I know how tough it is. I remember back in 2004, staring in disbelief at the TV as the man who was the worst President since Herbert Hoover got elected to another four years in office. I’ll never forget walking down the halls of my school and seeing a small cluster of students and teachers huddled in an empty classroom, watching John Kerry’s concession speech and weeping. I know that there are millions of conservatives all across this country who are still feeling hungover from the pain of watching the other guy win and I’m not being glib when I say I can commiserate with them. Well, most of them. There are a select few who have elevated ignorance to an art form and have reacted to the events of November 6^th by choosing to slough off whatever reason remained shackled to their minds, opting instead to recede into some mythic antebellum wonderland that exists only in the hearts of the truly delusional. These men and women are the armchair secessionists and they have garnered a fair bit of press attention recently by signing electronic petitions to The White House stating their desire to secede from the United States of America.

Thus far seven states have managed to obtain over 25,000 signatures for their secession petitions, with Texas leading the way at over 100,000 virtual signatures. I realize that may sound like a lot, but it needs to be put in context. There are over 125,000 online signatures for a Change.org petition to ban horse drawn carriages from New York City and half a million people have signed a petition calling for Macy’s to stop carrying Donald Trump’s products. In this day and age signing a petition means next to nothing and the armchair secession movement only contains the usual assortment of chemically imbalanced failures that you already see with the confederate flag on the back of their car. Honestly, I believe I speak for millions of Americans, liberal and conservative, when I say that I earnestly wish these bigoted blemishes on the ass of humanity would secede and start their own country. However, I have a few conditions for them.

There…Doesn’t that feel better?

1. No Stars and Bars: I realize that the majority of armchair secessionists dream of the time when the south will rise again and that’s perfectly fine with us, as long as they don’t recycle any symbols from the confederacy in their new state. When the allied forces gave Germany back to the Germans, they didn’t let them keep the swastika around for the sake of aesthetics. Unless you want Uncle Sam to unleash Sherman’s March 2.0 on your inbred asses, I suggest you try and figure out new flag to call your own. May I humbly suggest a crest featuring two sawed off shotguns and a roadkill deer?
2. Self-Deportation: Just because you live in a state and want to secede doesn’t mean that you get to take your state with you. The United States will give you Texas and that’s it. They’re practically their own country anyway so the transition should be seamless, making it easy for y’all to self deport down there. In your new nation you can create all of the racially profiling and discriminatory laws that you like, although they may not be necessary as any minorities who end up in your country probably just got lost trying to get to New Orleans. Oh, and we’re keeping Austin. It’ll be like West Berlin only with hipsters.
3. G.I. Joe Stays with Uncle Sam: In case you had forgotten, the Federal Government pays for all of our defense spending, which means that you don’t get to keep any of the military goodies you have right now. All you’re going to have for a standing army is a bunch of pissed off rednecks in Wrangler jeans and “don’t tread on me” t-shirts holding shotguns. We’re taking just about everything that has camouflage on it with us when you move in and you have to start from scratch. Did you think we’d let you have our tanks and fighter jets and nuclear weapons? Hell, you’re getting the Axis of Evil treatment when it comes to nukes. I don’t want to start World War III because President Rick Perry says Putin cheated at a game of Texas Holdem.
4. Tariffs: Naturally, given that you will have virtually no infrastructure in place along with vastly diminished resources and industry, you will have to import a lot of goods in order to maintain the way of life you’re accustomed to. America will gladly engage in open trade with your country, but we will be asking for a hefty tax on all goods that we export to you. All of the revenue from these tariffs will go into what will be known as the “Fonda Fund,” which will be responsible for the funding of a number of old liberal stalwarts like Planned Parenthood, stem cell research, welfare and contraception.
5. Semipermeable Borders: America will enact an open immigration policy to your newly seceded state and will allow any man, woman and child to cross the border and regain their US citizenship. However, there is a catch: you can only come back once. If you decide that you need expert medical care and want to go to the Mayo or Cleveland Clinics, then you have to stay. If you return to your backwater secessionist paradise, you have lost any claim to US citizenship and will have to go through the arduous immigration process that all foreign citizens do. The irony would be delicious.

Categories: US Politics

Tags: border policy, Change.org, petitions, President Obama re-election, Secession, Secession from US, secession petitions, tariffs, Texas, The Civil War