Two and a half years ago, John posted an article about efforts to split California into three for economic and cultural reasons. Now here’s another move, but with a different cut. Are there other parts of the country that would like to secede from their current state?
Here’s the ‘official’ website of the new ‘state’ of Jefferson.
A move to secede on California-Oregon border
Some folks around here think the economic sky is falling and state lawmakers in Sacramento and Salem are ignoring their constituents in the hinterlands.
Guess the time is ripe to create a whole new state.
That’s the thinking up here along the border between California and Oregon, where 12 sparsely populated, thickly forested counties in both states want to break away and generate the 51st star on the nation’s flag – the state of Jefferson.
[…]
“We have nothing in common with you people down south. Nothing,” said Randy Bashaw, manager of the Jefferson State Forest Products lumber mill in the Trinity County hamlet of Hayfork. “The sooner we’re done with all you people, the better.”Talking about secession has been a quasi-joking conversational saw since 1941, when five counties in the area started things by actually declaring themselves – briefly – to be the state of Jefferson. But now, with the economy in trouble and unemployment soaring, the idea of greater independence is getting its most serious consideration since World War II.
[…]
If they ran their own state, the reasoning goes, folks in Siskiyou, Modoc and the other potential Jefferson counties could whack the red tape from both federal and state officials and get rid of the sales tax.
Moodonna, the state cow sculpture of Jefferson
So the Jefferson’s are still trying to get their piece of the pi-i-ie!
I think this should be allowed, but they have to name it Terducken, to reflect on its roots.
Or if it really cheeses you off, Turducken.
This sounds very much like the occasional talk of Eastern Washington secession. Honestly, it makes since if only because the Puget sound region is liberal and the rest of the state is mostly conservative yet the liberal controls the state. Maybe instead of secession in these and other cases, we have more representational regional governments where resident votes on party lines like in Europe. Then the power split is more evenly distributed.
The problem is, at least in Washington, population is focused enough in the Puget sound region that direct on leadership and issues is swayed in liberal favor. I feel for those in states of opposing views but like the country at large right now, such is how the system works: and thus is one of its flaws. Drawing more state lines over this issue is just dumb. Guam, Porto Rico, and American Samoa will become states long before any current state is allowed to secede.
So Ecotopia has come at last. Ernest Callenbach wrote “Ecotopia” 30 years ago about basically the same area. Wonder if they’re digging out old copies for ideas.
Yah…wouldn’t I rather pay Jefferson state taxes than CA…I say, if Michigan’s UP can’t become their own state, than no state can!
This is a common idea in various parts of the country. To my mind, it doesn’t go far enough. I think we should carry the process to its logical extreme where every individual is his/her own state. Then we can all elect ourselves to congress, get government paychecks, health care and other perks. Solves a lot of problems.
I know that the Yoopers (UP of Michigan) get tired of the tax drain that starts in Lansing and ends in Detroit.
I reckon we should re-carve North America making British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Northern California one country, south California, Arizona, and Texas can re-join a new “North Mexico” with southern Mexico becoming its own nation, the Canadian Prairies and the American Mid-west can be their own country, then New England and Atlantic Canada could be yet another country, Quebec could have the independence it has always wanted, as can the Arctic and the American South. New York City can be its own city-state (with upstate New York joining New England). Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota and all them can be yet another country.
The whole continent could then join in a European Union style alliance to allow free trade etc.
I am under no delusion that’d it ever happen, but culturally I think it’d work well….
The Confederate States tried this and look where that got them. The people in charge don’t look kindly on slave rebellions.
Seceding from a state is not quite the same as seceding from the union. If I lived there, I wouldn’t want to be part of the wacky southern part of California either.
Makes a lot of sense to me, though I think the UP should be its own state as well.
I live in Greenville,SC and I have never felt a connection with what we call the “lower part of the state”. Culturally North Carolina and South Carolina and not divided correctly nor does the political lines match with the geographic lines that have an influence on the different cultures. It would make a lot more sense if the Carolinas were West and East Carolina instead of North and South. The “upstate” of South Carolina has a lot more in common with the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Charlotte Metrolina area than the Columbia (sandhills) and Charleston (low country/coastal). No offense to those living in the lower part of the state but I have always felt more at “home” in the upstate of South Carolina and the mountains of western North Carolina.
