Updated: White House Forced to Confront State Petitions to Secede?

Joe Wright
AP

The White House website has been bombarded with petitions that have mushroomed to 34 states moving to secede. The first petition came in from Louisiana the day after Obama’s re-election, and since then a chorus of others have issued their grievances.

Now, under White House rules stated in its “We the People” program, if 25,000 people sign on by December 7th, a response must be issued. Just a few days after submitting, that number has been reached by the petitions from Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia — with Texas closing in on 90,000.

Here is the current list of state totals:

1. Alaska (5,306)
2. Alabama (24,721)
3. Arizona (16,016)
4. Arkansas (17,667)
5. California (8,772)
6. Colorado (16,879)
7. Delaware (5,896)
8. Florida (21,129)
9. Georgia (25,578)
10. Indiana (15,807)
11. Kansas (5,396)
12. Kentucky (14,596)
13. Louisiana (31.544)
14. Michigan (15,241)
15. Mississippi (14,432)
16. Missouri (15,036)
17. Montana (10,856)
18. Nebraska (4,469)
19. Nevada (7,677)
20. New Jersey (11,299)
21. New York (6,110)
22. North Carolina (23,715)
23. North Dakota (9,626)
24. Ohio (5,187)
25. Oklahoma 6,559)
26. Oregon (11,819)
27. Pennsylvania (5,499)
28. South Carolina (18,416)
29. South Dakota (4,046)
30. Tennessee (24,270)
31. Texas (88,913)
32. Utah (3,844)
33. West Virginia (4,660)
34. Wyoming (6,225)

Will the White House respond, or ignore the will of the people as it routinely does on the issues that matter most? One Florida resident is making national news; former Navy serviceman, Philip Hoezel, who turned his flag upside down in protest on Veterans Day.

While his neighbors berated him for the blasphemy, and for “hurting a lot of people’s feelings;” as a Navy man he would know that the traditional significance of the upside-down flag is to indicate a ship in its final moments of severe distress before it sinks — a ship of state, for instance. It is a form of peaceful protest that is increasing in numbers and is a statement as symbolic as these petitions.

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