06.04.14
In the northern shires of the Paphlagonians
There are enclaves of WhiteManistan in California. They just no longer count for much since no Republican holds any major public office in the state.
But, if you go to the land of northern redwoods, WhiteManistanis have been trying to secede for years.
Yesterday was election day, only one in three counties given the opportunity voted for forming the new state of Jefferson.
Between the three, there are less people than live in Pasadena. In the one voting for new statehood, this translates to to the wishes of probably a little over 4,000 people as a majority.
The people in favor of the new state of Jefferson are, bluntly, stupid. It’s an angry ego thing for them.
These places have no tax base. That they have public services and schools at all is because of the tax money flowing from the rest of the state, you know, the kind of money a still civilized society feels is necessary to be a civil society, even if there are places within it where not too many people live.
Yet the rationalization for the creation of Jefferson is they are tired of having no representation.
Voters in one far Northern California county defeated a measure to call for the creation of a 51st state named Jefferson while those in a neighboring county responded more favorably to the test of whether a secessionist movement has sails in a region accustomed to feeling overlooked by the rest of California.
Del Norte County voters rejected the secessionist measure by 59 percent Tuesday, while Tehama County voters were supporting the proposal by 56 percent with ballots still being tallied.
A similar but unrelated question on the ballot in Siskiyou County, to rename it the Republic of Jefferson, failed with only 44 percent of voters in favor.
Follow the link for the amusing picture.
The ludicrously named Neel Kashkari did win the opportunity to be crushed by Jerry Brown in the upcoming gubernatorial election.
So happy were election workers to see me in the afternoon at my polling place, they insisted I take an “I Voted!” sticker. I had the place to myself, it was a warm afternoon and did not want to disappoint them. Voter turnout was estimated to be a meager 13 percent.
There’s another secessionist movement in California, bankrolled by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who wants to split the state into six different new ones. The most prosperous and bestest to be named, of course, Silicon Valley.
Check the guy pushing it, Tim Draper, singing to handfuls of nerds begging for his money. The guy’s fucking horrible.
Chuck said,
June 5, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Most (about 80%) of the inhabitants of the “State of Jefferson” currently reside in Oregon. The movement itself dates back before WW II, but few take it seriously. Rather, it’s more of a bragging point.
Oregon is one of those states where there’s Portland metro area (roughly 2 million population) and then there’s the rest of the state (less than 2 million). So Portland metro, including Vancouver, Washington represents over half the state’s population, depending on what you call “metro”. There’s the Salem metro (4050,000) and Eugene/Springfield metro (350,000) which doesn’t leave much for the rest of the state. Look at the map of any major election and the pattern is stark–the few larger metro areas decide the election and the rest of the state votes the other way. I suppose that if I lived in,say, Talent, I’d feel under-represented, too.
The southern Oregon NPR franchise proudly bills itself as “Jefferson Public Radio”. It’s all a way of crafting some sort of identity, mostly in fun. I don’t think anyone in Oregon would want to go so far today as the northern California counties and put an initiative on the ballot. That’s just plain silly.
George Smith said,
June 6, 2014 at 4:42 pm
Thanks for adding that. It fills in the news nicely. I will say the guy who came up with the flag for Jefferson should have hired a good graphic artist and asked from some input.