Posted on 11/28/2012 9:42:40 AM PST by Perseverando
For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission, or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.
Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitioners for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United
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That so many men all across the South, upland as well as low country, would fit such a description, is a ridiculous assertion.
My limited understanding is that Obama was elected twice. Now you can be concerned, as I am, that voter fraud was involved. But the fact of the election is, sadly, beyond doubt.
My reference was obviously an assertion of the illegitimacy. What the various boards of election declare, and what I believe, are at odds. But then, I have lost my faith in the system. For me, it is just a matter of whether or not to fight for its restoration (the status quo won’t do), or to decide it is hopeless and to go Galt. I am still deciding.
Though slave owners themselves, the founders would have outlawed it except they knew doing so would threaten the union.
Dredd Scott decision was an aberration
Dredd Scott shows the danger of relying on courts to do the right thing. As the abortion and Obamacare decisions show, blatantly illegal Supreme Court decisions are hardly much of an aberration.
Besides, if you think you have to petition a court to determine what your rights are, you don't have the first clue what the word means. Abortion is murder no matter what five or nine robed clowns say.
That the secessionists of 1860 were slave owners has about as much bearing on secession as the fact the founders were slave owners does on the concept of a constitutional republic.
The fact that you want to enslave people who want a constitutional republic to blue state moochers tells me all I need to know about your political philosophy.
Rather, my hope springs eternal, that when faced with bad results, people will do the right thing. When courts make errors, legislation or amendment can right the wrong, with much less injustice than revolution.
Far from seeking to enslave, I would rather encourage all those who seek a limited republic of enumerated powers to combine to influence at least one political party, and with that party, to influence the government to increase freedom.
A lot of people will define freedom as the right to tell others off and go one's own way unimpeded and unhindered in the world. Fair enough, I guess. It's as good a definition as any, if you keep in mind that establishing one state or nation or federation in place of another isn't creating the libertarian or anarchist ideal. But if you are part of a nation or federation or republic and are working towards some smaller nation or federation or republic of your own, you'll have to work with others in the existing structure to achieve your goal.
That's the basic expected minimum isn't it? But what secessionists seem to want is the emotional thrill of telling their long-time countrymen to ____ off, storming out, and slamming the door on the way. Actual independence is subordinated to the emotional payback of cutting existing ties with a vengeance, and that's usually -- in the 1860s or today -- a recipe for disaster.
I wasn't in favor of the Martin Luther King holiday. I'm still skeptical about whether it's a good idea. But pretty clearly, it makes more sense than a Jefferson Davis Day holiday. We already have holidays commemorating the various wars we fought, especially the war for independence, but a day to remember that if you want to change things, you have to work in some way inside the system with those you disagree with until you achieve your aim, rather than simply take up arms and fight it out, isn't a bad thing. There will be times when taking up arms is necessary. It's not the right way to proceed most of the time, though.
But as I said, for a lot of libertarians and secessionists it isn't the result that matters, it's the emotional thrill of sticking it to one's opponents. That it's precisely the wrong way to achieve one's goal doesn't seem to matter to them.
The only thing I would quibble with is lumping everyone in favor of secession under that label. There are coherent and compelling reasons for Texas, for example, to be its own nation, probably along with several other states. However, the best way for this to be accomplished is with an amicable treaty between two parties where each can achieve their aims.
I have no patience for people who want a war. It is an emotional outburst that demands what can at best only be a pyrrhic victory and at worst simply advances and gives legitimacy to exactly what you are fighting against.
One of the chief obstacles is not the separation agreement, but the lack of political leaders who will set a different direction than where we are headed already. There is little reason to separate from the clearly insane and immoral democrats only to be led by feckless and cowardly republicans continually "compromising" with them.
If you or I were alive in 1860 and concerned about what we've come to call human rights or individual rights we might very well have stayed with the union, rather than embracing secession.
In my estimation, those roles are almost completely reversed.
Texas as an independent republic was a failed state.
Sam Houston thought it would fail and nearly immediately asked for annexation by the US, and was turned down. After its few years of independence it had debts that it couldn’t pay, and Texas again asked to be annexed. As part of its annexation, Texas had its unpaid and unpayable debts taken over by the US. Then, after the Mexican American war, the US took over the debts of Mexico, as well as paying 15 million dollars, to include claims by Mexico against Texas that were unpaid.
The instrument of enslavement for the poor whites of the south was the federal Militia Act of 1795.
State laws amplified the submission of southern citizens to the Slave Power.
Hardly -- Texas was largely populated from Tennessee. Wanting to join the union in 1836 was a no brainer.
Mexico was a continuing threat solved by annexation. Any debts claimed by Mexico were just a pretext for an invasion.
All of this is irrelevant to the situation today. Claiming the world's 14th largest economy can't stand on its own is idiotic. A lot economically smaller states than Texas could easily be viable on their own.
Smaller nations can not stand by themselves next to larger nations, absent unusual good will or strategic value. That is why the European Union has people who support it: What viability has Luxembourg or Belgium without its position as a border region to prevent friction between Germany and France. What viability has Poland, except as border region between Germany and Russia. When there is no conflict, there is one less reason for the nominally independent border region.
How large is the economy of Texas once you subtract trade with to the US? The ‘customs union’ and economic standards union of the states makes sense. We just have to figure out a way to keep the disadvantage of overgrown federal government from compensating for the advantage of the customs union.
