3 ms·

What are they going to do? Occupy the entire coast with federal armed forces? Sure, they could do that, but it's hard to take any sort of moral high ground or

What are they going to do? Occupy the entire coast with federal armed forces? Sure, they could do that, but it's hard to take any sort of moral high ground or project strength on the world stage when you are forced to militarily occupy your own country against its will. That said, I doubt any states are realistically going to secede, but at least Texas won't be the only ones constantly going on about it now.

M_Grey 10y ago
...Moral high ground? We've been manufacturing that since Vietnam, and people still haven't caught on well enough to stop it happening again. The economic devastation brought about through secession would be the casus belli anyway.
pluma 10y ago
I don't know. Americans were fine claiming the "high ground" the last time a bunch of states and territories tried to secede and forced back into the union with military force. The thing people forget when talking about secession is that unless the constitution was explicitly written to make affordances for future secessions, every attempt at secession is illegal and can be considered an act of civil war. Aside from "voting irregularities" one of the major talking points when the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine and be annexed into Russia was that there was no legal basis for them to do this, even if the elections had been undisputed.
- justin66 10y ago
  > I don't know. Americans were fine claiming the "high ground" the last time a bunch of states and territories tried to secede and forced back into the union with military force. Slavery.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Yes, and look how thoroughly the North acted to secure the rights of former slaves!
  - pluma 10y ago
    Americans also like to make every historic victory sound like the entire conflict was about moral ideals and they were the flawless defenders of the Right Thing. Interestingly the way people outside the US are taught about the American Civil War is far more nuanced: state rights, economical reasons, sovereignty, etc. But I guess "the North declared war on the seceding South because the South was literally worse than Hitler" is a valid interpretation too. Teach the controversy, right?

M_Grey 10y ago

...Moral high ground? We've been manufacturing that since Vietnam, and people still haven't caught on well enough to stop it happening again. The economic devastation brought about through secession would be the casus belli anyway.

pluma 10y ago

I don't know. Americans were fine claiming the "high ground" the last time a bunch of states and territories tried to secede and forced back into the union with military force. The thing people forget when talking about secession is that unless the constitution was explicitly written to make affordances for future secessions, every attempt at secession is illegal and can be considered an act of civil war. Aside from "voting irregularities" one of the major talking points when the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine and be annexed into Russia was that there was no legal basis for them to do this, even if the elections had been undisputed.

justin66 10y ago
> I don't know. Americans were fine claiming the "high ground" the last time a bunch of states and territories tried to secede and forced back into the union with military force. Slavery.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Yes, and look how thoroughly the North acted to secure the rights of former slaves!
- pluma 10y ago
  Americans also like to make every historic victory sound like the entire conflict was about moral ideals and they were the flawless defenders of the Right Thing. Interestingly the way people outside the US are taught about the American Civil War is far more nuanced: state rights, economical reasons, sovereignty, etc. But I guess "the North declared war on the seceding South because the South was literally worse than Hitler" is a valid interpretation too. Teach the controversy, right?