Secession!?

It’s getting harder and harder to visualize America’s future. We are so divided by politics, so annoyed with each other, that the word secession has started to pop up in the national conversation. One day I read where some county in Colorado wants to secede, the next day it’s some town in Maine. Maybe it would be for the best. It has gotten me to thinking about the possibilities…

1.     New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania and Maryland all form a new country and call themselves The Utopian Republic. They elect Michael Bloomberg as their first President. They immediately install a single payer universal health insurance system, and declare college education will henceforth be free. The minimum wage is unilaterally raised to $23.50 an hour, every citizen is issued free condoms, food stamps, and a new house. 20 oz. soft drinks are outlawed, and corporate profits are criminalized. To pay for all of this, the Utopian Republic becomes the first modern nation state to outlaw the military, saving billions.

2.     Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee get together and form a new country, calling themselves The SEC. Paula Deen is elected by acclamation as their first President, and immediately declares butter to be the official national condiment, making the use of margarine punishable by the death penalty. Rudeness is declared to be a felony. Military academies are established in every county in the new Republic, and every SEC boy is required to attend. Each and every meeting of the National Congress begins with a covered dish supper, and ends with mint juleps under the Spanish moss trees in the courtyard. A tongue awfully similar to English is declared to be the official national language. Charleston, South Carolina is declared to be the capital city of the SEC.

3.     Texas makes itself its own country, and warns everyone in the world to not mess with it.

4.     Mexico annexes New Mexico and Arizona. It thinks about throwing California into the deal but decides that it has enough financial problems without getting stuck with that train wreck.

5.     California, thus scorned by Mexico, decides to just go for it. They elect Sean Penn as Generalisimo, and declare themselves to be the People’s Republic of Free Lovia. Negotiations between the nascent nation and Cuba begin in earnest, as Penn sends Alec Baldwin to Havana to work out the details.

6.     Oregon and Washington State combine to form the progressive new country of Caffenia, where each and every citizen is issued an umbrella and a $1000 gift card to Starbucks.

7.     Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota become a colony of Canada, and declare rust as the official Colonial color.

8.     The entire upper and mid west from Montana down to Arkansas form the largest of the fledgling countries and call themselves the Flyover Republic. Of all the new breakaway states, the Flyover Republic is destined for greatness by virtue of the fact that it’s the only place in North America where anyone knows how to farm anything. They immediately become an insanely rich country by exporting grain and beef to its very hungry neighbors.

9.     West Virginia becomes the only former state not to become its own country, waking up one day to discover that it was no longer receiving huge federal subsidies and wondering what the hell happened.

10.  The people in the District of Columbia finally get their wish, finally able to cast a meaningful vote, which they do by declaring themselves a Protectorate of Venezuela.