Shut up and quit whining….

Apparently, Georges Santayana was correct when he wrote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Thousands of whiny morons, unhappy that more than 50% of Americans voted to re-elect Barack Obama as president, are now filing secession petitions. Like a bunch of whiny children who didn’t get their way, these imbeciles are now threatening to take their toys and go home. WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

From today’s edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Disgruntled voters petition White House for their states to secede from the Union
Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 6:16 AM

The petitions on the White House website won’t be granted. They’re the aftereffects of a heated presidential election season, folks simply blowing off steam, historians and scholars say.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans unhappy with the result of last week’s voting have signed petitions on behalf of at least 35 states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

What do they want?

For the Obama administration to “peacefully grant” the states permission to “withdraw from the United States of America” and create new governments.

Secession.

“We did fight a Civil War over this issue,” said Perry Dane, a professor at the Rutgers School of Law in Camden who clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court. “The White House will respond and will say as considerately as it can that secession is off the table.

“You win some, you lose some,” he said.

The petitions, located on the White House’s “We the People” website (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov), are “very likely an expression of alienation and frustration,” said Randall Miller, a professor of history at St. Joseph’s University. “People question the legitimacy of the election and it’s their way of saying, ‘I’m taking myself out of this.’ ”

By late Tuesday, a total of more than 13,000 people had signed two petitions seeking nation status for Pennsylvania, where Obama defeated Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by a 52-47 percentage ratio. For the more Democratic-leaning New Jersey, nearly 11,000 had signed a similar petition. At least 5,400 others had signed one for Delaware, where Obama also was the victor. The number of signatures had doubled, even tripled, since the beginning of the week.

Texas and Louisiana – where Romney won – had about 82,000 and 30,000 signatures, respectively. Petitions that attract 25,000 signatures in 30 days will receive a “response” from the White House, the website says.

On the flip side, there are petitions on the White House site that call for the Obama administration to deport or exile everyone who has signed a secession petition.

One asks the administration to permit the left-leaning city of Austin to secede from Texas but remain part of the United States.

“The Internet allows you to find like-minded people. And in this faceless anonymity, you can egg each other on,” said Andrew Shankman, an associate professor of history at Rutgers-Camden. “It doesn’t take much to sign a petition.”

The secession petitions are “not a serious political proposal,” he said. “This is the last expression of rage because [the petitioners] didn’t get what they wanted on Election Day. They’re sounding off.”

The “We the People” website allows citizens to create and sign petitions. They provide first names but not the last, just initials.

Many – like one created by Karen G. of Hazleton, Pa., and another by Joe. R. of Sewell – quote from the Declaration of Independence: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands . . . ”

Others, such as a petition seeking Oregon’s secession, take another tack: “The people of Oregon would like the chance to vote on leaving the Union immediately. The Federal Government has imposed policies on Oregon that are not in Oregon’s best interests, and we as citizens would respectively [sic] and peaceably separate ourselves from a tyrannical Government. . . . ”

The White House lacks constitutional authority to let states secede, but that hasn’t stopped disgruntled voters.

The issue of secession was not confined to the Civil War. New Jersey grappled with it about 40 years ago, when the southern part of the state attempted to split from the north.

“There was a big movement, with petitions drawn,” said Paul Schopp, a historian who lives in Riverton. “The south was upset that most of the tax dollars were going to the north.”

The postelection petitions are “an effort by average citizens to exercise their constitutional rights,” he said. “It’s a peaceful form of redress.”

Other countries have faced similar issues. A referendum will be held in 2014 to determine whether the people of Scotland wish to withdraw from the United Kingdom, Dane said. Quebec has occasionally sought to secede from Canada and the country’s Supreme Court has said that’s not out of the question.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who often has expressed frustration with the federal government, did not endorse the secession petitions and has said he did not want the Lone Star State to break away.

“The Civil War showed once and for all and forever that secession is illegal,” said Andy Waskie, a Temple University professor, historian, and author. “The combat, effusion of blood, and sacrifice ended that question.”

Citizens “have to seek other means of redressing their grievances,” he said. “The Union is permanent.”

Obviously, these self-centered whiners have lost sight of the fact that the last time someone tried to secede, 600,000 Americans died. These whiners don’t like President Obama or his policies, so they want to secede. They’re just not willing to accept the idea that a majority of U.S. citizens voted for the man and that their guy lost. WAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

This issue was resolved in Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869), wherein the United States Supreme Court determined that there is no right of secession and that the Union is forever. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, writing for the Court, observed:

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to ‘be perpetual.’ And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained ‘to form a more perfect Union.’ It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not.

He continued:

When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

Chase continued:

Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation.

Resolving the issue once and for all, the Supreme Court held:

It is not necessary to attempt any exact definitions within which the acts of such a State government must be treated as valid or invalid. It may be said, perhaps with sufficient accuracy, that acts necessary to peace and good order among citizens, such for example, as acts sanctioning and protecting marriage and the domestic relations, governing the course of descents, regulating the conveyance and transfer of property, real and personal, and providing remedies for injuries to person and estate, and other similar acts, which would be valid if emanating from a lawful government must be regarded in general as valid when proceeding from an actual, though unlawful, government, and that acts in furtherance or support of rebellion against the United States, or intended to defeat the just rights of citizens, and other acts of like nature, must, in general, be regarded as invalid and void.

And that, as they say, is that. There is no right of secession. These whiners need to just suck it up and move on. The country survived George W. Bush’s eight years. It will also survive Barack Obama’s. Get over it. Shut up and quit whining.