Secession! The Tale of a Big, Fat American Fail

Following President Barak Obama’s reelection last Tuesday, residents of New York State have joined 19 other states in signing a petition calling for secession from the United States of America.

New York’s petition was started on November 11, 2012, on the White House website, “We The People.”

And as of November 13, 2012, more than 3,840 people have signed it, calling on the President of the United States to “Please allow New York State to secede from the United States of America and form it's own Government.”

Only 21,150 more signatures are needed to reach the goal of 25,000 by December 11, 2012. After that date, the petition will “require a response” from the Obama administration, according to published rules of the online “We the People” program.

However, the American democracy that elected this country’s president by a 3% margin in the popular vote and a 21% margin in the Electoral College – the 4th highest ratio since 1900– the same American democracy that right–wing Americans stood so boldly and loudly behind before this last election… suddenly has failed them.

New York petitioners join most of the Deep South in calling for secession, along with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Alaska, Montana, Missouri, Oregon and North Dakota.

If you ask me, it’s a tale of a big, fat American fail.

But who exactly has failed whom?

Is it our current president, Barack Obama, who, when he took office in 2009, inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit from Bush-era policies, but who, while saving the country from going into a deep depression, also added annual trillion-dollar deficits to the national debt, now at $16 trillion?

Or is it the wannabe secessors? The ones who embody the New Republican way of thinking (and being)-- those who comfortably foment contempt, mockery and disdain for poor people, immigrants, women’s body parts, the entire gay population, and most notably-- the president-- in the name of reducing the federal deficit and under the guise of "taking back America."

But how peculiar is it that, part and parcel of right-wingers' calls that the sky is falling and efforts to "save America" from total damnation, they have made Barack Obama the target of some of the worst rhetoric ever hurled openly at any president in modern history?

He has been called (by other politicians, no less -- and naturally, by extension, their constituents) "retarded," "lazy" and "stupid,” a “liar,” a “Socialist,” a “Nazi,” and a “Muslim terrorist.”

Just look at the flurry of racist tweets trending on Facebook following his reelection. Over the last four years, these vile insults and racial epithets have accelerated, becoming the accepted politi-speak, when referring to our current president and his term. 

Is this the America the right-wing party is fighting oh-so-hard to take us all back to? An America where this type of hatred and disrespect not only is embraced and accepted, but also taught to our children?

And now, this: calls for secession-- ironically, by some of the very states currently begging for FEMA money (the “big government" assistance they hate so much), in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Sure, there are always two sides to every story— especially in a two-party political system. And sure, the Republicans hold their fair share of arguments as to why this Democratic president should not have been elected. And sure, this country is founded on the principals of free of speech.

But the bottom line is, Barack Obama was elected by a majority of voters to a second term in office as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Now, is it not time to unite and move forward?

As miffed as Democrats were following Bush's reelection (and they were very miffed), they accepted the results, reunited with the rest of country and moved forward.

How very unfortunate that America -- a country whose greatness, influence and power today is derived from its cultural and racial diversity— seems to have forgotten the reasons we fought the American Civil War to begin with: "In order to form a more perfect union..."

What happened to United we stand; Divided we fall?

Are these calls for secession an American referendum?

And can it be that we, as Americans, are actually choosing to fall (fail)?

UPDATE: The petition asking the Obama administration to "peacefully grant" Texas secession has surpassed the 25,000 necessary signatures to elicit a response from the government.