Even the local TV view market is Greenville, Spartanburg (SC cities) and Asheville (biggest city in western NC).
Basically, this plan has a snowball’s chance in hell…
Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1:
” New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
It would be more beneficial to the USA if California was just given back to Mexico. Let the Mexicans deal with the land of Fruits and Nuts and out of control liberals.
I can see why california should be split up (just looking at its population densities, it has the density to support 2 or 3 states pretty easy. But Oregon? Not so much.
I kind of know how many Californians feel, here in Virginia, we often get ruled by northern Virginia area (basically Washington DC), which if very liberal, in a state that tends to be conservative.
To be honest though, the solution is not to start splitting states along political lines, but to have as much power as possible on the local level. I know some things have to be done on the state, or even Federal level, but those should be as few as can be, and the localities should have much more power than they do now.
Does this mean we’ll finalize the dream of millions in this country of an West Idaho, East-North Dakota, and a South Jersey?
That alone would kill any notion of that. A northern secession of California would almost certainly be more right then left and a democratically controlled Congress would not want 2 more Republican Senators in congress.
Wow, Montanaguy, you sure have vivid fantasies. I don’t see how you are going to grow the Red States of America’s economy when all you have to work with are Bible thumping knuckle draggers. All the people with the knowledge to run industry will be in the Blue States.
A better idea………Alaska should secede from the Union.
I rest my case
” All the people with the knowledge to run industry will be in the Blue States.”
Only for about as long as it takes to pack the moving van.
@Montanaguy
I think you underestimate people with IQs higher than yours.
#23
So, you have nothing substantial to say…that’s okay, you’re a liberal…we have a very low bar for allowing you to participate.
“Are there other parts of the country that would like the secede from their current state?”
The western half of Massachusetts has batted around the idea of seceding from the rest of the state for over 50 years. Everyone near Boston assumes that there’s nothing useful west of I-495, but our tax dollars come in pretty handy to help them pay for their Big Dig.
I lived in Hornbrook, CA for 6 months and now in Medford, OR and the only people that want this seems to be the CA side. It seemed like everyone in N.CA wants to be separate from S.CA but nobody in OR wants anything to do with anything about CA. It has been going on so long around here that it is now just a joke and past time for the “Village Idiot”.
@Montanaguy
Aren’t you clever. You think that since I disagree with you and make fun of you that I am a liberal. It just so happens that I am a libertarian and I was a nominal Republican until the Chimperor and Darth Cheney started anally raping my country. Real patriots support the Bill of Rights and don’t cave into fear mongering and nationalism.
Improbus–nice shot. Montanaguy is clueless about the number of rednecks and other mouth breathers in those red states. Most Demos are not screaming liberals, and most Repubs are not fanatical right wingers; they’re moderates and supporters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
NY state west of the Hudson would prefer to be separate from metro NYC (except when Wall St. is raking it in and we get a slice of that pie – ah, the good old days).
#27
If you’re really a libertarian, you’d love the idea of all of the blue states starving from their own excess government largesse. Ayn Rand would’ve told them to F*** off. Besides, the “knuckle draggers” have all of the Air Force bases and missiles…..put that in your crack pipe and smoke it, Mr. pseudo-libertarian. In my tongue-in-cheek world, we would write one more clause into the constitution, also:
This document is meant to be read ‘as is’ regarding original meaning and not re-interpreted on the basis of popular whim, sentiment or ideological ‘soup du jour’.
Montanaguy likely lives in a bunker with a generator and no running water. His disdain for those with different political views is hilarious. He probably thinks the south should secede and bring back slavery as well.
As far as this story goes, because there are people in the state they don’t have in common, these people should get their own state?
Give me a break. Diversity is what makes this country so great…these clowns would rather hide in their holes and shut out the outside world than embrace the diversity.