Secession petitions filed at the White House's "We the People" site have somehow become major news, thus leaving completely unremarked other important petitions like the recently expired petition asking the President to dance the hokey-pokey, or the current one asking him to attend a Fark.com party or else drink a beer with Drew Curtis, or the one demanding that he outlaw offensive comments about prophets of major religions. A few points of note:
(1) It is quite obvious that the point of the petitions (from all fifty states by now) is simply to force the White House into the embarrassing position of having to give a public response explaining why states should not secede. This is not a 'secession movement'; it's a prank.
(2) Texas leads the pack, by far, on signatures for a secession petition, so it's perhaps worth pointing out for any Yankees in the audience that the obvious reason why it's so far ahead of other secession petitions is that Texans are signing it in order to make sure that Texas comes in first when it comes to secession petitions. This is what Texans do. If, for instance, you were to go to any random place in Texas and start asking people whether they thought Texas should secede, you would have a significant number of people who would say 'Yes' for no other reason than to guarantee that there would be lots of 'Yes' answers to your question. (You would also have a significant number of people who would say 'Yes' because they thought it was a stupid question deserving a stupid answer. That's another thing Texans do: answer questions they regard as stupid with answers they regard as stupid, and then laugh at you when you go away taking them seriously.)
There is, of course, no major secession movement in Texas, and hasn't been in ages. Secession in Texas is a vocabulary and game, not a movement, and is a (deliberately) bombastic way of talking about the distinctiveness of the state. Likewise, when you are in Texas and overhear someone saying that someone should be shot, or that they will be beating someone to death shortly, you can generally assume that they are engaging in Texas hyperbole for 'So-and-so is completely wrong and starting to annoy me.' Deliberately bombastic hyperbole is also something Texans do. And, what is more, one reason Texans like talking about secession is that it elicits hilariously funny reactions from non-Texans who aren't in on the game.
(3) It should go without saying, but in case it doesn't:
(a) No, states do not under the current constitional regime have the right to secede.
(b) No, people cannot be stripped of citizenship for asking to secede. I am certain that most of the people signing this petition are just playing the game from the opposite side, but I note it just in case it doesn't go without saying. In fact, no one can actually be stripped of citizenship for anything; in the U.S., you can renounce citizenship, but no government has the authority to take it away from you without your consent; and merely asking to secede is neither a formal nor an implicit renunciation of citizenship -- it's just asking. Likewise, it is not treason to advocate secession.
(c) No, if the states could secede, the federal government would not have the authority to give parts of the state the right to secede from the state; the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to do this for states and lacks the jursdiction for doing it to independent countries.
(d) Yes, anyone who takes petitions on the White House's We the People site seriously is a little bit of a lunatic.
