Archive for the ‘secession’ Tag
Hello. This is Brad. Lela is editing a book preparatory to launching in November. After spending the last few weeks watching Americans scream at each other, I received this funny in my email, sent to me by a friend with an odd sense of human. We don’t know where it comes from, but it’s funny and it makes a point that maybe needs making in these days of hate and rage.
Dear American liberals, leftists, statists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, etc:
We have stuck together since the late 1950’s for the sake of the kids, but this latest election has made me realize that we should get a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
Here is a model separation agreement:
–Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking an appropriate portion. We’re happy to give you New England and the West Coast. The good people of New Hampshire obviously will need some time to pack up and move to flyover country, and we’ll give the tenured professors in university towns ample time to relocate in your share of the country.
–We don’t like redistributive taxes and the IRS, so you can keep them.
–You are welcome to the left-wing judges and the ACLU.
–Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
–We’ll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.
–You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.
–We’ll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.
–You can have your beloved welfare grubbers, food stamp recipients, homeless, hippies, druggies, and illegal aliens.
–We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s, and rednecks.
–We’ll keep the Bibles and give you the networks and Hollywood.
–You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.
–You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security.
–We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.
–You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClaine. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.
–We’ll keep the SUV’s, pickup trucks, and full-sized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru, Volvo, and Prius you can find.
–You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
–We’ll continue to believe healthcare is a product of the marketplace and not a right.
–We’ll keep “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The National Anthem.”
–I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute “Imagine”, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, “Kum Ba Ya” or “We Are the World”.
–We’ll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.
–Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag.
I’m from New Hampshire. I grew up there. So I’m going to argue for it to remain with the red states. And, I think Alaskans will demand visitation rights with the Subarus. But otherwise — yeah, it’s about right.
When a marriage devolves to this much vitriol, it really is time to consider dissolution before and as an alternative to a murder-suicide.
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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/12/walter-e-williams/independence-hypocrisy/
Officials in Catalonia, Spain’s richest and most highly industrialized region, whose capital is Barcelona, recently held a referendum in which there was a 92 percent vote in favor of independence from Spain. The Spanish authorities opposed the referendum and claimed that independence is illegal. Catalans are not the only Europeans seeking independence. Some Bavarian people are demanding independence from Germany, while others demand greater autonomy. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled: “In the Federal Republic of Germany … states are not ‘masters of the constitution.’ … Therefore, there is no room under the constitution for individual states to attempt to secede. This violates the constitutional order.”
Germany has done in Bavaria what Spain and Italy, in its Veneto region, have done; it has upheld the integrity of state borders. There is an excellent article written by Joseph E. Fallon, a research associate at the UK Defence Forum, titled “The Catalan Referendum, regional pressures, the EU, and the ‘Ghosts’ of Eastern Europe” (http://tinyurl.com/y8dnj6s6). Fallon writes that by doing what it’s doing in Bavaria, “Berlin is violating international law on national self-determination. It denies to Bavaria what it granted to the 19 states that seceded from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. In fact, Germany rushed to be first to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.” It did that, according to Beverly Crawford, an expert on Europe at the University of California, Berkeley, “in open disregard of (a European Community) agreement to recognize the two states under EC conditionality requirements.”
The secessionist movements in Spain, Germany and Italy have encountered resistance and threats from the central governments, and in Catalonia’s case, secessionist leaders have been jailed. The central governments of Spain, Germany and Italy have resisted independence despite the fact that they are signatories to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which holds that “all peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
American Contempt for …Walter E. WilliamsBest Price: $8.71Buy New $13.10(as of 06:35 EST – Details)
Fallon notes the hypocrisy of Spain, Germany and Italy, as well as the entire European Union. Back in 1991, the EC — the precursor to the EU — “issued its conditions for recognizing the unilateral declarations of independence by states seceding from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.” Fallon argues that these same guidelines should be applied to the states of Catalonia, Bavaria and Veneto. Isn’t it double talk for members of the EU to condemn independence movements today, given that they welcomed and supported independence movements for states that were members of the communist bloc?
Catalonia, Bavaria and Veneto are relatively prosperous jurisdictions in their countries. They feel that what they get from the central governments is not worth the taxes they pay. Each wants the central government off its back. They think they could be far more prosperous on their own. That should sound familiar. Some of the motivation for secessionist movements in Europe is similar to the motivation found in the Confederacy’s independence movement of the early 1860s.