That seems to me to be the problem. One way to address the problem is to resolve the Dem voter fraud Repub voter suppression problem that led to the recent result.
Until we can do that, no state is safe. I am sure the printing presses in Austin can generate enough votes to compensate for any reasonable Republican plurality in the rest of the state.
Solve the problem of voter fraud and we can all be free. Fail to solve it, and noone can be free.
Having settlers come from Tennessee didn’t prevent them from running up debts that the Texas Republic couldn’t pay. My recollection is that there were quite a few immigrants from Germany that settled in Texas. Times were tough in 1840 Germany, and nearly anywhere looked good from that perspective.
Garbage. England is tiny. At one point, it ruled the world. Culture is far more important than size. Israel is tiny and a billion people or more want them all dead.
How large is the economy of Texas once you subtract trade with to the US?
More garbage. There is no reason to think trade with the rest of the US would cease, and even if it did Texas would not simply give up. Political secession does not mean economic secession. The colonies continued to trade with Britain.
One way to address the problem is to resolve the Dem voter fraud Repub voter suppression problem that led to the recent result.
Fraud is an excuse. It can only swing close elections. Voting needs to be reformed. People receiving payment from the government, not working or not paying taxes should not be voting. The democratic party has been importing voters for 50 years and our deficit reflects the payments made to them to buy their votes.
Maybe you haven't been following current events, but the US is running up debts it can't pay either. Texas is in a far better place, as are most of the red states. At some point a lot of states and their citizens are going to get really tired of carrying that debt for the blue state spenders.
Maybe you haven't been following current events, but the US is running up debts it can't pay either. Texas is in a far better place, as are most of the red states. At some point a lot of states and their citizens are going to get really tired of carrying that debt for the blue state spenders.
Texas, as a state has long had a foreign policy that sought more than average federal spending in that state. Ron Paul in particular was the highest ranking Congress critter in bringing earmarks to his district, though he pretended that he didn’t vote for them (swapping votes with others was how he maintained that fiction).
Texas a a state shares in the 16 trillion dollar debt of the US, and the 122 Trillion dollar unfunded liability that is our ‘entitlements’ programs. I know you don’t want to count that.
“Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Tariffs on imports from a Texas Republic would make their products less attractive. Taxes on the citizens of a Texas Republic would reduce their future productivity.
If size doesn’t matter, why would you assert that the 14th largest economy could go it alone?
The point is, Texas tried that, and failed, despite their pretense to ‘superior culture’. Mexico invaded often, and Texas couldn’t enforce their border claims (Nueces vs. Rio Grande) against Mexican invasion. Solving that problem was left to the US after annexation.
Oh no, what would Texas possibly do without the federal government giving Texans' money back to them!
Somehow, I think taking the money from the workers in the state and giving it to the moochers is not the great help to the economy you think it is.
Texas a a state shares in the 16 trillion dollar debt of the US, and the 122 Trillion dollar unfunded liability that is our ‘entitlements’ programs. I know you don’t want to count that.
There comes a point when whether the check is in the mail is irrelevant. Federal insolvency has pretty much become inevitable. Since the fed mandates all those entitlements should Texas secede you would have a choice of getting your first job or leaving the state.
If I owe the bank a thousand dollars I have a problem. If I owe the bank a billion dollars the bank has a problem.
A big wad of phlegm on each package would too. You are simply imagining a scenario because you want it to be true.
Taxes on the citizens of a Texas Republic would reduce their future productivity.
Without the Fed on their back, Texas citizens would be paying fewer taxes.
If size doesn’t matter, why would you assert that the 14th largest economy could go it alone?
Geographic size. Why did you insinuate Texas is small? The point is that it isn't by any metric. But even if it was small, that doesn't mean it couldn't be independent. Ever hear of Singapore?
The point is, Texas tried that, and failed, despite their pretense to ‘superior culture’. Mexico invaded often, and Texas couldn’t enforce their border claims (Nueces vs. Rio Grande) against Mexican invasion. Solving that problem was left to the US after annexation.
So in your mind 2012 Texas is no different from 1840 Texas? Since you are slow, in 1840 Texas had just fought a costly war of independence, had no industry or economy to speak of, was sparsely populated by American citizens who wanted to make their citizenship official again and had a hostile neighbor on their border.
In 2012 Texas alone is a major world economy with large cities, packed with natural resources, and enjoys good relations with its neighbors, even Mexico.
Equating the two situations is just stupid.
Texas has long gotten from the fed govt their own money back, and others states’ money. That would end. Strike 1.
If Texas was not part of the US, there would be a significant and wrenching dislocation of the Texas economy as they had to pay interest on their share of the US debt, pay for US assets being transferred to Texas, not get the continuing payments from the US, and adapt their economy to the new conditions, as well as fund what government functions their Austin kleptocracy wanted to fund. And they would have to borrow for day to day expenses with the smaller tax base left after secession, with the higher expenses of being independent. Strike 2.
That and deal with the exodus of people leaving Texas for the US, and the influx of people headed for Texas from the US. Strike 3.
All that, with a higher education establishment that thinks Texas A and M is an institution of higher learning. Texas might find themselves too large for an asylum, and too small for a republic.
It would be fun to watch, rather like a one handed paperhanger...
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