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Silicon Valley Investors Call For California To Secede From the US After Trump Win (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: As Donald Trump's shock election victory reverberated around Silicon Valley late on Tuesday night, some high-profile technologists were already calling for California to secede from the United States. The broader west coast is a stronghold for the Democrats, and significantly more politically progressive and racially diverse than large swathes of central U.S. California is also the biggest economy in the U.S. and the sixth largest in the world with a gross state product of $2.496 trillion for 2015, according to the IMF. The campaign for independence -- variously dubbed Calexit, Califrexit and Caleavefornia -- has been regarded as a fringe movement. But support was revitalized by influential Uber investor and Hyperloop co-founder Shervin Pishevar, in a series of tweets announcing his plans to fund a "legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation" -- posted even before the full results were in. A few hours later, Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Trump, and Pishevar told CNBC that he was serious about Calexit. "It's the most patriotic thing I can do," he said, adding that the resulting nation would be called New California. "We can re-enter the union after California becomes a nation. As the sixth largest economy in the world, the economic engine of the nation and provider of a large percentage of the federal budget, California carries a lot of weight," he said. Pishevar was supported by others in Silicon Valley. Angel investor Jason Calacanis said that California succession would be simple in the wake of both Brexit and a Trump win. Evan Low, a Democrat serving in the California state assembly, said that he'd support the introduction of a bill to start the independence process. The proposal illustrates the technology industry's frustration with Trump over his repeated criticisms of Silicon Valley companies. Trump has said in the past that he would make Apple build computers in the U.S. He also thinks Amazon CEO "Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post to exert political power and avoid paying taxes, and claimed that Mark Zuckerberg's push for specialist immigration would actually decrease opportunities for American women and minorities." In July, 145 technology leaders wrote in an open letter about how "Trump would be a disaster for innovation."
" despite living off of incredible amounts of tax assistance and infrastructure."
= You have no idea of the math involved. SV has contributed many hundreds of times more than it has received in government assistance, unless you have your official GOP calculator handy with some actual facts. Compared to the GOP's pet coal/oil industry or almost anything else, SV has been wildly profitable per invested dollar. You're ridiculously uninformed, but that appears to be in fashion now, good for you!
Shervin Pishevar, born in Iran. You know going forward with this idea he is only helping to strengthen trump's supporters idea that we are being invaded by Asians, Latinos and middle-easterners that care nothing about our history or country??
Is this what people do now? One thing fails to go their way and they have a hissy fit and hold their breath until they turn blue like a 3-year-old? I don't expect much from leftists, but honestly, this is what they do.
I have sat through 11 presidential elections, including the elections of notable piles of shit Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and most worthless of all, Barack Obama, and yes, it was disgusting and sickening to me, too, but no one I knew had a meltdown over it.
A nation of fucking precious snowflake babies.
Correction: It is far NorCal and South Oregon's secession petition. There is a whole article on wikipedia on it and the Cascadia movement in general (NorCal to Southern British Columbia as a single cultural, political, economic bloc.)
Most of the problems worldwide are due to consolidation. The problem is people are talking about dividing under un-amicable circumstances which would cause problems for future defense pacts necessary to ensure the newfound economic blocs would not get steamrolled by outside parties (notably Russia/China at this time, but also Brazil, the EU, etc in the future.)
What really needs to happen is a constitutional congress in the us, a redrafting of the US constitution for the current world, as an a side effect of that, a renewal of incorporation for states that wish to, allowing states that thing they can go it alone the opportunity to gracefulyl bow out without the hassles of the current method of secession. Who knows, maybe with the stars freed on the flag the rest of the US could incorporate Puerto Rico and Guam as official U.S. states.
It'll last until Californians get tired of being stinky, unwashed thirsty hippies, or they evolve the power to drink brackish water. I give it a week.
You know it is up to each state to decide how to apportion their Electoral College votes. Only two states use proportional voting. The other 48 have "winner take all".
That's what doesn't seem fair, not the Electoral College system itself.
That said, there is a procedure to change the system, but it involves getting 38 states to agree to start the process...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I can't believe what gigantic babies they are. What, did they expect that for the rest of their natural lives, that they would win every single election, ever? Apparently so.
And now, that their side lost, instead of moving forward, they are bawling like infants and want to quit. We saw this with Brexit as well. Highly educated people, professionals, and they just pitched a shit-fit because they lost. I couldn't believe the rage that Ph.D's were capable of. But they sure can lecture everyone else about how we have to accept it when things go their way.