Throughout most of our nation’s history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. In the 1830s, the North used its power in Congress to push through massive tariffs to fund the government. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. The Southern states were primarily producers of agricultural products, which they exported to Europe. In return, they imported manufactured goods. These tariffs fell much harder upon the export-dependent South than they did upon the more insular North. In 1859, Southern ports paid 75 percent of federal tariff revenue. However, the majority of the tariff revenue generated was spent on projects that benefited the North.
Tariffs being a contributing cause of the Civil War is hardly ever mentioned. Using the abolition of slavery as an excuse for a war that took the lives of 620,000 Americans confers greater moral standing for the Union.
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Happy Secession Day! Yes, this is the day we celebrate the American secession from the British Empire. History calls it Independence Day, but in reality, it was a secessionist movement. It’s also often ignored that it was, by and large, a movement of the faithful. Yes, Thomas Jefferson had a list of grievances and they didn’t include religious oppression, but John Adams said that the religious hegemony of the Anglican Church, as required by the British Empire, was just as much a reason for rebellion as taxation, quartering, etc.
Which is not to say that I want to force anyone to believe what I believe, simply that I acknowledge that the liberty America aspired to was based in Christian concepts and I think others ought to be aware of that.
So, this video was sent to me by Off the Grid News. They claim it was banned from Facebook. I don’t know and don’t really care. We’ll see if it slips past the censors on my page. It describes how Christian liberty informed the secession movement of America independence. It’s a little rah-rah-flag-waving, which I don’t like, but it’s mostly true, which I do like. I can’t find anything in it worth of censure, unless you are a true believer in the State.
http://thelostsecretsofliberty.com/?utm_source=OTGN_TopRight_LSOL_Flag&utm_medium=OTGN_TopRight_LSOL_Flag
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Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel. Leaves driftin’ on by, you know how I feel. With the serving of Article 50, Brexit becomes a legal fact.
When it comes to the media, though, I’m in a distinct minority. Our public discourse on Brexit is angry, discordant and, above all, morose. We’re often told that Leavers and Remainers have little in common – but judged solely by their online debates, they’re united in their grumpiness.
Britain grew more strongly in the six months after the vote than in the six months before it.
It’s fair enough for online Remainers to be in a strop, I suppose. They lost narrowly and unexpectedly and, frankly, I’d like to see much more acknowledgment of the closeness of the result. But that doesn’t explain why their mood has worsened as the economic climate has improved.
In the aftermath of the vote, many of my Remainer friends were genuinely worried about an abrupt economic shock. In a lot of cases, indeed, this was their chief reason for having voted to stay in.
And in fairness, it wasn’t just the Remain campaign that prophesied frogs and locusts. Most academic economists, along with the Treasury, the Bank of England, the IMF and the OECD, forecast an immediate downturn as a result of a Leave vote.
In the event, all these organisations have since been scrabbling to revise their predictions upwards, and you can see why. Britain grew more strongly in the six months after the vote than in the six months before it, and ended 2016 as the world’s most successful major economy. Employment, investment, share prices, retail activity, manufacturing output and exports are all rising.
In the real world, most of the 48 percent have breathed a sigh of relief and, if opinion polls are to be believed, there would be a slightly larger Leave vote today.
But the remains of Remain, the irreconcilable Europeans, are behaving like doomsday cultists, constantly deferring the date of the coming apocalypse. Being cultists, they can’t quite hide the fact that they relish the prospect of obliteration – however unappealing that attitude is to everyone else.
Not that they are alone in their gloom. There are plenty of Leavers who, after years of defeat and marginalization, simply can’t take yes for an answer. Again, these are loudest online, but a fair number of them are trying to breathe new life into UKIP as a vehicle for the permanently outraged.
Natural despondency is exaggerated by cognitive dissonance – that is, by an unconscious determination to fit facts to your opinions.
Like the Remainer residue, they absolutely refuse to infer anything from the fact that their previous predictions were too pessimistic, moving glibly from one failed forecast to the next: “Cameron won’t give us a referendum!” “Vote Leave won’t win!” “Theresa May won’t trigger Article 50!” “It won’t be a proper Brexit!”
Why such sulking? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that we’re seeing an internal character trait rather than a response to external circumstances.
There were one or two Eurosceptics – I can’t deny it – whose hostility to the EU is an aspect of their hostility to life in general. They loathe Eurocrats, just as they loathe politicians, their boss and their ex-wife. Equally, there are some Remainers whose Europeanism was motivated from the start by a lack of confidence in the United Kingdom.
In the latter case, natural despondency is exaggerated by cognitive dissonance – that is, by an unconscious determination to fit facts to your opinions rather than the other way around. The more emotionally invested you were in Remain, the more you will subliminally block out reports that contradict your prejudices (that is, good economic news) and over-emphasise reports that sustain them (bad economic news).
