Who cares. Good Riddance.

This may be the most fail article ever written on Salon. Seriously.

0/10 (SEE ME!)

Agree with your insightful analysis :-)

It sure would be funny watching them try.

I say let all states fly off into the nether beyond. Who actually cares if there is a recognizable functioning political entity called the US?

as he wrote in Travels with Charley: time to form a new PAC- Friends of Texas Secession.

It must be fun to espouse the most extreme positions while all the while knowing (but never admitting aloud) that there is no chance whatever of seeing them become a concrete reality. It certainly makes for lively conversation at parties and tends to confound all of us who recognize that the real world neither conspires against us or conceals a secret plan that will give us all we ever dreamed of having.

The trouble comes when some social crisis gives some wild dreamer a chance to bring his fantasies to life. The refractory nature of reality is an annoying obstacle, and thus is born the world of "1984", in which, as the notorious anonymous Bush apparatchik said, the powerful create their own reality.

How to react to such drivel is a bit puzzling. In rational terms they should be ignored (except as in this article for a few laughs), but given the fact that fear-mongering and appeals to raw emotion will be ever effective, that might be a mistake. It has happened elsewhere, and it could happen here.

In reference to the "War on Drugs", it's more than a little annoying to see self-proclaimed Libertarians claiming credit for "discovering" how futile it has been. Many people, acquainted with the history of Prohibition, were aware of the ridiculously counter-productivity of that "war", long before and completely independent of any connection to crackpot Libertarianism even in its saner forms (if there be any such).

A couple of folks have noted that the Waterworld Galtians would need to move outside of US waters to truly claim some sort of independence. But it would have to be much more than 12 miles. US waters extend 200 miles out to sea, and have so for a number of years, so they'd have to be at least that far out.

Good luck with that.

This is one of the best pieces I've read in Salon in years. Bravo Michael Lind!

Clearly, Friedman is insane. But he never did say they wished to place this Utopian la-la-land in San Francisco bay. Didn't anyone look at the website? Demonstration projects--proofs of concepts--would be launched in the bay. They state fairly unambiguously that the actual Libertarian community of tomorrow is to be located in international waters. Fairly sloppy, Mr. Lind.

But not one near a big city like San Francisco where they can freeload off the country they claim to despise. Let's talk to Sarah Palin and find one (two if we're feeling really generous) uninhabited islands in the Aleutian chain we can give to them. Undeveloped, natch, but hey they can do whatever they want, and build the Atlas Shrugged meets Handmaid's Tale kingdom of their fevered fantasies.

"To:

The Right Honorable Rick Perry

Governor of the Great State of Texas

In re: Secession

I've heard a report indicating that you believe that succession is a possibility for Texas, because of your concerns about the federal government's bailout of banks. I can certainly understand the anger.

I write to urge you; please have Texas secede. Like all the other states in the south, Texas takes in more money from the federal government, than they pay. Therefore, as a Californian, I am paying part of my tax dollars to subsidize your constituents.

Furthermore, if the Great State of Texas were to secede, what remains of the country could rest assured that the disaster of another Texan as President would have been permanently averted.

Now, I know that the chances of sessesion are small. But as a San Francisco Bay Area resident, I like to keep my thoughts positive.

God bless you. God bless the United States of America; all 49 states of it.

Cordially,

maggie

( http://fauxwhore.blogspot.com )

Let Libertarians put anything within 100 miles of an ocean. Can anyone imagine the resultant pollution?

"I look forward to a manful republic of manly men, doing manly things together in a manful fashion, with other men!"

-- gzuckier

Doesn't San Francisco already have a community of guys doing this stuff?

>>> It's only now that they have lost a couple of elections that they are pretending to discover that the government recently run by George the Second was a tyranny worthy of George the Third." <<<

If by "George the Second" you mean of the Bush Dynasty then I'd concur. If you mean of all the PotUSes then he'd be George the Third. So describing his as "a tyranny worthy of George the Third" would be quite apt in any case.

Oh, pretty please Texas, do secede and leave all us horrible liberals in peace. And for G*Ds sake, please take Oklahoma with you.

Really, I expected him to weigh in by now... could be, of course, that he's busy planning the next meeting of his local L5 Society.

And no one talked about secession for Blue States when President Bush was elected?

Come on, this kind of talk happens all the time.

If there ever came a time when there really was another Civil War, it would be incredibly nasty and the people wouldn't be able to let it go on as long as the Civil War lasted. The American people just don't have the stomach for it anymore.

Thank you for your comments. Yes, ANYONE with even a few US History courses from college could see that the WOD was just another lame morality play with no real footing, especially after Prohibition. The Libs didn't "discover" anything there.

On another front, isn't going to sea and founding his own nation what Mr. Scientology did? How'd that turn out, I wonder? Ooops, there were girls on board, I think. Guess that's what ruined it for the players.

What a bunch of wankers. Seriously.

(Oh, and this just proves that making a lot of money a la Paypal founder DOES NOT provide you with intellectual depth. But we already knew that.)

John762 queried: "[W]hat happens when the next day Mexico shows up and says they want the northern part of their country back[?]"

Without the Homeland Security monies to hold the drug war down to a low roar, it won't so much be the Mexican government saying anything. It'll be the multinational black marketeers who will be focused on maintaining their supply lines through Texas.

I like the article because it exposes the difference in the volume of fringe groups and their efficacy in terms of numbers, from polls or at the polls.

I like John762's question because it points at how much states have come to rely on a central government for protection and money. I wonder whether any pols have held the same stance as Perry and called taxes "protection money"?

The wet dream of every citizen organization, whether grass-rooted or astroturfed, has got to be recognition by a politician. It doesn't seem to matter whether any action is taken. In fact, having all of its requests fulfilled would negate the existence of a citizen organization whose charter is to right certain wrongs.