Courtesy of Liberty Outpost, a “funny” little story showed up in my inbox this afternoon:

Freedom Outpost: White House Petitions for Secession

First there was a petition to “Peacefully grant the State of Louisiana to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.” The petition was created November 7 and already has 3,521 signatures [When the F.O. story was written; at 2300 hours CT on Saturday, as I write this, it had almost doubled to 7,000]. It needs 25,000 by December 7 of this year in order to garner a response from Barack Obama. [I am sure we can all imagine the response.]

The petition is clear and to the point:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government…”

… A petition was begun on Friday for Texas to peacefully withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government. [This petition now has more than 3,600 signatures in less than 36 hours.] The petition reads:

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. 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 it’s 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.

Texas does not really need a “new government” – at least not legally and technically (morally may be a different matter), since their State government could convert quite simply back to what I suppose would be the Third Republic of Texas (the Second being in place for that brief period between leaving the US in 1861 and joining the Confederacy – probably a big mistake on Texans’ part instead of just resuming their independent status).  But it might be best to make it truly a new government: most of the officials in Austin have compromised their integrity so badly that an independent Texan Republic would not want them to stay in power if at all possible.  And with a new government, it is always possible that a more libertarian (minarchist) form of government could be established, similar to the original republican government in 1836 and to the US under the Articles of Confederation.

One possible minarchist constitution has been around for close to two decades.  You can read it here: it has several interesting and thoughtful ideas for better local government and preserving liberty.

Now, do I think these petitions are going anywhere?  Hardly.  Indeed, anyone who signs on to these, even just giving e-mail, name (first and last) and zip code, may be signing their own death warrant.  Especially if more than 25,000 people sign: that is a pretty good indicator that some folks are serious about it.  And this administration has made it pretty clear that even someone who secedes by moving out of the country and trying to give up their United States citizenship is going to be harassed, persecuted, prosecuted and robbed blind.

The fact that 25,000 out of the millions of residents of Texas (not all of whom are Texans, and these petitions can be signed by people both inside and outside of the state) want to give up their enslavement to DC and are willing to put their name (or someone’s!) and address (or part of it) down, will cause the same sort of reaction a cop nowadays has when a ten-year-old won’t wash his car or when a deaf pedestrian fails to obey his screamed order or a farmer tries to sell raw milk to a friend.  The reaction ain’t pretty (unless you’re are a flatfoot trying to get a bit more attention to get that promotion and raise).

Several people (including F.O.) have compared the man currently living at 1600 PA to another Chicago lawyer and politician, name of Honest Abe (apparently sarcastically, because he couldn’t stay bought by his big railroad clients).  And we all recall what THAT bloodthirsty monster did when South Carolina and a few other states had it up to HERE with DC tyranny.  About 121 years ago, as I recall.  Remember that even those states that stayed loyal to Dear Leader and his tycoon and Red-Republican buddies in Congress got a raw deal: look at the casualty lists and you will see what I mean.

You could have 250,000 signatures, or 2.5 million, and the only difference would be that the reaction would be more terrifying and more bloody.

So if you must sign one of these, let me suggest your best approach might be to find the name and address (and get an e-mail account) for some distant and safely dead relative in Texas or Louisiana.  After all, if all those dead folks in Chicago and Philadelphia got to vote last week, why shouldn’t the dead in New Orleans or San Antonio get the same chance?

I’d dearly love to see EVERY state of our former Federal Union start up a petition on WhiteHouse.gov that starts out “When in the course of human events…”  Secession has a sweet smell to it: ask those people in 1776 and 1836 and people in places like Slovakia and Scotland and Catalonia.