You might, of course, accuse me of being subject to a confirmation bias of my own – though I try to guard against it. Still, be fair: which side’s predictions have so far proved more correct?
Not that pessimism is a Brexit-specific phenomenon. Forecasts are more often too gloomy than too hopeful. Irrational anxiety is an ingrained human trait, an inheritance from our hunter-gatherer past. As I wrote on CapX last year:
On the savannahs of Pleistocene Africa, pessimism was a survival mechanism. Our ancestors lived in a world of constant danger and violence: strangers were more likely to be a threat than an opportunity. Hopeful and trusting souls were less likely to survive.
If you doubt it, listen to the way the worst construction is put on every possible Brexit outcome.
If, for example, we plan to scrap a regulation, we are “taking away protections”. If we keep it, we might as well have stayed in the EU. The idea that it will be our decision, that we are a robust democracy, perfectly capable of running our affairs, doesn’t get a hearing.
Indeed, the real miracle is that this pessimism is not more widespread. The general population are more resilient than opinion-formers like to tell themselves. Offline, most Remainers, like most Leavers, want the best outcome for Britain.
If ever you find yourself confusing social media with public opinion, look at what Edmund Burke had to say about Twitter back in 1791:
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field
Source: Brexit Is Happening – So Let’s All Cheer up about It | Daniel Hannan
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Congratulations, America, we now look like a Middle Eastern country. Street mobs are tearing apart some of our cities, trying to bring down a president they refuse to accept. An ex-Obama official is calling for a military coup. This sure looks like a color revolution.
The street rioters are pissed off because they apparently just recently discovered that the United States is not a democracy, but a federal republic. Donald Trump won the presidential election honestly, according to the Constitution … and that’s a good thing. Hillary Clinton is a bad person who should not be allowed anywhere near power. We should know that from the advice she gave Obama while Secretary of State … advice that she is proud of giving. I know this because I read her book Tough Choices. She’s thrilled by what she wrought in Libya. She encouraged the ravishing of Yemen. She was the architect of Obama’s red line in Syria.
But, the street rioters are so determined to have the tyranny of democracy that they want to force a military coup and install Clinton as a dictator … forgetting that half the country is just as firm that they don’t want her … and they followed the long-standing rules of our nation to elect someone other than her.
So, is there a viable solution to this drive for half of the country to tyrannize the other half the country in regular cycles?
Yes. Have you heard that California hs discussing secession? Apparently, the movement is gaining momentum. Yay! Let’s hope it’s ultimately successful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah … “conventional wisdom” since Lincoln subjugated the South is that states are not morally and legally entitled to secede from the Union. That’s NONSENSE!
The historical truth is that secession is as American as apple pie. These United States were founded in secession. Had the original 13 colonies not seceded from England, there would have been no independent country that we now recognize as America. Go read the Declaration of Independence. Do you honestly think that the same people who took up arms to secede from England then chose to make it impossible for a state to secede from what came out of that secession?
Californians have a right to secede. So do Alaskans, New Hampshiremen, Texans …. “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, …”
Furthermore, if Californias are so certain that President Donald Trump is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, then they should secede. It is as immoral for them to subject themselves and their children to the rule of Hitler as it is immoral for a battered wife and mother to subject herself and her child to the abuse of a tyrannical spouse. There’s the door. Go in peace!
I don’t happen to think Trump is Hitler. I didn’t vote for him, but other than that, most Californian Trump-haters would view me as a “deplorable”. I worship my God by living the lifestyle the Bible prescribes and I will not comply with demands that I violate God’s commands to make mere humans “happy”. I think my money does me (and the world) more good when I control it than when the government controls it. I am not a Trump supporter, but I’m definitely not a Clinton supporter. I like the Constitution and I think we ought to follow it. What would result wouldn’t look much like the America we live in now, but it would be a worthwhile country to live in.
But that country can never exist so long as anti-American Californians (and other blue staters) are demanding their anti-Constitutional positive “rights”. There’s no possibility of rational dialogue and increasingly even peaceful co-existence looks impossible. Two Americas exist – One is inhabited by people who voted for Donald Trump and those who didn’t vote for him, but support the basic system that elected him. The other half views the traditionalists as nothing more than foaming-at-the-mouth fascists. How can we ever come together if half of the country is bent on subjugating the other half? We who would be part of that subjugated class should do whatever we can to help these new-born secessionists to realize their dream of an independent California.
