“Does anyone really think Washington is going to give up a huge chunk of its power, resources and tax revenue?”
Not to worry. In this age of instant news and instant video, not just on TV but with internet and even cellphone video, the feds would NEVEE risk a bloody crackdown on secessionist states. It would be plastered all over the 6:30 news and the Internet. Such videos would not only shock the world, they’d be great recruitment tools for fighters from all over the United States to join in the struggle against DC. In the end, the breakup would be more like Czechoslovakia than Yugoslavia. And don’t forget, Bashar al-Assad thought he was holding all the high-tech cards against half-assed insurgents. How’s that working out for him? Not too well, it seems. Pretty soon he’ll be hanging from a lampost, just like Il Duce.
You are comparing the awesome might of the combined Armed Forces of the United States of America (excepting the USNG and various state militias) along with the force multiplier of every heavily armed agency from FEMA to the Department of Homeland Security and even the blasted EPA, to the Syrian (read MB/AQ) revolt against Bashar-al-Assad and his defense apparatus? I doubt our secession would progress far enough to get very bloody, especially when half the population would also turn against us.
And let me ask you this: Who will control the FCC and what people see on cable and the internet? There won’t be a news helicopter or drone anywhere, but those expressly commissioned to take live shots of the capitulation and the surrendering hordes. These crowds will be comprised of the sorriest representations of rednecked, bible thumpin’, gun nuts they can find and arrest (or hire from SAG) and get them on camera whilst rounding-up for the work camp shuttles; all this for the leftist American market and global crowd.
Obama has given himself directive powers to control everything, even our food supplies, in the event he perceives a threat to the union. There will not be any secessionists barreling down I-10 to come to the rescue of their thirsting brothers and sisters in nearby states, because Obie, with the exception of his own defense and supply convoys, will close down the highway system to all vehicles. No gas for non-emergency civilians. The friendly media will do props for him as they do now, and worse, they will filter reports of a secession through smokescreens featuring ever more sensationalistic stories, so that viewers —half of whom will cheer when Ma & Pa Kettle get frogmarched off to the hoosegow— won’t know or care what is really going on.
MSNBC reporter, “The smoke and flames you are seeing beyond this line of dunes is not what they appear to be. It is not a tanker explosion and Baby PooPoo, or Honey WeeWee, or whomever, was not in the cab. Late this afternoon, the DoD confirmed, it is the crash of an Unidentified Flying Object, and Justin Beeber was, I repeat, WAS, on board,” or some-such hoo-haw... another juicy sex story involving the Secretary of State, frankfurters, elevators, and the headlining midget act for Barnum and Bailey.
I wish it were not so. If there is a serious secession movement initiated by the respective governors, then we will prepare ourselves accordingly. What we have now with the WH initiative is not the real deal. When and if we have the real deal, we will be allowed to petition, but we will not be allowed to secede. Those of us who persist will, no doubt, spend our remaining years under marginal conditions and end them by being thrown down a refuse chute somewhere bleak and barren. But we will know we were tested and were not found wanting. We will all be able to look George Washington in the eye and hug Jesus, and we will win that way.