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Attention Conservatives: Canada has a Home for You

Since the election, the White Houseu2019s website has been inundated with petitions to grant peaceful secession to more than 20 states u2013 mostly from people in the South.

So, it appears there are tens of thousands of Americans across the nation who want their states to withdraw from the Union, a process called secession. Apparently because that whole secession thing went so well last time it was tried back during the Lincoln administration.
Since the election, the White House’s website has been inundated with petitions to grant peaceful secession to more than 20 states – mostly from people in the South, but also from right-wing wackadoodles in blue states like New York, New Jersey, and Michigan.
As one petition from Texas, which has received more than 70,000 signatures, reads:

Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect its citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government…”

An official with the Republican Party in Texas has also endorsed the idea. Peter Morrison, the treasurer of the Hardin Country Republican Party, called for secession in his post-election newsletter writing, “Texas was once its own country, and many Texans already think in nationalist terms about their state…Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace, sign a free trade agreement among the states, and we can avoid this gut-wrenching spectacle every four years.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry is no stranger to Texas secessionist talk either. Back in 2009 he infamously said that, “Texas is a unique place” that was given special privileges when it was admitted as a state back in 1845 to be able to leave the union whenever it feels like it. I guess he found that little historical tidbit in one of those school text books recently re-written by the reactionary Texas School Board.
Cleary, four years of President Obama has been too much for some of the loopier Conservatives across America to endure. They yearn for those good ol’ days when private health insurance companies could deny them life-saving care due to pre-existing conditions. Or when women were guaranteed to make a smaller paycheck than men for doing the same work. Or an America where gays and lesbians were regarded as second-class citizens.
But secession is such a drastic move.

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Sure, the nation might be better off without a dozen or so red states standing in the way of things like single-payer health care, carbon caps, and employee-run unions. Sure, it might be best in the long-run if the Ron and Rand Paul crazies are let loose to once and for all try to create their own Libertarian paradise, complete with daily pledges to the flag of Ayn Rand, just so they can see for themselves why this sort of society has failed everywhere it’s ever been tried, anytime in the history of the world. Sure, secession – if done peacefully – wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for the rest of us here in America.
But I can’t help but worry for those hapless progressives in cities like Austin and Athens who are surrounded by those rabid right-wing secessionists. Or even the good Democrats who live in rural hard-red areas and are hanging on for friends and family. Seriously, there are no red states or blue states. We’re all purple states with both conservatives, progressives, and everything in between – some states just have more of one or the other than other states. And we can’t condemn red-state progressives to the Libertarian dystopia that the secessionists want to create. It’s inhumane.
So then what’s to be done?
Luckily for all of us, our progressive neighbor to the north, Canada, has a solution. A number of reports surfaced post-election that Canada is offering up a deal to Conservatives in America who just can’t handle an America governed by Barack Obama. So far these reports have yet to go beyond internet rumor and have not been confirmed by the Canadian government, but given that actual facts bear little significance in their worldview, there’s some buzz that some Conservatives are already looking into this refuge offer as an alternative to secession and another Civil War.
According to this so-called deal for disgruntled Americans, Canada is opening up its northern-most province of Nunavut to anyone from the states who just can’t stomach another four years of President Obama’s ruthless, tyrannical, moderate rule. Each immigrant will receive 40 acres of land conveniently located near open water. And Canada is also generously offering a used snowmobile and a sled to any newcomers as well.
There’s no doubt that life in Nunavut, fending for yourself without any help from the Nanny State, will take some getting used to, especially for those Southerners who hail from states that receive far more government benefits than they pay in tax revenue. Not to mention, the weather is a bit different in Nunavut than it is in Florida.
But the weather woes shouldn’t last too long. Global warming could soon turn it into a climate like today’s New York – and it may only take a generation or three.
And hopefully a deal can be worked out between the new oligarchs of Nunavut and the Canadian government to absolutely make sure that the horrors of single-payer healthcare, which all Canadians have access to, never cross the border into that new Libertarian refuge in the Arctic.
I think this is the best solution for all. The Conservatives get their freedom from President Obama, while progressives still here in the United States find an electorate much more receptive to their ideas.
And thanks to one local Fox News station in Oklahoma, soon-to-be secessionists now know the easiest way to make it Canada without getting stuck in traffic. Let’s wish them well.
We’re not going to stand for it. Are you?

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