Seems like some people are pretty darn eager to get rid of Alaska. Or are they more inclined towards letting Russia have the icy state?
A petition seeking to give Alaska to Russia is gaining lots of support on White House's petition website, petitions.whitehouse.gov, Yahoo News reported.
With the recent behavior of Russia's aggression towards Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, the timing of the petition isn't very surprising. International governments and the United Nations have criticized and rejected Russia's moves.
Created on March 21 and titled "Alaska back to Russia," the petition has been signed by more than 30,000 people despite being strangely worded and full of grammar problems, The Post-Standard reported.
However, to get an official response from the White House, rules dictate for the petition to have 100,000 or more signatures attached to the case. Also, this specific petition has until April 20 to make the campaign a success.
"The petition's language is a bit difficult to follow, but a kind of Russian patriotism seems to shine through," Yahoo News reported.
"Groups Siberian russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago," the text from WhiteHouse.gov petition states. "Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago."
The petition adds, "First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat "St. Gabriel »under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years."
"Vote for secession of Alaska from the United States and joining Russia."
Alaska has been part of Russia for a longer time than the United States. The Alaskan land was purchased from Russia by Secretary of State William Seward in 1867 for about $7.2 million.
It went on to become a state in 1959, Yahoo News reported.
This isn't the first time someone has petitioned for a state to secede from the union, Fox News reported.
"In 2012, a similar petition for Texas to secede from the United States got enough signatures to merit a response, plus a few thousand more," The Post-Standard reported.
A White House official wrote this statement, "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."
