We who are here today must at the very least, understand the price of Freedom.
Secession? Sure, It's about time that we toss the the U.N.
States? Commonwealths? Case by Case.
As long as the government doesn't tax us to the point that we are unable to eak at a meager existence we will look the other way. We will pretend it only affects the bad people.
As long as we are allowed to maintain our house in the suburb, two cars in the garage, and a well kept lawn, there will be no revolution.
Posted earlier today on FR ---> Walter Williams: Wrong on Secession
Yes, we have our problems with overtaxation, overregulation, excessive big government and so forth. But all of these problems can be addressed by the people and in accordance with our Constitution.
Despite our shortcomings, is there anyplace else on Earth better to live? What would be gained for any state or states that secede? But that is a hypothetical question because it will never happen.
Abraham Lincoln
First Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1861
...In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln,a man for the times.
I've heard a lot of people tell me why secession would never work. The stupidest objection that one self-appointed intellectual spouted was "well, what about the Internet? We'd be cut off from that." Granted, this was a few years ago and she was just new to the idea of going online, but hel-LO? It's called the World Wide Web for a reason! ;)
If you want a great example of propaganda, read this article again. Attempting to equate a war of words with a war where millions of Americans lost their lives constitutes the most outrageous example of historical revisionism I've yet seen. Such practices are usually reserved for liberal liars, and the author of this piece obviously studied liberal liars very well.
I'm getting damn sick and tired of seeing these postings by authors who obviously haven't spent the requisite amount of time studying the Civil War. Their ignorance is transparent to those of us who have. My suggestion to future Lincoln bashers is to examine ALL of the contemporary documentation, then sit and think about it using the power of reason, as opposed to emotion, and get back to us. Don't put a post up here by someone who obviously is emotion opinionated and hasn't done his homework.
We who are here today must at the very least, understand the price of Freedom.
Secession? Sure, It's about time that we toss the the U.N.
States? Commonwealths? Case by Case.
The problem is that Williams thinks he is fighting fairy-tales. The UN rules everything about our lives with few exceptions. There is no place to migrate and as a result, we must stand and fight for our personal rights and dignity.
It wasn't a state when they moved there, it was basically wilderness, with Indians the only inhabitants. You saw some of the tribes during the olympic ceremonies.
The Mormons didn't get as much control as you might think, they had to give on several important points before they could be admitted. For example, polygamy. For another they were not allowed to have an official state religion, even though other states had such. Maybe not at that time, but when the Constitution was written they did, and the Constitution does not forbid it. (1st amendment only applies to Congress, not the states, it says so right there..Congress shall make no law..) These were conditions, unofficially laid down by Congress, to be met before Utah could be admitted to the Union as a state.
That's one of the reasons why this is such a colossally moronic idea. Set up your own country and who will rule it? Essentially the same Republican Party types, the banking, real estate and country club set.
How could it be otherwise? You will need to maintain a productive and profitable economy. You will need to interact with other nations, multinational corporations, and non-governmental organizations, on an equal footing.
Nations require national elites. And the thought and behavior of national elites tends to converge across boundary lines.
Think of those who fought and bled and suffered and died for an independent Ireland or an autonomous Scotland, and look at what they got for their troubles? Post-bourgeois progressivist welfarist Europeanist politically correct little oligarchies. Goverments located at home that can extract more income. Home-grown elites that can show less regard for longstanding national institutions. Not the worst things in the world, but was it worth all the sacrifices to throw off one set of masters for another?
Is Ireland more Irish now than it was a century ago? Is it freer? The answer to the first question is probably no. The answer to the second question is definitely yes, but the freedom of today's Ireland isn't what the Irishman of a century ago wanted when he fought for independence.
Your new government - precisely because it can claim that it is more "your" government than what came before - will not be any less oppressive than the old government.
Was it worth the sacrifices? For the Irishman of 1846 or the Scotsman of a century earlier it probably would have been. The same could have been said for the starving masses of the Great Depression. For us now, it's hardly likely that secession would make us freer or happier than we are today.
The Irishman or Scotsman of three or four centuries ago was indeed fighting for the independence of his own, distinctive society with its own unique institutions. That age is long gone. Modernity, globalism and homogeneity rule. Political secession will not change that.
You may pick up some ground politically in your new state, but the same political battles would still go on. Combining secession with "population exchange" might create greater change, but it would go against ideas of freedom and human rights. In the long one it would hurt your economy if you chase out those who think differently. On the whole, what you would lose would be immeasurably greater than what you would gain.
Should have put up a "barf alert" on this one. The South seceded to preserve slavery. That was about as "valid" a rebellion as the one the Bosheviks pulled off fifty years later.
Rebellion was put down, and the right prevailed. Today, no more slaves.
Secession is illegal. And as long as we have recourse to the ballot box, talk of secession is seditious.