I doubt California will actually secede, simply because their huge welfare state requires a lot of federal aid, but hopefully, its efforts will get Americans to revisit secession. It’s necessary because as we are facing a color revolution and calls for a military coup are in the air. This topic couldn’t be timelier.
Why is this happening? We’ve reached the inevitable result of the “cultural wars.” If conservative-leaning Americans needed evidence that the cultural wars have given way to a philosophical divide headed toward actual civil war, events surrounding the candidacy and election of Trump have supplied it. You don’t have to love Trump to see what’s on the horizon. The problem isn’t Trump. If the rioters win and they install Hillary in his place, do they assume the violence will stop. I suspect not. People have a right to self-defense, whether that’s against a thug in an alley who wants their wallets or a leftist-led military coup.
What is occurring now is not a peaceful protest against a president half the voters didn’t choose. That’s what the Tea Party did in 2009 when Obama took over the entire government and hijacked the American dream to advance his socialist agenda. They gathered peacefully to wave signs and shout slogans and then went home to live their lives amid the wreckage that president foisted upon them. What’s happening in 2017 is a color revolution seeking a military coup. Hordes of leftist agitators have gradually ramped up their assault on those they disagree with. They started with trying to intimidate Trump voters with verbal and physical abuse, sometimes using weapons. After Trump was elected, the size and hostility of the street mobs expanded. Private property has been destroyed and more innocents have been harmed under the pretext of “protesting” Trump. Peaceful protesters don’t smash windows and set cars on fire. They don’t march down the middle of the street blocking traffic. These organized orgies of psychological warfare, property damage, and overt violence aren’t going to stop anytime soon because those who participate in them reject civil discourse and social harmony. Looking at the history of other countries who have gone through this, there are only four possible ways forward.
Conservatives and others who do not consider themselves leftists could surrender totally to leftist rule – don’t vote and resign yourself and your children to living in a socialist-communist country. That was the old-style Christian way of handling tyranny. It wasn’t fun, there were periodic purges and persecutions, but it has historically been one way to handle immoral government … just ignore it and hope it doesn’t notice you.
Civil war is a definite possibility. I don’t like it as an option because innocent people get killed along with the tyrants, but the fact is a lot of innocent people are being hurt and harrassed simply because they didn’t support Hillary Clinton for president. At some point, those people should have a right to self-defense. If a military coup is declared, we must either choose to fight or choose to be subjugated. There’s no middle ground.
Secession is a peaceful way for Americans with conflicting moralities to avert war by going their separate ways. Yeah, dissolving the United States of America is a radical approach to avoid bloodshed, but that’s better than a shooting war. We could still be friendly neighbors without all the fighting. The blues could live how they want and the reds could live how they want and we wouldn’t need to be at each other’s throats.
Is is still possible to restore the Constitutional republic that the Framers intended? I don’t know. I’d like to believe it is, but it would require us to abandon the imperial presidency and return all but the small handful of responsibilities that the Constitution assigns to the federal government to the states. Slaying the Leviathan created by Democratic and Republican politicians and refashioning our government so that it is in accord with the Constitution would allow the citizens of the states to enjoy freedom like none of us alive today has experienced. Of course, the leftists consider not having control over their fellow citizens to be hell on earth, so they will fight that restoration with every molitov cocktail they lay their hands on.
They also would probably fight secession by the “red” states because they are certain they and only they should be in control and I think they recognize that the cities would need the “red” states’ resources if they hoped to survive. They’re not going to give that up. Which leaves civil war as the most likely scenario. This is what a color revolution looks like, folks. Color revolutions lead to civil wars or dictatorship.
God help us … and what are we the people going to do about it?
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From Twitter – “Anarchy might work for small, isolated communities, but it can’t work for a nation of 350 million.”
Probably true. So why aren’t we discussing an amicable divorce?
The most enduring relationship most of us experience, the one conventional wisdom insists we can’t question, is the political one that binds us to everyone else around us. We are born into this relationship and we’re expected to die in it. I can be amancipated from my parents, divorce my husband, disown my kids, tell my boss I got another job, and drop my dog at the pound. I’m allowed to move to another neighborhood, but I am still forced to accept the political choices of people I’ve never met, who may live thousands of miles away, and those choices affect my life. We don’t choose our political system, which does not take into account our personal preferences. It’s a forced betrothal to hundreds of millions of people who are unable to go our separate ways, even if we hate one another. It’s like being trapped in an abusive marriage from which there is no escape. We see the fruits of that abuse all around us, especially right now as people take to the streets insisting that they will not recognize the outcome of the 2016 election.
The teaparty movement protested President Obama’s policies and it earned them the label of “deplorable”. This current protest movement wants the election results set aside and I know people who are cheering them on.
