All Your Rebel Base Are Belong to the U.S. - Death Star and Secession Petitions Denied

The White House has responded in the negative to the tongue-in-cheek petition to build a "Death Star" like the planet-destroyer in Star Wars in order to create jobs for workers. Obama also put the kibosh on the multitude of Secession petitions from every state in the union that appeared after President Obama was reelected.



At least the Star Wars petition almost made sense and showed some thought about the general welfare of the country. The Secessionistas - not so much. And Darth Vader probably took the news better about the Death Star. The Wingnuts went ballistic and accused Obama of "ignoring" their movement to dismantle the Union - again - as if it worked the first time. You could say their response was more like Princess Leia when Commander Tarkin told her he was going to blow up Dantooine. They flipped out.


Read some reactions here:
Snark Amendment: Obama Tells Wingnuts "No" to Secession - Call a Wahmbulance!

WhiteHouse.Gov: Our States Remain United

Thank you for using the White House's online petitions platform to participate in your government.
In a nation of 300 million people -- each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs -- democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that's a good thing. Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the liberties we often take for granted.

But as much as we value a healthy debate, we don't let that debate tear us apart.


Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States "in order to form a more perfect union" through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot -- a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it. As President Abraham Lincoln explained in his first inaugural address in 1861, "in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual." In the years that followed, more than 600,000 Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States. And shortly after the Civil War ended, the Supreme Court confirmed that "[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States."


Although the founders established a perpetual union, they also provided for a government that is, as President Lincoln would later describe it, "of the people, by the people, and for the people" -- all of the people. Participation in, and engagement with, government is the cornerstone of our democracy. And because every American who wants to participate deserves a government that is accessible and responsive, the Obama Administration has created a host of new tools and channels to connect concerned citizens with White House. In fact, one of the most exciting aspects of the We the People platform is a chance to engage directly with our most outspoken critics.

So let's be clear: No one disputes that our country faces big challenges, and the recent election followed a vigorous debate about how they should be addressed. As President Obama said the night he won re-election, "We may have battled fiercely, but it's only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future."


Whether it's figuring out how to strengthen our economy, reduce our deficit in a responsible way, or protect our country, we will need to work together -- and hear from one another -- in order to find the best way to move forward. I hope you'll take a few minutes to learn more about the President's ideas and share more of your own.

Jon Carson is Director of the Office of Public Engagement

WhiteHouse.Gov: This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.
Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo -- and soon, crew -- to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade.


Even though the United States doesn't have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we've got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we're building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.
We don't have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.
We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country's future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things.
If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
Paul Shawcross is Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget

Snark in Pictures

The Sound and the Fury of Secessionist Idiots Signifies Nothing

Obama got elected by a landslide a few weeks ago, and a vocal minority in the southern states rushed to show just how stupid, ignorant and backward they are by signing a multitude of petitions asking the newly elected President to allow their states to secede.

See examples here on my other blog:

Snark Amendment: To Secede or Merely Succeed, that is the Question
Snark Amendment: Secession Wars!

I would compare this to a political version of the Jackass movies or the Darwin Awards. We stand watching with our mouths open while some poor fool attaches a rocket to his car like Wile E. Coyote before flying off into the side of a cliff. You can't talk these people out of their stupid ways. These folks are a few tea bags shy of a load. They are rowing with both oars out of the water. They are just not all there. There is no there there.

For anyone reading this who is unacquainted with the real South as it really is, and not the parody on TV, you have no idea how embarrassing such petitions are to the vast majority of people in the red states, even those who voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. Let me assure you, even most Republicans do not want to re-fight the Civil War, thank you very much. Frankly, most Southerners never wanted to fight it in the first place.

The Democrats trapped inside these red states merely do a collective facepalm and point out the cognitive dissonance of people who hypothetically have a brother on SSI, a sister on food stamps, an uncle who works for TVA, a parent on disability, and a Grandma who gets Medicaid for nursing home care . . . yet they are vowing to secede from the government who pays for all that. You've got millions of people in red states who drive the interstate highways, hunt and fish in National Forests, benefit from Obama tax cuts, benefit from Obamacare (or soon will), and never give a thought to where those things come from.

In begging to secede, they are figuratively cutting off their nose to spite their face in the name of . . . spite, or anger, or outrage that a black man has once again been legally elected by a majority of the citizens of the United States. Secession-minded people will swear up and down they are not racist because how dare anyone call them that since they know and work with black people, go to school together, and are even friends with some of them! (*sigh* - yes people really say that stuff)

But of course they don't like it that people of color have just as much right to be President as a white person - and that's the problem. They are stuck in the Jim Crow days, and hate it that Karl Rove couldn't steal the election for them. And it doesn't help that they are hopped up on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh talking points.

It's racism. There is no other explanation for the knee-jerk reaction of this secessionist crowd. You can call it "bad-sportsmanship" over the election if you are a really nice person and have on your rose-colored glasses, but that is the understatement of the year.

The idiots signing these petitions are not representative of their states and they are the last ones to care that they reinforce the uneducated racist stereotype of white people in the South. They don't even think about what they are doing or how it might seem to others. Like their heroes Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, they are simultaneously selfish political narcissists and intellectual cretins. Probably everyone they know feels the same way, so they have no empathy for another view, and no respect for Democrats. It's not about thinking - prejudice is an emotion to them. They learn it at the feet of their parents, or from their grandparents, or worse - their pastors and coaches and even teachers. It's like a genetic disease passed from generation to generation in some communities - and the main sympton is rank stupidity.

Let's call this the "Sound and the Fury" crowd to quote both Mississippi author William Faulkner and his inspiration, William Shakespeare.

Macbeth: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Exactly - signifying nothing, because nothing is really going to happen. As soon as people on Twitter began making jokes about the secessionist petitions, and someone made a petition to Deport anyone asking to secede, they suddenly got all defensive. They didn't REALLY want to secede, but merely to send a "message" to Obama. What message? That they hate the President? Why? Didn't you accept Bill Clinton when he was elected? The only answer that makes sense is that Obama is black and doesn't fit their world view of what a "real" American President should look like.

No one understood the "Confederate" crowd clinging to the not-so-glorious past more than author Faulkner:

"The past is never dead, it's not even past."

But Faulkner also said:

"To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow."

It would be nice if they would think about that in Mississippi, or Texas, or Tennessee, or Alabama, etc., and if some of these idiots would think twice before rushing to the internet to show their ignorant racist side once again.

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