If they want to secede, let 'em

  

It's barely been a week since President Obama's re-election, and some people can't believe, truly can't believe, that things didn't go their way.

As of Wednesday morning, 37 states had posted petitions on the White House website to secede from the United States of America. (Some not-so-brilliant citizens of Georgia and South Carolina actually have two different secession postings each, but I'm counting those knuckleheads only once.)

I'm sorry to report that this not-so-illustrious group includes California, where nearly 7,000 citizens have signed a petition quoting the Declaration of Independence and insisting on the right to set up their own government.

This is clearly part of a movement to draft all the states, and Lord knows that there are certainly enough foolish people in each and every state in the union who would be willing to put their name on anything at all.

But seeing as this country did fight the most bloody war in its history over the secession of the chattel slavery-holding states, it's sad to see that those are the same states that currently boast the most popular secession petitions.

Louisiana (around 30,000 signatures). Florida (about 24,000). South Carolina (around 28,000). Alabama (nearing the 23,000 mark). And last but never least, Texas, which rates as the state most likely to secede at more than 80,000 signatures.

At first, I was sad. After hundreds of years, after the travesty of slavery and the heartbreak of war, after the outrage of an aborted Reconstruction and the treasonous decades of Jim Crow - have these states learned nothing at all?

Then I started thinking a little more strategically. Centuries of heavily enforced inequality in certain states have left them incapacitated for the modern economy. What do they contribute to the current union, anyway?

What would happen if we just decided to let them go? Imagine the possibilities. After a short phase-out period (so that the panicked citizens of New Orleans; Austin; and Washington, D.C., can join us), we let these ungrateful states go. And pull up the borders after us - the electric fence they're always so interested in having.

My prediction? Absolute chaos in the Southern states as they realize we're possessed of 85 percent of the country's venture capital and entrepreneurs and two-thirds of the country's tax revenue.

Meanwhile, nothing but happiness as the arugula-eating states lavish on projects like infrastructure and education those tax dollars we'd previously been sending to the red states.

But in case some of us feel so inclined, we could set up a visa system for the more industrious citizens of those states, because they'll certainly be interested in working in a more advanced economy.

Call it a "guest worker" program for our neighbors. Congress might even be willing to consider a generous immigration reform for them.

After several years of this experiment, my guess is that the Southern states will be begging to be let back into the Union.

The matter will have to be put up to a vote, of course. But should the rest of us be feeling so generous as to share the national bounty with our former citizens again, I bet that they'll be quiet about secession for a long time to come - no matter who's in charge of the White House.