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from the you-can-go-your-own-way-♩♫♩♫ dept.
Supporters of a plan for California to secede from the union took their first formal step Monday morning, submitting a proposed ballot measure to the state attorney general's office in the hopes of a statewide vote as soon as 2018.
Marcus Ruiz Evans, the vice president and co-founder of Yes California, said his group had been planning to wait for a later election, but the presidential election of Donald Trump sped up the timeline.
"We're doing it now because of all of the overwhelming attention," Evans said.
The Yes California group has been around for more than two years, Evans said. It is based around California taxpayers paying more money to the federal government than the state receives in spending, that Californians are culturally different from the rest of the country, and that national media and organizations routinely criticize Californians for being out of step with the rest of the U.S.
Could California go it alone?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 24 2016, @03:09PM
In the lead-up to the referendum, move all mobile assets out of California. Offshore, to other states, whatever. Requisition rail access if necessary; just get it moving.
I have a better suggestion. Do nothing until California secedes, then use the bases and US ownership of so much of the territory of California as bargaining chips. That stuff doesn't automatically become part of California just because they seceded. As to what to bargain for, that depends on the situation. It could be preferential trade, long term leases on the bases in question (this being far from the first time that the US has maintained military bases in other countries), an outright sale, or ransom to allow US citizens to escape California.
If they decide to do a Fort Sumter-style attack on these bases, then you still have the choice of razing the bases and abandoning any military presence in California or using it as a casus belli for war with California (this would be the efficient way to attempt to stop serious war crimes like genocide).