Democracy is awesome.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If you supported Trump kindly go fuck yourself, and I'll take the moderation results of this post. If not then I apologize to you, but not the man who decided to run a campaign based on sowing as much hatred as absolutely possible.
This is what happens when you run that kind of campaign.
We didn't protest when Barack Obama was elected. Twice.
Here's some observations about the protests:
You're being manipulated.
I'd like to see Nebraska cut the food off to California, and those other Western states cut off the water.
I'd like to see that, too. If we're not growing food for the whole nation, we'll need a whole lot less water. The majority of the produce eaten in the USA is produced in California. Our share of foods you eat ranges from about 50% to about 95%, if you put corn aside. Just corn mind you, not wheat or rice.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A handful of Silicon Valley elites = action by all progressives?
Good work! I would say that by applying incredibly broad generalities to a large group of people based on the actions of a handful you are definitely part of some sort of solution rather than part of the problem.
You? Part of the problem!? With mass generalities based on the actions of an incredible few like that, that would be absurd! Why would anyone mark you flamebait?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Sorry to burst your bubble but our right wing government headed by Turnbull isn't that much of an improvement on Trump, with lefties threatening to move to Trudeau-land.
I would have thought Chile would be natural choice for Californians - Spanish speaking, a long Pacific coastline, centre-left government with a woman president and even earthquakes. And no need to build a wall, there's a mountain range. (just kidding, Argentina!)
On the bright side with Trump in the White House nothing will be done to mitigate global warming. It's a long game, but I can assure you, moving to Canada help me to keep my sanity.
West Virginia separated from a confederate state. It's was definitely a bizarre situation since the Union didn't recognize the confederacy as a legitimate government. I suspect it was simply the pragmatic choice to take territory from a hostile state and a fuck you to Virginia. I hope someone more knowledgeable in civil war history can chime in with some more details. In my opinion, it's a different time and a vastly different situation, and I don't think our incoming government would be too eager to add more blue states to the Union!
And they're the same ones that were pushing Hilary so hard, instead of someone who might have won for the Democrats. The Republicans put up the least popular candidate that they've ever run (and one who did worse in terms of received votes than their last two candidates). All of the opinion polls during the primaries showed that any one of the Democratic candidates other than Hilary would have easily won. So the DNC, backed by a lot of Silicon Valley money picked the one candidate who only had a 50:50 chance. Well done guys: you are responsible for Trump winning, you don't get to run away from it.
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You mean the warring tribes that slaughtered and enslaved each other over resources?? That beautiful native American culture?? The ones whose properties are littered with trash and run-down homes among the few well-kept ones?? That one???
What bullshit. The American Indian is no more entitled to land they couldn't hold onto after migrating to North American than anyone else.
Or .. In the words of a failed president ... we won .. get over it.
That goes out to both the Indians and Hillary supporters.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Back in the 90s and early 00s I used to go back and forth from Rhode Island to Toronto every weekend or every other weekend (and off to Bobcaygeon).
I was envious of the prosperity across the border. American Exceptionalism became less exceptional.
>more stringent ecological rules and laws
>higher taxes
>universal healthcare (OHIP).
>whole corridor from Windsor to Oshawa more prosperous than anything with comparable population south of the border.
Somehow it seems that there's been a bunch of lyin' by certain politicians over the decades.
--
BMO
um, maybe you should read the article you linked to? He adopted Conservative ideals (fiscal responsibility, for one) to fix some of the problems.
The problem such as it is, is that those who call themselves conservatives these days do not practice fiscal responsibility. You are talking to a Goldwater conservative, who understands the difference between old school conservative principles and the state of the party now.
How ironic, when Jerry Brown is a better conservative than the people who call him a liberal.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Listen asshole, dissent is at the very heart of what it means to be an American, and 'dissent' doesn't just mean moving your lips to say "I disagree". This is DISSENT whether you think it's 'dramatic' or 'a tantrum' or not. Scoffing and ridiculing someone for an act of dissent makes me wonder more if you're actually an American citizen or not (foreign national agent, maybe? Astroturfing?) or if you understand even the basics of what this country is about. Know where there is no dissent, protesting, or criticizing of the government? Authoritarian dictatorships, and shitty countries like China, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Russia, to name a few.