Miscellaneous

Join or Die

Seattle's Mayor Greg Nichols thinks that the city needs to declare its independence, seceding from the state. Apparently, he's simply fed up with the traffic and transportation problems.

Our region should declare its independence. If we were a country, [our economy] would be just a little smaller than Thailand. We would be larger than Colombia, Venezuela. We are held back because our state and federal government still believe our economies are driven by wheat farms and timber logging.

Unsurprisingly, he now says this was all just being said tongue-in-cheek, even when he said, "I am serious when I say we ought to talk about independence."

This reminded me of my favorite newspaper article ever when, back in high school, the local City Paper had a front-page declaration that Philly should secede from the state of Pennsylvania. The article was fantastic, and I completely agreed with it then, and agree with it now. No reason some cities shouldn't be able to go off and declare their independence. Hell, while they're at it, they can secede from the U.S. too, become their own country, like Vatican City nestled right in the middle of Rome. In fact, I bet many in the Philly area would love for the city to wall itself off (not sure how folks feel about Seattle).

Full post as published by Quiz Law on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).