But let’s be honest, folks. For every person who fears there is no place for them in Trump’s America, there’s another person who fears there is no place for them in Clinton’s America. And, neither one of them is necessary delusional. The last eight years should have taught conservatives that liberal progressives want them muted and isolated. Now they are afraid conservatives will now have the power to do the same to them. It is an entirely abusive relationship. So, why are we forced to stay with our abusive political spouse?
As you wander around during your day, take note at how civil people are when they are not bound to one another. People freely interact socially and economically … or not … in relative peace and courtesy. If I don’t like you or the way you do business, I don’t associate with you. We’re polite strangers, happy in our separateness. Despite the media hype, the incidents of random strangers just going ballistic on other random strangers is actually pretty low.
Until we get to politics.
Political ideas often go right to the core of people because they are key parts of our identity, making them extremely important to us. Yet in politics you are prevented from solely interacting with, and building a community with people who have similar values and political ideas. We are forced to live under ideas that we may find repulsive or even inhuman.
Just some quick examples:
- Slaveholders were forced to live in the same nation as abolitionists
- Pro-lifers who think abortion is murder of unborn children are expected to pay taxes that pro-choicers use to fund abortions
- Conservatives and progressives are expected to somehow find a middle ground even though both of them consider that middle ground to be the antithesis of what they believe in
- Individualists are expected to give up their individual goals and aspirations to whatever the collectivists want
- Pro-liberty people are expected to accept the dictates of statists.
- Trump crazies and Clinton lunatics are expected to get along after a close election decided who would be President.
Why do we need to submit to people and ideas that go against our own convictions?
I don’t necessarily think people I disagree with are evil, but I don’t want to live my life in ways that I disagree with, so why can’t I simply go my own way?
What would happen if every region, state, city, and individual were allowed the freedom to be a part of a society based around their own values and those of like-minded people?
Well, the animosity that builds as a result of having to tolerate and accept ideas which we perceive as wrong or harmful would largely disappear. Yeah, we would still not like people, and their ideas might still bother us, but we wouldn’t have to live with them, and we wouldn’t be subjected to their political force.
I believe in secession. Historically such movements were simply groups of people who were unsatisfied with the existing political order and wished to go their separate ways, so they severed political ties with an entity or group they no longer wished to associate with. We do it in marriages, churches … heck, the American Revolution, the Texas Revolution, the Hartford Convention were all historical examples that public school said we should smile upon. Our most modern example is the secession of the UK from the European Union. So why is it considered so controversial that we can’t even discuss it in the political realm?
Of course, someone will always bring up the Southern States’ attempt to leave the Union as THE example of secession and how it is very, very bad, but in truth, secession is merely an idea of people building a political and economic order more in line with their values.
This election should have provided sufficient evidence of the necessity of the principle of secession. The amount of hostility around the candidates and their supporters has brought the political order to a breaking point. We are currently experiencing more opposition, denial, and disgust than at any time since 1860. And we all know how that one ended.
Take a pause. Consider this. How did that one end? Yeah. Not pretty.
So why is it so crazy to think that maybe people should be allowed to set up political and governance systems more in tune with what they hold dear? What do we gain from forcibly binding together people who agree on virtually nothing and whose interactions are increasingly filled with pure hatred?
It is entirely possible that 320 million people will never be able to live amicably together and we’re just waking up to that fact as we reach that tipping point.
We could still be friends … trading partners, maybe work out a mutually agreeable foreign policy … but we should know by now that one half of the country telling the other half of the country to sit down and shut up while the “winners” decide what will be the rule of law for every one is going to lead to civil war.
Wouldn’t it be better if we admitted we can’t agree and stopped trying to force each other to see it our way?
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It’s been 25 years since the remnants of communist Europe shattered and the pieces of the former Yugoslavia began eating one another. It was then that some political science or talking head coined the phrase “balkanization” to neatly encapsulate what was occurring.
The word is still used today by media pundits and foreign policy politicians with dread dripping from their voices. We are told we should fear the “balkanization” of many countries — the Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the European Union … the United States. I’m going to assert that is a wrong-headed phobia that should be reconsidered.
Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it.
Balkanization has proven to be a great blessing rather than a curse. The breaking of large nations or collectives of nations, like the European Union today, has proven the solution to myriad problems. Consider the British vote to exit the EU. It has the potential of forcing Scotland to choose to exist Great Britain, so we’re warned that this is “balkanization”. Cue the scary music. But, take moment to think this through. When people feel oppressed by a large governing authority, peaceful independence and continued amicable relations from that authority would seem to be the better alternative to eventual armed rebellion.
