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 ...
If there is any taxation at the interstate/federal level, it will be a foot-in-the-door that will lead back to tyranny. Let the states fund any legitimate interstate/federal expenditures, such as defense.
It's time for the federal government to round up Republicans for Re-education Camps
Historically speaking, the most common way to end internal bickering is the nationalism of an all-out war. I’m not suggesting it, just saying that the fear of being enslaved by foreigners is what it sometimes takes to make people give up dreams of enslaving their neighbors.
Same could be said (almost) of VA, but we redeemed ourselves last November ;) Ya gotta believe in redemption!
“Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any right now...largely due to the political costs of abandoning some fairly significant portion of their electorate.”
This is what I’ve been pondering. Suppose a State simply opted not to participate in Federal mandates ? Stopped accepting Federal matching funds for those programs like Medicaid, No Child Left Behind, Foodstamps, Highway funds, etc. This would presuppose the State had acceptable alternatives — acceptable to its residents, which might mean offering nothing at all. How could the State clawback the Federal tax revenue that was sucked away from its residents ? It can’t clawback, which just means the residents get overtaxed while getting nothing for their money.
If the Federal direct taxation was eliminated, and the states simply forwarded enough revenue to pay for the programs it chose to participate in, Federalism would be restored. The states’ residents would be in control of their taxation and level of government services they wanted. As long as the Feds can tax the people directly, you can’t win. It is human nature to want to get something back for the taxes you’ve paid. Talking people into giving up goodies with no guarantee of correspondingly reduced taxes won’t work.
“I say we give them all the money we have and let them invest it or not as they choose.”
That’s the point. There is no money. There is only the claim against future tax revenues. Had my SS/M contributions gone into my 401k instead for the last 25 years, there’d be over a half million there. If you are saying the Feds should write me a check for that amount and I opt out of SS/M, I’d take that deal in a minute.
I’m not sure what Federal “assets” you are referring to. There are Federally owned lands to the tune of a billion acres filled with natural resources, mostly in the West. And those should be returned to the States, as Utah is attempting to do by using Eminent Domain to seize its lands back from the Fed BLM. Other than that, the Federal Government doesn’t haven much in assets. It only has the legal ability to tax — so the productivity of the people is its real asset.
“Supposedly, the future is going to be decentralized exurban or semi-suburban communities. People will work from home and order online so big cities won’t be as necessary as they once were and big city politics will wane as a factor.”
Where do you get this info ? I expected a move toward this after 9/11 and a huge swing toward telecommuting, but it didn’t happen. Bosses still like to make sure you’re physically and mentally present (not distracted by homelife). They want to walk into your office anytime they feel like it, call impromptu face-to-face meetings, etc.
From a daily living perspective, people that love city life love to be in walking distance from shops and restaurants and entertainment and get food delivered at 3AM and ...
I don’t think suburban sprawl is where the future is headed. Building up yields much better use of land, provides views, etc. I don’t live in a big city because those benefits above are not worth the pollution, traffic, crime, lack of space, etc. I have a city plan that would give the best of both. No pollution, no vehicles, no crime, every apartment with a view of miles of parks or golf courses with rivers and lakes, no neighbors looking in your windows, never more than a 20 minute walk from any one point in the city to any other, schools on every block, hospitals never more than 5 minutes walking distance, the street level one big mall of shops and restaurants with automated delivery of purchases direct to your home. Living and working space for 4M people in a square 10 miles to a side, with 80% of the land left as parks, rivers, lakes, or crops. Building a beautiful yet affordable city is surprisingly easy if its planned in advance rather than grown randomly over time.
“I’m not sure what Federal “assets” you are referring to. There are Federally owned lands to the tune of a billion acres filled with natural resources, mostly in the West. And those should be returned to the States, as Utah is attempting to do by using Eminent Domain to seize its lands back from the Fed BLM. Other than that, the Federal Government doesn’t haven much in assets. It only has the legal ability to tax — so the productivity of the people is its real asset.”
To be quite honest I was thinking of selling bonds, land, and maybe even inflation to game the rest of the world until they drop the oil dollar.
