all speak. That's what's missing today: no melting in the pot.
And if think a group that voted 71% for Romney is racists, what about the group that voted 100% for The Big 0? Sounds a hell of a lot more racist to me. I've seen reports we have 56 precincts in PA with that level of racism.
@21:35 Last week someone reminded me that at one point ~100 years ago, the majority of people in the USA had descent from Germans. (At least one parent or grandparent from German lands)
So... sprechen Sie Deutsche? Nur Englisch? Ah, I see why "English only" is so important to you.
Well if you want a sea of white people as far as the eye can see you can always immigrate to eastern part of Germany or most of Northern Europe (UK in many parts aside) for that matter. No need to have the attitude the US is in uncharted waters though. Its very likely your great grandfather put a no Irish allowed sign in his store window long ago.
Hey AC, you need to get out more if for no other reason than to learn the difference between race, ethnicity and ancestry.
Your "influx" dribble is easily dismissed since Asia sends a whopping 0.1% fewer people to the U.S. than the rest of the Americas. To put it in perspective the difference in only 1700 people and they could simultaneously be housed one to a room in the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu and half the hotel rooms would be empty. That many people wouldn't occupy a third of the rooms in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Besides, most folks would do well to learn a second language whether it's English, Spanish, Chinese or whatever.
In the end, here in the US it's all based on how people perceive themselves and given the ever increasing number of people marking two or more on the census it's pretty much going to be an exercise in futility for the demographic number crunchers come 2050 as fewer and fewer folks care or even keep track.
>Hey AC, you need to get out more if for no other reason than to learn the difference between race, ethnicity and
>ancestry.
>learn a second language whether it's English, Spanish, *Chinese* or whatever
Perhaps you need to get out and learn the difference between ethnicity and language?
"Perhaps you need to get out and learn the difference between ethnicity and language?"
Sorry Danny did you want me to break it out by how it's spoken even though I didn't say learn to speak a different language? Oh, do you actually believe that newspapers in Hong Kong come in Mandarin and Cantonese editions? LOL.
Actually, the real problem is that the WASP males are already a minority. They are also shrinking and increasingly divided against themselves. Actually, ever since the women got the franchise the WASP males were a minority, and probably not even a plurality.
However, the internal division is what is really killing them in a political sense. There are lots of white people who do NOT feel entitled to claim superiority by the accident of their birth. I'm not saying that it's the only base of Romney's support, but I think that it puts an absolute ceiling of 60% (of the white voters) on it. In other words, the more than 40% of the whites who voted for President Obama obviously could not have had his skin color as their #1 criterion for making their decision. When you do the math, the racists are a minority and a shrinking minority, and I don't think they have much chance of recruiting to their cause.
Yet I'm troubled by the increasingly bizarre disguises they are putting on things. Did you know that most voters preferred Democratic Party candidates over the neo-GOP for the House? And yet the Representatives will be only 47% from the DP. It's mostly a combination of gerrymandering and dark money from extremist conservatives seeking to increase their personal wealth.
The Founding Fathers wanted the House to be responsive to the voters. You have to laugh for the sadness.
"Did you know that most voters preferred Democratic Party candidates over the neo-GOP for the House?"
Not surprising, all it takes in a two district state is for one district to go 90%D/10%R and the other to go 20%D/80%R. Assuming the districts are exactly equal in voter count that makes the whole state 55%D/45%R but representation is 50/50. Now then, if we use the Presidential election just past as a guideline the national split is 50.6%D, 47.8%R and 1.6% other. We already know the House vote was 49%D, 48.2%R and 2.8% other. Sorry but that whole 0.8% difference is hardly a cause to break out the evil R conspiracy theory. It isn't a perfect system and differences in state populations mean the districts don't get to all be exactly the same size. It's a purple country regardless of what you read on Kos.
As for gerrymandering, don't kid yourself into thinking it's a single party plot as both parties play that game very well and frequently do it with the approval of most of the citizenry. Or don't you think the DP in the above example wouldn't want to redistrict the state so both districts had a 55/45 split even if it meant some creative curves to the district lines regardless of what the voters think?
As for gerrymandering, don't kid yourself into thinking it's a single party plot as both parties play that game very well and frequently do it with the approval of most of the citizenry.
Indeed, it's one of our (the US's) oldest political traditions; Elbridge Gerry (for whom the practice is named[1]) was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. (I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Gerry's home town, and this sort of thing came up in local-history class.) The word was only coined in the early 19th century, but it was the first generation of US politicians who started the practice.