Consider the United States. Yeah, yeah, I’m not a mystery. We all know how I feel about secession. But consider this. When our nation was founded, Washington was small and close to most Americans. Had there been cars and good highways back then, you could have visited the capitol in less than a day from when you decided to set out. The federal government at the time was tiny and limited. Today, Washington is a remote imperial city that looks down on the governed and tramples the rights of those subjects and their dis-empowered state governments. It acts an awful like like England did toward its colonies in North America 240 years ago.
Absent a return to the constitutional structures that limit what the federal government and Congress may do and makes the federal government subservient to the states, the “balkanization” of America is the only real solution to the problems we face. That could mean a formal separation of our nation into regional political units or the decentralization of federal power by moving some aspects of it to places other than Washington DC. What if Congress were held in Wichita, Kansas? The regulatory agencies could relocate to Little, Rock. The president could stay in DC, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff ought probably to be moved to Colorado Springs.
No, I am not joking.
Balkanization also provides the solution to many thorny international problems.
Iran is an empire with many oppressed nationalities within its administratively created borders.. Fracture this empire, the power of the mullahs who run it would be dramatically weakened. The new nations freed from the yoke of Persian rule might even choose to be friends of their liberators and defenders.
Iraq is also an empire that logically ought to be three separate and consequently more peaceful states. How much blood, treasure, and influence has America spent to keep this artificial creature, “Iraq,” a single unhappy nation? Balkanize Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and possibly Turkey and a lot of the reason for fighting in the Middle East becomes moot.
Kurdistan, which doesn’t exist right now, would have an estimated population of 28 million, if carved from the lands in all four of these empires. The Kurds have no plans for a caliphate that will stretch to wherever Muslims live. If we are going to champion causes that don’t ultimately concern us, why don’t we champion their cause? Well, that would be balkanization! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears!
Pakistan is also an empire with a number of different ethnic groups and languages. That internal tension makes Pakistan inherently unstable. I’m old enough to remember when Bangladesh was “East Pakistan,” half of this artificial nation, which felt, rightly, oppressed by “West Pakistan.” The successful rebellion of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh reduced tensions on the Indian Subcontinent. Truthfully, India is more an empire than a true nation, hence the problems with Sikhs and minorities in Kashmir and elsewhere.
Indonesia is an entirely artificial creature of Java hegemony over a vast archipelago that has more distinct language groups than any nation on earth. Burma is essentially an empire. Most of Asia is a collection of empires that force different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups into a state that is simply the residue of old European colonial borders. Yeah, China is an empire with diverse ethnic groups that don’t like one another all that much.
Nigeria is another large empire, creating natural tensions among the tribal and religious groups dividing this artificial country into several parts. The Congo is an empire of many tribes and languages. Angola is an empire. Indeed, most of the larger nations of sub-Saharan Africa are simply empires with ruling tribes and religions. Take a look at a world map sometime and note all the countries with straight line borders. Those are all artificial creations based on some treaty drawn up in Europe or the UN. Giving these peoples their own nations naturally removes a major cause of discontentment and makes true peace easier to obtain.
Some nations have resolved their problems of empire by the mutual consent of the different regions in the nation. Switzerland is a confederacy that is not really a federal state. Language and religion are allowed to be determined by cantons. Belgium exists because the Flemish and Walloon nationalities are content with that nation. Canada accommodates the Quebecois to keep them in Canada.
What America ought to do in the world is to champion (which doesn’t mean we have to go to war) those peoples trapped in empires. This will weaken those empires and reduce the source of conflicts in the world.
There was a time when the United States was the champion of the oppressed, but that designation went away when we became an empire ourselves. What do the majority of Alaskans have in common with the majority of New Yorkers?
Yeah, hear the crickets? Take a look at the United States map and see how many, particularly western states, have straight-line borders. Welcome to the Empire!
A shared affection of the Statue of Liberty or the Brooklyn Bridge is not sufficient reason for Alaska to continue to submit to oppression by the federal government. I would love to be able to visit New York and I’m sure my husband would like to be able to visit his birth-state of New Hampshire or his parents in Texas and Hawaii, but that ability does not require that Alaska be a state under the thumb of Washington. We already have to use a passport to go to the Lower 48, so it’s really no big deal. Some states would choose to get along if our friendship weren’t forced, but because that “cooperation” is at the point of a gun, it is becoming increasingly likely that we won’t break up in a friendly fashion. I don’t doubt that we will break up. I just prefer that we do it peacefully.