Obviously we cant get you the full half million, as the money even if it did exist has been burning away in a Government inflationary fire place. But we might be able to get something a bit less then that. I also know they did experiments down in Galveston with a privatization of Social security as Bush wanted to do leading to a 40% increase in yield.
The real issue here is your ability to exploit foreign investments and foreign workforces, cause the problem with the Tax further tax base is that it is too small. Partly because of theses and similar programs and choices by the Federal Government people were not insensitive to have as many children to provide in the times of the older peoples retirement. (Yes like it or not all retirement is the clam on future resources being produced).
In any event we should sell all of the Federal land for 2 reasons:
1: We need the money anyway.
2: Regardless of who we sell the land to, the state government regains Sovereignty over the land, we simply need to get the Federal government out of the land ownership business then the corrupt Federal lab-dog Courts don’t have an exploitive leg to stand on in servicing their masters unlimited power interest.
There is no real down side to selling the land except for the wacko environmentalist who want the land horded to deny it ever being useful.
Once the land is out of the Federal governments hands the State will be able to tax it, or otherwise allow for it to be used in Oil Exploration or whatever.
Wow, fantastically interesting thread and thanks for your thoughtful response! No, it’s not too long. That is exactly the kind of in depth answer I was looking for.
I hope that leaders of the local tea party organizers, 10th amendment/nullification groups, etc. are seriously talking about ways to do exactly as you said.
My concern is that I feel time is short for this nation- these thoughtful, reasonable proposals would work, I think if we had time and didn’t have such a dangerous person at the helm. As it is, many think we’ve got until the fall elections, if we don’t get enough conservatives in there to slow them down this may be our last window of opportunity for solving things peacefully. Wish we would have pushed harder last time conservatives were “awake”, during the Clinton years.
Maybe it takes such desperate times to wake people up.
I also think somehow we’ve got to convince the liberals in our country that going back to this type of constitutional arrangement is best for them, too. We’ve got to sell them on the idea somehow. I see a lot of up sides for conservatives, but from their point of veiw, maybe they don’t have as much to gain. They would be losing the goose that lays the golden egg in a way. Hopefully if the Supreme Court makes the right decisions, we can do what’s right whether or not the liberals are convinced that returning to constitutional federalism is what we need to do to survive, but politically it would be easier if they were clamoring for the same thing, too.
I’m going to read carefully through your post and hopefully be able to ask some more questions later today. (BTW, our family are homeschool/private schoolers so I’m right on board with your thoughts on school choice...)
I also am going to reread your posts. I am still thinking about some of the ideas you posited. Frankly, I do see this as a very high mountain to climb.
Well, I’m going to give it some more thought and kick around any ideas backatcha.
Icelanders Opt for Exile; Largest wave of emigration FROM Iceland in more than a century
>>And by the way, why would we want Canada anyway?<<
We have to store our trees SOMEWHERE...
Not necessary.
Obama’s policies will result in attacks on US cities which will eliminate most of the left-wing.
>>I do think that the federal government’s out-of-control spending has reached the point where average citizens understand clearly that it is unsustainable. If that’s true, then this understanding might provide a basis for a free State (as you set out in your hypothetical) to start banging the drum against the feds taking its citizens money, wasting it, using it to pay someone else’s bills, and returning fifteen cents on the dollar (or whatever) to the State’s citizens.<<
You want to reinstate the 9th and 10th Amendments? That’s just crazy talk!
A mass exodus of productive people that way. A mass exodus of non-productive people the other way!
Kwazee, kwazee, kwazee!
(Actually, you are, sadly, right on some level.)
Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein were born, raised, and educated on the East Coast. THEY ARE NOT CALIFORNIANS, and as such, deserve to lose California.
IT IS BULLSH*T TO EVEN THINK ABOUT CEDING CALIFORNIA TO LIBERALS! They don't deserve it, they didn't earn it, and they didn't help build it. Republicans did.
I agree with this. I especially like the concept of forcing "government onto a diet." That's a great way to put it!
That is where we are going...
Ditto California, birthplace of Free Republic.
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.