Slovenia wasn't just hinting about leaving, the choice was made a year before we actually seceeded; voter turnout at the plebiscite was 93.2 percent, with 88.2 percent voting for an independent and sovereign Slovenia.
It's not like we didn't try to do things politically before, for the better part of the 80's we tried to change yugoslavia into a confederation. Slovenia couldn't last in a federation anymore, certain generals were making statemens like "we'll move all the slovenians into kosovo and vice versa". An ancient nation like ours couldn't be forced into another millenia of being subjugated to another nation.
Yugoslavian army prepared for war, we just beat them at their own game... for us sending even more yugoslav troops into Slovenia was a definite threath to our independence.
All in all, it could have been better, yugoslav army could have just respected our desire for independence... but it also could have been worse, for example if those planes which were sent to bombard Ljubljana actually came to Slovenia (which they didn't, cause mesic stopped the planes and recalled them back to their airports, otherwise the civilian casualties would have been much worse).
Yugoslavia was nearly unbearable in the last years, it wasn't the politicians who had the actual control, it was the army; army generals who only knew how to make theaths. The first shots between TO (slovenian territorial defence) and JNA were fired at Pekre (TO's study centre) long before the war even began.
http://www.uvi.si/10years/path/chronology/ <----read the first part and you'll understand a part of the reason why Yugoslavia fell apart
The American South wanted to break from the Federal govt as well - I would be a hypocrite as an American to then state that the Yugoslavs had no right to try and prevent the secession of the various states that made up Yugoslavia.
And just like in America - the secessionists fired first.