15 States including Texas have filed a petition to secede from the United States

[Avril]

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/secede.asp

[snopes]

The petition website, called We the People, is not very useful as a guide to what Americans really care about. But it is useful as a guide to how people think of what the government can do, down to the specific words the authors use in the petitions.

Secession always seemed to me to be something that, by definition, you did without asking permission. (Mutual breakups are as rare in history as they are in love.) But for all the rampant anti-government sentiment in America, many people still believe the president is an omnipotent force who can pass laws on a dime, ban unsavory behavior, manipulate foreign countries with precision, expel citizens at will and otherwise bend the world to his fancy.

http://news.yahoo.com/interactive-wh...235012490.html

[Lainie]

But for all the rampant anti-government sentiment in America, many people still believe the president is an omnipotent force who can pass laws on a dime, ban unsavory behavior, manipulate foreign countries with precision, expel citizens at will and otherwise bend the world to his fancy.

I suppose that may be why some of them are anti-government.

But the author forgot about the dial in the Oval Office that sets gas prices.

[Dropbear]

I find it interesting that 779 people think that genetically engineering cat-girls will produce willing domestic servants.

Leaving aside the ethical issues, have these people never had a cat?

Dropbear

[JoeBentley]

But for all the rampant anti-government sentiment in America, many people still believe the president is an omnipotent force who can pass laws on a dime, ban unsavory behavior, manipulate foreign countries with precision, expel citizens at will and otherwise bend the world to his fancy.

I've hit on this in a few other threads here and there, but yeah it really does bother me how many of the Presidents fans and critics seem to have a very inflated concept of the power the POTUS has.

The President is head of the Executive Branch. At most he has the power to make small to moderate changes in how we do things, while Congress, the Legislative Branch, really is the one with the power to make large changes and/or change what we're doing.

And regardless our government as a whole really is just not set up to really make immediate, broad, sweeping changes, and for good reason. There's a reason we generally go decades between Constitutional Amendments for instance.

And the big thing that always seems to be the biggest argument we keep coming back to, the economy, really no one in the government has any real codified direct authority over. Pretty much all government influence on the economy comes under the much more murky concept of "influence" for the most part. I'm amazed at how many people seem to think the President can literally just go "Make X many jobs by this date."

TL;DR... he's the President, not Harbinger. He can't "assume direct control."

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

Leaving aside the ethical issues, have these people never had a cat?

Dropbear

I'm doubtful that they have experience with either cats or girls.

[Dropbear]

True - but they've seen them on the internet - a lot.

Dropbear

[Auburn Red]

If they are that clueless, I would tell them to go ahead and secede see how long it lasts.

[Mad Jay]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

I find it interesting that 779 people think that genetically engineering cat-girls will produce willing domestic servants.

Leaving aside the ethical issues, have these people never had a cat?

Dropbear

As oppossed to dog-boys who are just going to slobber over your sofa

[Dropbear]

But they'd always be happy to do whatever you wanted to:

[dog-boy voice] Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy - I get to watch you play Call of Duty again![/dog-boy voice]

Dropbear

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

But they'd always be happy to do whatever you wanted to:

[dog-boy voice] Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy - I get to watch you play Call of Duty again![/dog-boy voice]

Dropbear

Dog People would become annoying pretty quickly and Cat People would be totally useless, as per this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbycvPwr1Wg

[Esprise Me]

Originally Posted by Auburn Red

If they are that clueless, I would tell them to go ahead and secede see how long it lasts.

My dad thinks this is how we should have handled the secession of the South. Instead of starting a war, just let them go and wait for them to come crawling back.

[Lainie]

I suspect the US would have ended up fighting the seceded states in the west. Part of the conflict was over the westward expansion of slavery.

And they probably would have wanted to crawl back with slavery intact. Southern leaders were intransigent on that issue.

ETA: To say nothing of the human cost of slavery continuing for who knows how many years longer.

[GenYus234]

Originally Posted by Gutter Monkey

Dog People would become annoying pretty quickly and Cat People would be totally useless, as per this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbycvPwr1Wg

OMG, the cat-friend parts were so funny I had to stop watching so I could breathe again.

[Alarm]

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

I'm doubtful that they have experience with either cats or girls.

Originally Posted by Dropbear

True - but they've seen them on the internet - a lot.

Dropbear

Come on, everyone knows there are no girls on the internet!

Rule 30!

[JoeBentley]

Even ignoring the moral and legal problems, the idea that a philosophical difference could lead to secession right now runs into a much more pragmatic problem.

The Southern States Secession of 1861 was set up along geographical lines. Slavery was much more economically advantageous, and therefore more popular, in the largely agrarian South while the more industrial North had less use for it directly. Simply drawing a line between the North and South, while crude and imperfect, did sorta work for.

But for all the talk of "Blue States and Red States" our current ideological difference are split more between urban and rural lines. We can't rightly have all the big cities be one country and all the small towns and rural areas be another.

[hambubba]

One of my work compadres thinks that the US is going to war - with itself. I asked, do we go house by house depending on who voted for whom, or what? He thinks we need to "head for the hills" to live. You're right, it won't be a "north vs. south" issue. And it really won't be happening.

Joe, I agree with your statement that the President can pass no laws - however, he has a major influence on congress, which can and does implement his ideas and policies.

[GenYus234]

He can have a major influence on Congress. He doesn't always.

[snopes]

It is a period of civil war. Rebel pranksters, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the forces of Taking White House Petitions Too Seriously. Specifically: They have secured the 25,000 signatures necessary to get a formal response from the White House to their call for America to build a DEATH STAR.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/b...-politics.html

[Photo Bob]

Kind of puts the whole petitions of secession into perspective, eh?