[1] Gerry presided over an inventive redistricting of Massachusetts, prompting a local newspaper to coin the term. He can't really be said to have invented the practice, though, since it was undoubtedly a party effort, and inspired by various malapportionment tricks long used in the UK and elsewhere.
This has nothing to do with Hispanics, it all about a Black man being President. That is something that these traitors cannot handle. Many of these witless morons live in the same town where I live in. I know a little about what they think. They cannot live with a black leading America. They should be charged with treason and jailed. The US Civil war settled this kinds of thought. If you notice, there are many states that Obama won who are working on this petition. This is an indicator that the conservative house of representatives has no intention of working with Obama or the Democrats. There only goal is to get Obama out of office!!!!!!
There is no national language. A lot of government materials are available in Spanish. The main split I could see is along political lines – this whole red state, blue state thing – but the problem with that is that most states are essentially purple; the redness comes from the winner-take-all voting system where a state's red on the map if the Republican won 55:45 or something.
In any case, the main line of tension seems to be conservative / liberal and racial lines are extremely secondary. Even a hypothetical succession of Texas wouldn't see all the blacks getting kicked out or enslaved or anything of the sort.
Excuse me, I must go outside and fart upwind. It will have more impact upon the world than these petitions do.
The whole "We The People" petition program is a gigantic waste of time. It's only purpose is to allow the administration a chance to practice being on message for every one of the petitions raised. There is more chance that the after-effects of that last burrito I had will have a measurable impact on the administration policy than any of those petitions ever will - the administration has shown that over and over again.
Moreover, those petitions SHOULD NOT have any impact. Online petitions are too easy - there is too much chance for people to support something while being spectacularly ignorant of the cost (so long as that cost is born by somebody else).
When the people of those various stated go forth, collect the needed signatures of registered voters, put the issue on a public ballot in their states, get the public to vote for its acceptance, and put that to the Federal government will I give more than a puff of methane in the breeze.
Indeed, and the petition site has the usual get-out clause that all government petition sites do; we don't have to respond if we don't want to.
How many of the petitions on the UK gov site have actually resulted in action? Same as any other attempt at real democracy, I'm guessing.
On the contrary; the Republican Party got just 25% of the Hispanic vote this year. Hence if current population growth patterns continue and neither party changes rhetoric then Texas will be a swing state by 2020.
Democrats therefore probably don't want secession. In practice none of us should want secession because keeping Texas in the union is the most likely way to bring the Republican party back towards the centre, and it's helpful to everyone when the most economically and militarily powerful nation on earth has moderate leadership.
I see this whole matter as yet another Tea Party style waste of time that pushes real issues out of public debate.
That said, if some states like Texas were to actually secede from the United States they would find life to be really hard -- almost all the conservative-leaning states have been a long-term net loss when it comes to what they contribute vs funds/resources they receive on a Federal level. Basically, they're all acting like teenagers wanting to move out of the house because want to act like, well teenagers. Once Mom and Dad aren't around to pay the bills, the world starts to look a lot different.
How so? We (Texas) won't have to keep the illegals around, we can kick them out with ease. Also, produce around half of the gasoline for the US. We would have a great export; an export that would have a nice "tax" on it. We don't need Mom and Dad; we have a successful business model.
Also, how much stuff comes from Mexico or Latin America? Quite a bit and I can't see everything going through the other states to bypass Texas.
Who is paying the bills for the Obama administration? Right now, he has maxed the credit card out.
are sadly effectively used as slave labour - why you'd kick them out is beyond me, considering they keep production costs down and allow average americans to live a much higher standard of life than if they had to pay the "illegals" a decent wage. Not to mention border patrol required to kick them out immediately becomes Texas' problem - and the US won't be too happy if you don't do your neighbourly duty and stop them from entering the US.
Whilst Texas produces a lot of oil, the US has been making a concerted effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil - and Texas' secession would result in your oil being just as foreign as the Saudis (although from the tone of your post I'm guessing they'd be much nicer to deal with).
What "stuff" from Mexico or Latin America are you referring to? apart from the "illegals" I'd say Texas relies on US companies a lot more than the US relies on Texan companies - all goods distribution channels are US owned companies - I'm sure if Texas decided to increase the price of oil above what the US feels like paying on a given day, or tried to prevent goods travelling through Texas, the US could turn Texas into a starving little dustbowl fairly easily.
