Expel California

If you are like me, you've probably had enough of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's whining about how it's the federal government's fault that California has been mismanaged to an extent not seen since Idi Amin was running the show in Uganda. Before I propose a solution to end this aggravating behavior, a brief background explanation is necessary.

A long, long time ago (November 24, 2004, shortly after George W. Bush made dog food out of John Kerry) Michael Dorf wrote an article for FindLaw.com's "Writ" pages entitled "Does the Constitution Permit the Blue States to Secede? With Permission, Perhaps, Unilaterally, No" in which he briefly explored the constitutionality of a state seceding from the Union.

Despite the fact that this issue was resolved by extra-judicial means at the conclusion of the American Civil War, Mr. Dorf was of the opinion that:

"... it is settled law that the Constitution [in Article VII] does not permit unilateral secession: A state or group of states cannot simply leave the Union over the objections of the national government. However ... the Constitution is probably best read as permitting the mutually agreed upondeparture of one or more states" [emphasis added].

After a thorough rereading Article VII, and the applicable case law derived from it, your humble correspondent has determined that there is nothing in the corpus juris that would prohibit the expulsion of a state (or states) from the Union. With this in mind, I would like to propose the following course of action:

The Congress should immediately pass, and then submit to the several states for ratification, a Constitutional amendment expelling the states of California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington from the Union. This proposed amendment would be called the "Thank God and Goodbye Amendment."

I can hear the questions now, so I'll answer a few of the more obvious ones.

Why would we want to expel just those states and not some others?

Because, with the exception of Hawaii, they serve no really useful purpose except to keep the Pacific Ocean out of Boise and San Francisco out of everywhere else. Hawaii would get the boot because, with the exception of overpriced hotel rooms, it has nothing that anyone would want. Besides, if we lick those four states out, the other forty-six would get the message and clean up their acts in a hurry.

But what about Oregon and Washington, what would they do if they were expelled?

Well, what about them?

How would these new countries find the financial resources to maintain the standards of living for their citizens? Or deal with their social problems?

They should have thought about that before getting themselves kicked to the Third World curb. In all probability, they would have a number of products that they could still export to the rest of the word, such as:

Washington: rain and Microsoft
Oregon: rain and bad ideas
Hawaii: marijuana, pineapples, reruns of Magnum, P.I and Hawaii 5-0
California: really bad/stupid ideas, bad movies, crime, drugs, migrant labor, smog

As to the social problems, if the citizens had more "brains" and less "compassion" they wouldn't be in the shape that they are now. Of course, with the proper "worldview," the citizens of these new countries could see a new set of opportunities for "social activism."

If, for example, the state of Oregon ran short on people wanting to commit "assisted suicide" they could always resort to "assisted murders" in order to take up the slack. If the people of San Francisco wanted to vote in favor of kissing illegal immigrant drug dealers on the cheek and then send them to bed without their state-subsidized suppers, they would certainly be free to do just that or anything else they that they wanted to do. The only difference would be that, in the new nations, the citizens would have to live with the consequences of their actions rather than forcing them onto someone else.

What about all the military bases located in these states? What effect would that have on national defense?

The proposed amendment, if ratified, would mean absolutely no change in defense policy since there are already a number of military bases located on foreign soil in places such as Germany, England, Japan, and South Korea. If the newly-independent nations were smart, they would keep their mouths shut and get rich, like the previously-mentioned countries, off the American dollars spent staffing and maintaining those bases.

As an additional bonus, we wouldn't have to listen to any more of Martin Sheen's fractured logic explaining why he was locked up for protesting outside some Air Force, Navy, or Army base.

OK, smart-ass, what about all the tax revenue that the nation would lose as a result of your scheme?

Lose what revenue? The four states mentioned previously actually receive an average of $1.53 in federal spending for every $1.00 in taxes they send to Washington. By kicking them out on their ungrateful posteriors, the country would actually save money!

There are many more details that would have to be worked out and a like number of potential questions that would require answers. I would only like to cite the advice of William of Ockham, which can be paraphrased as:

"All things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one."

Amen, Billy! Kick da bums out!