Exclusive: Break-up of California moves a step closer as billionaire gets enough signatures to trigger vote

The chance of California splitting into three has moved a step closer after a billionaire secured enough signatures to trigger a referendum on the issue.

Tim Draper, who made his money through Hotmail and Skype, has gathered 600,000 signatures supporting the change – way above the 364,000 needed.

Those who want to break up California believe it would boost educational standards and reduce the political power of Sacramento, the state’s capital.

Providing the state authorities agree the signatures are genuine a referendum on the issue will be held this November alongside other mid-term elections.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/exclusive-splitting-california-three-step-closer-billionaire/.

But the votes are in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.  The supporters of the referendum are all in the rural parts of the state, like Fresno and Bakersfield.  Fat chance it will go anywhere.

More likely, the State of California will separate from the rest of the US. That's where the grass-roots divide is.

Lets wait and see what happens then

Yes. Nobody here is worried. Mr. Draper might be able to supply $$$, but--bane of all rich folks--he can't supply the votes.

It's an unpopular option.

Original Quill wrote:Yes.  Nobody here is worried.  Mr. Draper might be able to supply $$$, but--bane of all rich folks--he can't supply the votes.

It's an unpopular option.

I thought you were all for the formation of an independent California state?

I know this is different, but just interested to know why here, you do not want to see California split into 3 new states?

Didge wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Yes.  Nobody here is worried.  Mr. Draper might be able to supply $$$, but--bane of all rich folks--he can't supply the votes.

It's an unpopular option.

I thought you were all for the formation of an independent California state?

I know this is different, but just interested to know why here, you do not want to see California split into 3 new states?

It's unnecessary and there is no sentiment among the majority of Californians for it.  The dominant majority of California wishes to join with other Pacific states to form an independent, separate nation from the southern-dominated, white-nationalists.

Indeed, this is where all non-southern sentiment lies, but only California has a realistic chance of actually doing it.  I feel sorry for them, but California should not miss it's opportunity just because they are (geographically) inconveniently located.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:

I thought you were all for the formation of an independent California state?

I know this is different, but just interested to know why here, you do not want to see California split into 3 new states?

It's unnecessary and there is no sentiment among the majority of Californians for it.  The dominant majority of California wishes to join with other Pacific states to form an independent, separate nation from the southern-dominated, white-nationalists.

Indeed, this is where all non-southern sentiment lies, but only California has a realistic chance of actually doing it.  I feel sorry for them, but California should not miss it's opportunity just because they are (geographically) inconveniently located.

You are making many assumptions, based not on others, but yourself

Again, it seems you are very hypocritical to want seperation for the entire state and not for the state to seperate into 3

Didge wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

It's unnecessary and there is no sentiment among the majority of Californians for a split.  The dominant majority of California wishes to join with other Pacific states to form an independent, separate nation from the southern-dominated, white-nationalists.

Indeed, this is where all non-southern sentiment lies, but only California has a realistic chance of actually doing it.  I feel sorry for them, but California should not miss it's opportunity just because they are (geographically) inconveniently located.

You are making many assumptions, based not on others, but yourself

Again, it seems you are very hypocritical to want separation for the entire state and not for the state to seperate into 3

You need to think it through, didge.  Severing California from the larger US is not the same as trifurcating California itself, nor are the purposes logically synonymous.

The units, or factions into which a state might divide, would need to conform to the ideological factions that arise amid the population.  Without getting into detail, California needs to separate from the US because it no longer shares the same political and moral ideals of the US.  The greater US has stopped progressing, and ideologically lingers somewhere in the late-1800's.  It believes in white-supremacy, is anti-hispanic, anti-black, shrugs at loss of life, gives lip-service but does not believe in democracy (ie, voter suppression & manipulation of immigration), believes in a lesser status for women, and is unbending in its authoritarian commitment; it is all the things we saw at Charlottesville last year.  The overwhelming majority of Californians reject those principles and take the progressive side on all of those fronts.

Now, you are going to argue that in some similar spirit the rural parts of California have little or no truck with the metropolitan parts, and deserve to break off themselves.  Your premise is that formal polyfurcation (in some bizarre regress) is the order of the day.  Every Californian deserves one square yard of space, on which he or she builds a sovereign state of his or her own thoughts and beliefs.

If we admit we are social and behave socially, that is not practical.  Then, once we establish that we are social, the question becomes: around what principles do we coalesce?  This involves roughly defining our mutual community, and perhaps defining our incongruent or dissimilar community, meaning the standards that we collectively reject.  It won't work unless there is a community of interest.

Most of the time, this happens naturally, as with the US and Britain: prolonged separation led to differences of experiences and interests, which led to different principles, and so on.  The test for what is an overall community, and/or what is a sub-community, versus what is an incongruent community, is best left to democratic procedures themselves.  In a given space, people will know what they are attracted to, versus what they cannot countenance.

We planned the US poorly.  It was two different communities: 1) a manufacturing and mercantile north; versus 2) a cash-cropping, agrarian south, dependent upon slavery for its engine.  Moreover, because slavery was a collective moral issue, these economic differences spread out into the social realm, and eventually led to a civil war.

Now, population mobility has mixed and intermingled these communities, though they are distinct within their own ideological persuasions.  Good fortune has smiled upon California and many like-minded, liberal and tolerant individuals have collected on our shores.  We would be remiss if we didn't take advantage of that.

Geography defines a lot of California, positioning our cities and counties, and defining where people collect to live and commercially interact.  A natural community has formed.  No significant sub-units have materialized to form conflict such as we saw in the formation of the United States.

Those people who wish to subscribe to the 18th-century values can, and probably will be sorted through, and they can decide for themselves whether they wish to stay (within the community) or leave.  They are not strong enough to pose a divisive force, rather they could be looked upon as a polarity along a spectrum, unless they leave to join another community more to their liking.  Natural sorting...it all takes place quite routinely.