Unhappy Americans Petition to Secede From the US

 

More than 100,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to allow their states to secede from the US, after President Obama's re-election.The appeals were filed on the White House's We the People website. Most of the 20 states with petitions voted for Republican Mitt Romney. Do we detect the flavor of sour grapes here ? And perhaps a very shortsighted view of color?

The US constitution contains no provisions for states to secede from the union. By Monday night the White House had not responded.

In total, more than 20 petitions have been filed. One for Texas has reached the 25,000-signature threshold at which the White House promises a response. The last time states officially seceded, the  Civil War followed.

Most of the petitions merely quote the opening line of America's Declaration of Independence from Britain, in which America's founders stated their right to "dissolve the political bands" and form a new nation. Currently, the most popular petition is from Texas, which voted for Mr Romney by some 15 percentage points more than it did for the Democratic incumbent. The text complains of "blatant abuses" of Americans' rights.  It cites the Transportation Security Administration, whose staff have been accused of intrusive screening at airports.

States with citizens filing include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice. Even stranger, several of the petitions come from states that supported President Barack Obama.
The petitions are short and to the point. For example, a petition from the Volunteer State reads: "Peacefully grant the State of Tennessee to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." Of all the petitions, Texas has the most signatures so far, with more than 23,000.
Of course, this is mostly a symbolic gesture. The odds of the American government granting any state permission to go its own way are on par with winning the lottery while getting hit by a meteor.

 One of those petitions which reached the response level, and has nothing to do with secession, asked for a recount of the 2012 presidential race. And another sought to legalize marijuana, which has proved the most popular petition topic on We the People.
Petitions are removed from We the People if they fail to reach the response threshold within one month. Dozens of petitions were posted to We the People after its September 2011 launch, but the rush of new petitions slowed soon after the first crop of responses,

The flood of secession petitions, which began the day after President Obama’s reelection, also prompted a backlash of petitions asking the government to “Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America” and to “Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them.”

Basically, it is all a tempest in a teapot brought about by sore losers who have found a venue to dump their sour grapes.
Remember, "United, we stand...Divided, we fall." So get over it.