the Separatism seminar: the bargaining-chip question — trade the Concavity for secession — "Why wouldn’t your thinking militant Nucks…"
Why wouldn’t your thinking militant Nucks use the Concavity as a bargaining chip for independence, why would they want O.N.A.N. to take back the one thing odious enough to be a chip?
Context
The Subject's sharpest poser, relayed through Orin: if the Concavity is so odious, why don't the Separatists "use the fact of the odiousness of the Concavity" to bargain with Ottawa — "let us secede, and we'll take the Concavity with us... it'll go on the maps as Québecois and not Canadian... Canada's pathetic standing in O.N.A.N.... will be rehabilitated because of the ingenious way Ottawa's parliament will have re-gerrymandered O.N.A.N.'s map without taking on the U.S. directly." Why demand the return of "the one thing odious enough to be a chip"? The question exposes the paradox the whole anti-O.N.A.N. campaign runs on — the Separatists fight to reclaim the very burden that could buy their freedom — and sets up its resolution.