Forget the early reports that Utah wasn’t among the states supposedly seeking to secede from the union over the re-election of President Barack Obama. That ended Monday when someone who courageously calls himself or herself “A.L. in Ogden” started one.
People who supposedly represent several different states have started petitions on the White House web site asking to peacefully leave the union. The web site has a page on which people may start petitions that, if they reach a certain threshold of signatures, will get a response from the administration.
A lot of the secession petitions use verbiage that echoes the Declaration of Independence, asserting it is time to abolish the government and institute a new one.
The Texas petition talks about the current government’s “neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending," although that seems to be as much a Republican problem as a Democratic one. Frankly, the people haven’t helped much, either.
But never mind, for these folks, democracy apparently works only when the majority agrees with them.
The petitions don’t have any force of law, nor do they represent any sort of public consensus. Secession would, at minimum, take a vote of the state Legislature and support of the governor. History suggests the road from there would get pretty ugly and bloody, and that's going by what happened in the 1860s, before the Union Army got smart bombs.
But the Utah petition is especially telling. Among other things, it says, the people “believe that it is time to take matter upon ourselves…” It says we should “here buy govern ourselves…”
I’m not sure what kind of government these petitioners would establish, but it’s a safe bet English wouldn’t be the official language.
People who supposedly represent several different states have started petitions on the White House web site asking to peacefully leave the union. The web site has a page on which people may start petitions that, if they reach a certain threshold of signatures, will get a response from the administration.
A lot of the secession petitions use verbiage that echoes the Declaration of Independence, asserting it is time to abolish the government and institute a new one.
The Texas petition talks about the current government’s “neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending," although that seems to be as much a Republican problem as a Democratic one. Frankly, the people haven’t helped much, either.
But never mind, for these folks, democracy apparently works only when the majority agrees with them.
The petitions don’t have any force of law, nor do they represent any sort of public consensus. Secession would, at minimum, take a vote of the state Legislature and support of the governor. History suggests the road from there would get pretty ugly and bloody, and that's going by what happened in the 1860s, before the Union Army got smart bombs.
But the Utah petition is especially telling. Among other things, it says, the people “believe that it is time to take matter upon ourselves…” It says we should “here buy govern ourselves…”
I’m not sure what kind of government these petitioners would establish, but it’s a safe bet English wouldn’t be the official language.
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