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That not all Texans are like that racist fool with the coward tag. Probably a fake troll from... From... I'm trying to think of a state that has more fools than Texas, but I seem to be coming up short.
I'm not saying that all of my opinions are perfect. I make some mistakes and learn from them (hopefully), but everything's bigger in Texas, including the biggest fools. Sad to say that another one of my opinions is that I'm rather glad not to live there now. That's even allowing for my having lived in some of the best parts of the state, too... You don't want to imagine what the armpits are like.
Florida would be a good choice there!!!!
Just take a hard look at its Governor and a large part of its Legislature. All members of a certain political party that preaches (R) "family values".
Just today, its Thief Executive (aka P.Rick Scott) made an about face.
Previously, he was dead set against ObamaCare and his shit headed (R family value carrying) friends in the state Legislature made all kinds of noise and instituted a fluster of legal action (courtesy of state AG BlondiBondi) in order to get ObamaCare over turned.
They lost.
The amendment those R family value carrying members of the Tea Party foisted onto the ballot in an attempt to outlaw cooperation WRT ObamaCare failed to pass.
They put an amendment on the ballot under the title of "Religious Freedom"; which, if passed wouid have torn down the restrictions on using public funds for religious schools. That one failed to pass.
His R family value friends tried the typical R family value voter suppression tricks, but those failed. People waited as much as 7 hours (in Miami/Dade County) in order to cast a vote
Well, I guess the reality of the election finally hit him right in the face; now he is willing to "talk" to the Feds.
Lastly, in one of its more populous counties (Pinellas), 2 of 4 county commissioners who previously voted to end adding fluoride to the water system; got VOTED OUT OF OFFICE. One of the other two now is talking out the other side of his ass.
I could not make this shit up, even if I tried. See what I mean:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-14/florida-governor-scott-drops-opposition-to-health-law
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/pinellas-county-commissioners-blame-fluoride-vote-for-failed-re-election/1260383
For more amusement, this guy is in it hip deep, all of the back room deals those R family value politicians have made over the years may finally see the light of day:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/new-allegations-surface-in-case-against-jim-greer/1260832
And of course, the Supervisor of Elections for this county can't seem to do the job properly, either:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/pinellas-elections-supervisor-takes-responsibility-for-botched-election/1261080
And, with respect to well publicized voting problems, it seems that the state's administration is also talking out of both sides of its ass:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/gov-rick-scott-defends-florida-election-as-his-chief-says-we-could-have/1260762
Texas is the only consistently-Red state that could theoretically pay its way independently of the federal government. I say "theoretically", because that calculation doesn't take account of the indirect subsidies Texas enjoys in the form of US defense contracts and army bases.
(Of course, most of the state's real wealth comes from the distinctly-liberal-leaning big cities - Houston, Dallas, San Antonio.)
Some Texans think oil would see them through, which is an incredibly shortsighted view. Oil won't last forever. And even while it does, you don't want to live in a 'country' where one decent hurricane could wipe out your exports for six months.
gr8 piece 2day on exactly that:
Red states receive, on average, far more from the federal government in expenditures than they pay in taxes. The balance is the opposite in blue states. The secession petitions, therefore, give the opportunity to create what would be, in a fiscal sense, a far more perfect union.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-confederacy-of-takers/2012/11/13/d8adc7ee-2dd4-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_print.html
He'd be a fine successor to the proverbial "Times" letter writer "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" - a little punchier and more to the point. Just imagine his current analysis:
America died yesterday. It's over. There's no coming back.
236 years of history gone in one single day and night.
SPARE ME YOU'RE FUCKING GOOD TIDINGS YOU CONSERVATIVES. This is a castrophe for libertarians and conservatives. The worst of our lifetimes.
The Nazis and Communists have just seized control of the United States of America, and you fuckers are trying to convince me it ain't that bad!
but instead focussed on the shock decision by the "Britain in Bloom" committee to award first prize to Tewksbury.
lol
Top nutjob!
When is his show on Fox?
let em seceede i say, i seem to recall there was a similar problem back in the 1850's where the blue states wanted to behave like civilised human beings (ish) and the reds rebelled.
<pauses to wink theatrically at camera>
how did that whole thing work out for them then?
let em go, the immediate loss of the dead weight on the us economy will see GDP growth in double figures by next year.