Posted on 03/05/2004 12:48:10 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants
Many here are familiar with the Free State Project, an attempt to take over a small state politically by supporting classical libertarians (like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine) and electing them to public office. Then they propose to change the government though legal and constitutional means to basically evict the federal government from that state as well as remove any freedom robbing state and local laws.
To do this, people from all over the country are urged to move to New Hampshire and establish a new life there. That is a commendable goal but the outcome is improbable at best as I cannot really see thousands of people quitting their job to move to a part of the country that they are unfamiliar with and no job to boot.
My suggestion is to get the people of a state that has a fairly large area of rural areas but are dominated by the liberals in a tiny number of cities, and secede from that state, form a new state ans immediately petition Congress for admission into the union for recognition as a new state.
IMHO, the following states are ripe for secession and a split and because of a large liberal population in a relatively small area basically control the entire state.
New York (secede all counties more than 50 miles from NYC and Long Island),
Pennsylvania (secede all counties more than 50 miles from Philadelphia),
Oregon (secede all counties more than 30 miles from Portland)
Illinois (secede all counties more than 50 miles from Chicago),
Washington (secede all counties more than 30 miles from Seattle),
Missouri (secede all counties more than 50 miles from St. Louis abd possibly Kansas City),
Georgia (Southern and Western secede amd leave Atlanta and the NW counties),
There may be more but these come to mind immediately.
The US Constitution states in Article IV. Section 3. "New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress." This would seem to indicate that in order for several counties to split from a state, it must first receive permission from that state's legislature. However, when West Virginia split from Virginia, it simply formed a separate state government and declared itself independent of Virginia WITHOUT THE PERMSSION OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA. To this day Virginia has never voted to allow West Virginai secede. When they applied for statehood, Congress quickly admitted it. Congress would not be able to reject recognizing the state because precedence has already been established.
The advantage of my idea is that in the states that I mentioned, the new states would distance themselves from their liberal big city cousins and form a government that is MUCH more like the one that our founding fathers envisioned; maximum freedom and minimum government.
New state constitutions could be written that specifically prohibit the transfer of wealth from the workers to the leaches and guarantee in specific writing that all adults will have certain rights. The wording can be such that not even a New York liberal lawyer could argue that they mean something other than what was written. An article would be included that prohitits an income tax and restricts any increase in the state and local budgets to inflation plus population gain without voter approval.
Taxes could also be restricted to an end user tax ONLY and no person may be compelled to pay any tax under threat of arrest, prosecution, or forfeiture of property.
The state would be prohibited from taking any federal money with string attached that would compel the state to pass certain laws.
Politicians would be term limited and judges would be restricted to a single 10 year term at any single level and no more than 20 years at all levels combined.
People would not be required to leave the land they have live on their entire life but would find that their state is now a magnet for business wanting to escape high taxation and high regulation anti-business regions.
Perhaps best of all, these new states could add up to 14 new (hopefully conservative) senators that would shift the balance in the Senate away from the liberals with their RINO counterparts. The AW ban that passed as an amendment would have been defeated by a vote of 63 to 52 instead of passing 52-49.
The possibilities are endless!
Any comments?
First of all, the Civil War was fought precisely over the issue of whether States that had voluntarily entered the Union could voluntarily secede; the winner would get to decide how to interpret the Constitution in that respect. And the Confederates lost.
As for West Virginia seceding from Virginia, that was an exceptional case, as the West Virginians were loyalists to the Union and the rest of the Virginians were separatists.
Second, even if this were possible, it could backfire by prompting a potential backlash by liberal metropolitan communities in predominantly red states.
I don' think it established a precedent. Technically at the time West Virginia became a state, Virginia claimed to be a state in the Confederate States of America not the United States. If Virginia was not a state in the United States, there is no precedent. It potentially would have been possible for Virgina to have protested the breakoff of West Virginia from it, but that would have been hypcritical. If Virgina had the right to secede from the US, then West Virgina had a right to secede from Virgina.
Atlanta is different case from the others, some places in and around Atlanta are VERY conservative, there is one place near Atlanta where by law you HAVE TO own a gun.
When I was discussing politics with my university friends, I brought up the idea of a "responsibility-to-carry" Amendment.
Not very popular.
As for West Virginia seceding from Virginia, that was an exceptional case, as the West Virginians were loyalists to the Union and the rest of the Virginians were separatists.
You are arguing against yourself. On one hand you argue that it was not constitutional to withdraw from the union and on the other you argue that since the people of West Virginia didn't agree with the rest of the state, they could do so, also in violation of the Constitution. The Constitution requires that a state legislature give it's approval before any part of that state can withdraw to form a new state or join another state, yet West Virginia has NEVER gotte that permission. Since Congress never officially recognized that Virginia withdrew from the Union, then they UNCONSTITUTIONALLY allowd West Virginia to become a separate state.
Also, what are the liberals going to do? Say mean things about the people who no longer want to be controlled by them?
We need to destroy them, not merely defend against our own destruction. This is how all wars are won.
I also like it because it is completely outside the realm of popularly held possibilities. We are mired in a bloody trench war in political terms. Huge time and resources are expended to make the smallest of advances, only to have those advances lost in coming elections.
We need to flank these bastards. If nothing else you are thinking correctly and encouraging others to do the same.
MDP
All right; let me clarify.
That the Union won the Civil War established that States could not secede from the Union. Thus, Virginia seceding from the Union was unconstitutional, and the loyalists in West Virginia merely stayed in the Union.
The question was whether one's primary loyalty should be to State or to country, and the result of the Civil War established the latter. West Virginia was faced with a choice between fulfilling its Constitutional obligation to the rest of the State and fulfilling its Constitutional obligation to the nation. By the precedent established by the Civil War, West Virginia therefore was vindicated in doing the latter.
Of course, I'm talking in retrospect. Had the Confederacy won the Civil War, it might be a different story. And I'm speaking from a strictly legal standpoint. At least a few Southerners would make the case that the concept of the Confederation (slavery aside, obviously) had the moral high ground. What moral position do I take? Neither. I am neither Northerner nor Southerner but a descendant of late 19th-century immigrants, and I choose to remove myself from this sticky debate and proudly proclaim my allegiance to the United States and then my love for Florida.
All right. I'll give that to you.
If Congress and West Virginia do not have to follow the rules regarding statehood, then neither should the people of western Pennsylvania or eastern Washington.
Here's where I disagree with you. If anything, the existence of WV as a State should be declared unconstitutional and it should be reunited with Virginia. If we follow a course of action that involves splitting NY, WA, or PA, then we've essentially rendered our Constitution worthless.
Not that the Federal Courts don't already do this. But as Conservatives, we should keep the moral high ground in terms of our Constitutionist doctrines.
I agree, but since we both know that isn't going to happen, then we only need to demand equal treatment as provided for under the Constitution.
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