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It’s been an interesting weekend for a political rodeo fan.
On Friday, I watched illegal immigrants and Sanders supporters riot in California and this morning Reuters (a news organization I generally find to be balanced and less-ideological than American media) questioned whether Trump’s supports with evangelicals is softening. Additionally, it would appear that Bernie Sanders is attempting to push a contested convention for the Democrats.
First, riots have not worked out well in the past for the rioters. In 1968, violent protests outside of the Democratic National Convention riveted the news makers and caused a sea shift in the Democratic Party that made my father, a lifelong Democratic party regular, to consider voting Republican for the first time in his life. He found himself unable to support the platform of the party in 1972. Dad passed that summer, so didn’t have to make a decision, but my brother did. Watching the violent riots outside of the Republican Convention, Bro decided to vote for Nixon … not because he liked Nixon, but because he objected strenuously to violent protests. A lot of people were turned off by McGovern’s lack of strength in dealing with his supporters’ violence and Richard Nixon, possibly one of the least popular and more corrupt presidents of the 20th century, won by a landslide.
Just keep that in mind and consider that violence, while it may feel good, is going to accomplish the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
I’m not surprised that Reuters found evidence that Trump’s supposed evangelical support is softening, because this evangelical is not ever voting for Trump and doesn’t know very many evangelicals who plan to. Just from my own informal polling, Trump lost the Alaska evangelical vote by a wide margin. Of course, we’re a tiny fraction of the population in this extremely secular state, so you can’t extrapolate much from us about the Lower 48, but here’s what I think is going on.
Evangelicals are not stupid (at my church, better than 50% of the adults members are college educated). We recognize that Trump (married how many times and the owner of how many casinos?) is not a Christian evangelical. We don’t agree with him on a host of issues. So, for the most part, we voted for someone else in the primary. I personally see Trump and Hillary as pretty closely aligned on policy statements except for that Trump would impose tariffs in protectionist schemes and, maybe (but probably not) deport illegal immigrants while Clinton already owes her soul to the globalist bankers and appears to prefer illegal immigrants over legal immigrants and Americans (perhaps she believes they would be more biddable).
So, for the intelligent among us, a vote for Hillary or a vote for Trump really gets us to mostly the same place and it’s a place we don’t think we would enjoy.
BUT … evangelicals have (since Reagan) historically voted Republican and so there is a knee-jerk reaction that says if Trump is the nominee, they have to vote for him whether they like him or not. This is a downside to conservativism … a discomfort with taking risks and forging new pathways. They’d rather not vote than vote 3rd party which is FOOLISH, in my opinion.
Check out:
Reformed Party
Libertarian Party
BUT … if there is a contested convention, and the brokered nominee who emerged was an evangelical … they would be much more enthusiastic for Ted Cruz or John Kascic than for Trump. And, personally, I might revise my long-announced plan to vote 3rd party.
So, Bernie wants a contested convention?
For Republicans, provided they can get their poop into a scoop, that’s GREAT news. If the Democrats are as disorganized as they are, GOOD. I have no attachment to either party and I personally hope to see four or more political parties to choose from in 2020 … if the country manages to survive until 2020, because … to be perfectly honest … I think we’re about see a massive civil disunion.
It’s been building for a long time.You could see the seeds of it in 1968, but it goes back further than that to the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. We’ve finally reached a point where I don’t know if we can prevent it … or if we even should try.
The fact is that we as a nation do not agree on the basics anymore, so why is one half trying to force the other half to do what they want? Oh, yeah — the blue cities need the red regions’ resources and they prefer to think of their theft as a democratic movement rather than theft and coercion. But the split is coming, folks, and the next president will have to deal with it.
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I thoroughly agree with this. In my book Life as We Knew It, it takes a nuclear attack to bring us to crisis, but in reality, the weight of our own empire is going to eventually tear us apart … and that’s not a bad thing in the long run. Alaska would certainly be better off if it wasn’t a pretend state of the United States. We’re told we’re not a colony, but we’re not allowed to grow an economy, we have to ask permission of the mother country to sell our resources and we aren’t allowed to pursue our own interests. I’m sure other states feel the same way. Lela
The End is Not Near, It has Begun
By Jack Perry
April 15, 2016
I’ve gotten some emails from folks asking my opinion on “How’s it all going to end?” As in, what major crisis is going to finally cause the American Giant to fall down and go boom? Guess what? There won’t be a major crisis that does it. It’s going to be a slow cascade reaction of crisis and disasters. What’s more, it has already begun. We’ve already seen several of these disasters. More are on the way. The end has begun and is upon us.
