Posted on 04/05/2010 5:15:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
Ten years ago I asked the following question in a column titled "It's Time To Part Company":
"If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"
The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact and one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.
I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them.
The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.
You say, "Williams, what do you mean by constitutional abrogation?" Let's look at just some of the magnitude of the violations.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Looks good, except if Greater Texas is going to include most of Canada, please, please, let Quebec go its own way or join up with “Chicagostonia” (for that matter, give them urban Ontario as well).
I've been making this same argument.
For one thing, there would probably be a mass exodus from left-leaning states to liberty loving ones.
Presently, SCOTUS precedent makes it quite difficult for states to have laws that have the effect of discouraging people from moving in. This would have to change or be worked around.
Basically, liberty-loving Free states would have to find ways to make themselves unattractive or unaccessible to those who worship statism.
For the most part, this could be easily accomplished by offering only minimal government services, emphasizing open carry, scrapping federal-style government schools for a system based 100% on school vouchers, scrapping most public transportation unless truly wanted by the state's citizens, relying on private charity to address most needs of the state's poor (except for the generational welfarists that would have to be grandfathered in to remain on the federal dole), and allow citizens to vote to severely restrict abortion if they so choose.
Oh, and the welfare states could pass laws that for five years after you move out of state, you still owe that state certain taxes. Five years should be enough for the statists to either convert to freedom or decide to return to the socialist womb.
Not just that. Just a few years back, Czkeckoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic without any bloodshed in a nice civilized manner. A few years before that the former republics of the former USSR, split into their individual 15 independent republics like Georgia, Azerbaijan , Turkmenistan etc, without that much trouble. So it can be done.
” Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally.”
Been known to happen.
A return to federalism is the only way to bridge this great divide. We are at a point in history where the argument for federalism has never been greater. It is not just about a philosophy of government. It is integral to preserving the union.
I hope to dear God that the Supreme Court Justices begin to understand that reality.
bookmark
Bump for later reading
But this wouldn't be a problem so long as the freeloader states did not have the power to confiscate money from the free states.
IOW, if we returned to federalism and there was very little money flowing out of the federal trough to the states, states that wanted to could continue to try socialism -- it's just that the difference would be they'd literally have to pay their own way for it, every penny.
Now some states with a whole bunch of very, very wealthy people might be able to make it for a while. But if not, so what? The citizens of that state would have to make changes. The key is that we have to change the fact that our country now runs on a Rob Peter to Pay Paul gambit.
I don’t.
I want to see the demise of the unwarranted federal Leviathon. I want to see states that have to mostly pay their own way for the services provided their citizens. This is the only way to keep the federal government from gobbling up EVERYTHING and redistributing it as it sees fit.
It sounds like a good idea in theory, but does the Constitution have a provision for such a thing?
A very thoughtful post. Thanks.
Quebec should definitely be its own nation. It has nothing in common with any other place in North America.
Why not? Surely, that would be the best thing not just for us, but for the Lefties too. It would certainly be more democratic. As it is now, we get in power and impose our beliefs on them against their will. Then they get into power and do the exact same thing. Letting Massachusetts control Texas or vice-versa really isn’t governing by the “consent of the governed.”
To keep (or at least discourage) the freeloaders from moving into free states, the free states should carefully amend their constitutions to have as ironclad as possible provisions against enacting anything that even smells like socialism from 200 miles away.
IOW, proactively keep out socialism. Even just a balanced budget requirement, as most states have, could keep in check a lot of fiscal mischief. Without moola, the Libs have very little influence on policy.
The only reason Obambi has been able to take over healthcare is because he's got those groves of Obambimoney trees -- you know, his stash -- out behind the White House where he can just pick trillion dollars off the the branches any time he wants.
I think the philosophy of conservatism makes it uniquely possible for people to live together in harmony. We could live peaceably with the urban welfare generationalists while the nature of cities and how the needs of the truly poor were addressed evolved as the state became more free and, thus, more wealthy.
This is an impressive map, but there is no reason to give away so much of Virginia. Absolutely none of the Shenandoah Valley should be given away. It is a very Southern region culturally. Just give away the three or four counties in the very north of the state that are clearly entirely suburbs of D.C. I personally wouldn’t give away any of West Virginia either. If this new country joins with part of Canada, it really should just join with the prairie provinces, as these are the only parts of Canada that are culturally and politically similar to us.
Difference, though, is that those countries were not great military powers, much less superpowers, much less the world's only superpower.
I shudder to think of a world in which the United States is unable to project its superior military power.
That said, if the split was a "virtual" one -- where, because of a return to federalism, states were allowed to reinvent themselves in their own image -- the union would be preserved and the one great task of the federal government would be to focus on national security and military defense.
And what we have today works?????
The country is already separated politically ... and it will never change. It should be separated nationally.
Another good way of saying that a return to federalism is the only way to bridge this divide AND preserve the union, quite nicely, too.
no, I’m on your side. I’d rather not see the destruction of the US.
I’d prefer we defeat the left with the ballot box and far greater states rights. Problem is, the political party that represents us are a bunch of limp wrists.
The Republican party needs to start kicking ass instead of kissing ass. Where the hell is the fight in our party? I don’t even refer to myself as a Republican any more. People ask ( as if they can’t figure it put ) and I tell them I am a Conservative.
The Northeastern libs flee Massachusetts at the first available opportunity because they don’t like the high taxes.
Vast numbers of Conservatives have left my state of Massachusetts as well. I’ve met many of them, I know quite a few of them. One family member is gone and two more will be joining him in two years time. All three are Conservative.
Just a couple years ago the Massachusetts Republican Party learned that 35,000 REGISTERED party members had left the state. No telling the exact number of people who have left who identified themselves as members of the GOP.
These people continue to vote for the right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.