Sessions to California: Federal Law is Supreme, We Will Kill You

[BjornP]

My general reasoning is simply that 'a nation would never voluntarily split off a section of itself and lose power, without violence'.

Slovakia is an interesting case, but you have to consider that they were already re-shuffled, separated, and combined 3 times in the 20th century, and that there is a distinct ethnic difference between the Czechs and Slovaks.

I don't think that there's any such argument concerning California, of course, and the US is much more a 'coherent' nation than Czechoslovakia ever was. Not only that, but being a superpower confers its own strategic and economic concerns. We can't simply hang a minor nation-state off one coast, and wait for someone else to take it.

Any serious movement at secession would lead to a federal smack-down with extreme prejudice. The only thing to hold them back would be the major media center there, and making sad faces on all of our actors/actresses. Those people have a LOT of power over public opinion. They'll also never support an actual armed uprising, so who knows how weird our tv could get.

Your reasoning assumes that any splitting off of territory will lead to loss of national power, or is assumed so by all national leaders of the world. That's not a given. You're assuming that if California becomes its own, independent state, someone else will "take it"? This assumes that this new state can't make alliances, or that its neighbours will want to conquer their territory. If the US accepted California's seccesion, California would nearly instantly be accepted as a new, sovereign UN-recognized country. There'd be economic, possibly military, consequences, against whomever decided to attack the new country. Generally, wars of conquest are less likely (but granted, not impossible if you're a powerful enough country) to occur in the 21st century.

[SuburbanFarmer]

My general reasoning is simply that 'a nation would never voluntarily split off a section of itself and lose power, without violence'.

Slovakia is an interesting case, but you have to consider that they were already re-shuffled, separated, and combined 3 times in the 20th century, and that there is a distinct ethnic difference between the Czechs and Slovaks.

I don't think that there's any such argument concerning California, of course, and the US is much more a 'coherent' nation than Czechoslovakia ever was. Not only that, but being a superpower confers its own strategic and economic concerns. We can't simply hang a minor nation-state off one coast, and wait for someone else to take it.

Any serious movement at secession would lead to a federal smack-down with extreme prejudice. The only thing to hold them back would be the major media center there, and making sad faces on all of our actors/actresses. Those people have a LOT of power over public opinion. They'll also never support an actual armed uprising, so who knows how weird our tv could get.

Your reasoning assumes that any splitting off of territory will lead to loss of national power, or is assumed so by all national leaders of the world. That's not a given. You're assuming that if California becomes its own, independent state, someone else will "take it"? This assumes that this new state can't make alliances, or that its neighbours will want to conquer their territory. If the US accepted California's seccesion, California would nearly instantly be accepted as a new, sovereign UN-recognized country. There'd be economic, possibly military, consequences, against whomever decided to attack the new country. Generally, wars of conquest are less likely (but granted, not impossible if you're a powerful enough country) to occur in the 21st century.

I don’t think anyone would risk an overt invasion. More like a slow annexation process.

Regardless, it will never happen. We would lose most of our propaganda machine, and logistical support for Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Korea, and more. The domestic economic impact would be staggering. Not an option.