Source: The End Is Not Near
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Most of us read the beginning statement of the Declaration of Independence in Government class back in high school. It’s a wonderful statement of political philosophy.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Sometimes, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them to another and to launch out on their own. When they do that, they ought to have a good argument for doing so.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Government exists for protecting the rights best summed up as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (John Locke said “property”, but Thomas Jefferson and his editorial committee wanted to avoid that whole discussion of slavery, so they decided upon “pursuit of happiness”). Government derives its power from the people and so, if the people decide government is no longer serving their rights, they have a right to dissolve those bands. It’s not just their right, it’s their obligation to throw off despotic governments and to provide structures to protect their rights going forward. The Colonies have patiently tried to find common ground with the King of Great Britain, but we have failed. Here is our argument, the evidence of his tyranny.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
King George had suspended the provincial laws in the colonies and expected the colonists to wait until he (or Parliament) got around to deciding what laws would replace them, but it had been several years and so far … crickets.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He expected the legislative bodies of the colonies to meet in places where the people they ruled could not easily attend the meetings and influence the outcomes. I’m a long-long way from Washington DC. How about you?
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Although there have been no state legislatures dissolved, think about Puerto Rico which voted years ago now to become a state, but Congress has refused to take up the issue. Now their government is out of money and about to collapse. Is it possible that one reason for this is that they don’t control their own economic destiny because Congress has refused to allow them to control their own political destiny. And even if they were allowed to become a state, Alaska is a state, but we usually have to ask Congress’ permission for just about anything of value we might want to do. And, let’s remember the 30 state constitutions that were set aside just last week.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
President Obama is not the first president hoping that the legalization of unlawful immigrants will swing voter registration and resultant elections in the direction of his political party. President Reagan tried it too and look how well that worked out.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
King George controlled the colonial judges. Today, someone appears to be buying off the Supreme Court on the issue of health care and for those of you would are so up in arms about the United case, maybe you ought to be asking if money didn’t change hands on that one too.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
Can we say czars? The ACA has created entire new offices within the Department of Social Services. In fact, the federal administration has grown substantially during the Obama presidency.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
The next time you get pulled over by a plain-brown wrapper and talk to a cop wearing kevlar, ask yourself “is this not a standing army among us that we have no consent over?”
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
When the president of the United States is allowed to sign onto treaties without the consent of Congress that obligate us to change our laws and structures within our own borders, we are subject to jurisdictions foreign to our constitution. Remember that when we’re all living nine to a unit in high-rise apartment blocks because of international global warming regulations written into some UN treaty President Obama thought was a great idea and Congress wasn’t allowed to vote on.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: (I live in a huge military town and military helicopters frequently fly over my house, sometimes really low and really slow.).
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: (Military personnel can and have killed civilians in my town and then been tried in military courts without any civilian oversight.)
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: (There’s a new trade law that just gave the president unmatched authority without the advice and consent of Congress).
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: (The ACA is a tax imposing unconstitutionally because the Senate cannot originate spending bills and the House was never allowed to vote on it).
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: (The Patriot Act allowed this. The replacement to the Patriot Act pretends not to allow it. Do you believe that? I don’t).
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences (Could we talk about entrapment here? The only terrorist attacks this government has stopped were ones where federal agents solicited the terrorism, provided the plans and the — so far — non-working bombs.)
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: (Jefferson was alluding to Quebec here, but again, consider Puerto Rico)
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: (How often in the last few years have you thought “That can’t be constitutional?)
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. (Congress might as well be a figurehead government for all the power it has these days.)
You should get my point, but there are more examples that I’m sure you could find parallels for in our own times.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
People are trying to petition for redress, with little or no ability to be heard.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We haven’t exactly gotten to this point yet, but maybe we should. Maybe it is time to be honest about the condition of our country and choose independence. Of course, that holds risks.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
I’m not sure how much sacred honor most of us have left today. As a nation, we’ve been here twice before. It worked out the first time. It didn’t work out the second time. Whoever fires the first shot loses is the general consensus. And I don’t disagree. This battle will not be won with armed conflict, but it might be won with civil disobedience.
So what happens if we keep it non-violent and demand our rights? Well, we’ve been there before too and that worked out pretty well, though we should be prepared for worse than water cannon to be directed at us these days.
The question is — how much do we actually value liberty? It sure looks more like we value comfort and a federal Sugar Daddy to keep us placated more than we value our rights of freedom of speech, religion, self-governance, fair trial, privacy, security in our persons, places and papers … well, pretty much, we have traded liberty for security and getting just about what we deserve.
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aurorawatcherak 