This is a bit silly, but I thought I’d comment on it anyway. California is mad. Why? because the rest of the country is not like them. Without California (and really a few counties in California) Hillary Clinton does not win the popular vote. And while we know that this doesn’t actually matter with respect to the Electoral College, it matters to some people.
As an aside, I saw some headline today of some article that said something along the lines of how the rest of the country is being held hostage by flyover country. This couldn’t be a more asinine view of things. When there are 3,141 total counties in the U.S. and one candidate wins 3,084 of them, it is not the people in the 3,084 counties that are holding the other 57 counties hostage. That defies all logic. No, if the Electoral College were discarded altogether, it would be a few large counties holding the rest of the country hostage. And this is why the Electoral College makes sense.
Anyway, back to the wonderful folks in California. There is a movement afoot to secede from the Union. Now, this is probably never going to happen, because it’s not like a state can just decide on its own to pick up and leave. Once part of the Union, you’re part of the Union. To dissolve that, the state needs to initiate it, then the people of that state need to agree it’s a good idea, and then they can only leave if Congress grants them permission to do so and then the states ratify it.
None of that will happen, but as a non-Californian, I’m openly going to question whether or not we should stand in their way. California claims to pay more into revenues than it receives. That may or may not be true, and there’d be a mess trying to figure out how to transfer any future payment obligations to citizens in a seceded state. My guess is we could get that all figured out, if not simply, at least in a manageable way that may span over a couple decades.
Personally, I’m not the least bit convinced that this would be a net loss in the fiscal sense. Even if the math points in that direction today, I think in the future California will be a larger and larger drain. They openly encourage a welfare state, sanctuary for illegal immigrants, etc. Imagine what they’d do as their own country. You want to see a grand socialist experiment? I say, let ’em give it a shot.
For the rest of us, I think we would agree that the values of the West Coast are simply not aligned with the majority of the rest of the country. So, take Oregon and Washington with you. In terms of the future of politics, that is 73 Electoral votes for all three states (55 for California alone) that are for the foreseeable future going to go blue. So, for those of us who want a more conservative bent, this only helps. Further, I suspect there may be some self-selection happen between the Socialist Republic of the American West Coast and the rest of the country as well. Some liberals in otherwise “purple” states may flock there to bask in the joy of their utopian dream, while the few remaining conservatives will emigrate to Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, helping those states turn or stay red.
It’s all a pipe dream, I know. Pointless musing. I know I am not supposed to root for this kind of secession or division, but then again I don’t really want them influencing my life either. So, see ya.
Catholic Diatribes 