Posted on 03/05/2014 8:48:19 AM PST by robowombat
How the Secession Movement Could Break Up the US 1:00PM EST 3/4/2014 DAVID BRODY/CBN NEWS
A new map of the U.S. could include a state called Jefferson, made up of Northern California and Southern Oregon, a new state called Western Maryland and a new state called North Colorado. (CBN) If you mention the word secession most people think of the South during the Civil War. But today, a new movement is gaining steam because of frustration over a growing, out-of-control federal government.
A number of conservative, rural Americans are taking about seceding and creating their own states, meaning a new map of the United States of America could include the following:
A 51st state called Jefferson, made up of Northern California and Southern Oregon A new state called Western Maryland A new state called North Colorado These are real movements gaining traction with voters across the country. Jeffrey Hare runs the 51st State Initiative in Colorado, an effort to fight an out-of-control legislature trying to ram big government policies down the throats of voters.
"We're at this point of irreconcilable differences," Hare told CBN News.
Secessionist talk has filled town hall meetings and the divide discussed is not just ideological.
"It's predominately left versus right, but it's urban versus rural because you typically find more typical conservative values in rural America," Hare said.
An Attack on Colorado?
That's the crux of the issue. Rural Americans across many states feel they're not being heard. Their laundry list is long and at the top of that list are stricter gun control laws.
According to Weld County, Colo., Sheriff John Cooke, the state legislature is out of control.
"They are out of touch with rural Colorado," he said. "There is an attack on rural Colorado and it's not just on gun control laws. It's on several of the other bills that they passed."
Government mandates on renewable energy, environmental policies restricting oil and gas drilling, and controversial social issues like gay marriage have also led to this divide and talk of secession.
Organizers want to create "North Colorado," an idea that went to voters in 11 counties this past fall. But not everyone in Colorado thinks secession is a great idea.
"I don't think that's necessarily the way to make something happen within the area you live," Colorado resident Greg Howe told CBN News. "You're supposed to work within our electoral services."
The so-called secession movement in Colorado had mixed results this past November. Some counties approved it. Others didn't.
But the organizers of the 51st State Initiative are undaunted, saying this type of movement takes time.
"Movements take a while; education takes time," Hare said. "People do have a hard time saying ,'I want to live in a different state,' even though physically they live in the same house."
"It's hard for them since their lives have been Coloradoans," he explained. "Their whole lives to say that 'I'm going to be a new Coloradoan' or 'I want to live in the state of liberty' or something different."
An 'Amicable' Divorce
That desire for something different can also be felt in Arizona, Michigan, and in Western Maryland where thousands have signed secession petitions.
One website reads, "We intend to exercise our right of self-determination and self-governance to better secure our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Scott Strzelczyk, the leader of the Western Maryland movement, is ready to get going.
"If they are not going to listen or take our needs into consideration and govern in a way that's more in accordance with the way we want to be governed we are seeking an amicable divorce," he said.
Meanwhile, in Northern California and Southern Oregon, activists want to come together in the state of "Jefferson."
Their proposed state flag includes two "Xs," representing their feeling of being double-crossed by the state capitals of Sacramento, Calif., and Salem, Ore.
No Small Task
Creating a new state isn't easy. The last time a state actually gave up territory was in 1820, when Maine split from Massachusetts. Since then, additional efforts have been unsuccessful.
The first step is getting it passed by the state legislature and then the U.S. Congress.
"This is a valid constitutional process that our founding fathers specifically wrote into the Constitution," Hare said. "Well, if they didn't write this into the Constitution to be used, then why did they write it in?"
But supporters have an uphill battle since the media will not be their friend.
"The danger is once the outside media start to grab hold of it, the attention is on the difficulty, the almost impossibility of it happening," professor Derek Everett, with Metropolitan State University in Denver, explained.
Voter 'Disconnect'
State secession proponents, like Roni Bell Sylvester of Colorado, say they will keep fighting because the dismissive attitude of state legislative bodies must end.
"I find the sort of arrogant, dismissive to be further proof as to just how disconnected the urban is from the rural," Sylvester said.
Movements like the one in Colorado and other states could be just the beginning—at least that's the talk at town hall meetings in places like Colorado and elsewhere.
It's called 'voter disconnect" where the people say they've had enough and are crying out for something to be done.
"We, at some point, have to figure out a way to get our point across or at least be able to have a dialogue and not be ignored because you haven't seen anything yet over the next 5 to 10 years," one resident warned at a recent town hall meeting in Colorado.
As for Hare, he said it boils down to one simple concept.
"I think ultimately what people want, whether you look at it from a right or left paradigm, is government to stay out of their business," he said.
What about West Virginia created in 1863?
Quick fact check: Try 43 years later when West Virginia split off from Virginia.
Then there was shifting of several territorial boundaries which only ended when Utah was admitted as a state 33 years after that.
Several states are in the same boat with a liberal working majority in the cities imposing their will on conservative rural areas. Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon are just a few.
I predict that this will happen in my lifetime, for sure.
Why should conservative, rural Americans, whose beliefs are vilified by every self-proclaimed victim group, the Democrat Party, and the media, be expected to pay the bills and bleed on battlefields for such hateful treatment? Loyalty to the original ideals of the USA gets increasingly threadbare in this evil age.
I don’t think that split happened through the legislature. Basically they just split away from Virginia and then were recognized as a state in 1863 by the Federal Government. So that may be what the author of the article was referring to. Just my guess.
This is the way almost all New Yorkers feel too. Most people north and west of Westchester County would prefer if all of the NYC & Long Island area was a separate state. The people in rural New York have almost nothing in common with people living in NYC.
Actually the hard challenge of secession is pure survival. Some sort of tipping point event has to make such a course of action seem necessary to the majority. In 1860 it was the realization that John Brown was funded by some of the richest men in America a such as Gerrit Smith. The refusal of several states to extradite members of brown's band and the brilliantly executed PR campaign by abolitionists to present brown as a Christ lick figure rather than the first modern terrorist made Lincoln's (who was no abolitionist by a long shot) election the tipping event. People have to believe their livelihoods and lives and the families lives are in danger to embrace such a course. Once any group tries this even in a ragged and disorganized US of the future the federal authorities are going to use the Lincoln Playbook and stigmatize the event as treason and the agents of it terrorists and all the force of the US Government will be used on that region. Any group defying the feds better be well versed in highly disciplined civil disobedience (which does not mean absolute non-violence) as it is the only way to frustrate such actions as would be taken. This takes real guts as , unlike the civil rights protesters the media will be with the Feds and portray secessionists as racist cracker KKK types who want to murder blacks and gays and enslave women. This would be a hard fight and the planing better start know and try to convince a cadre of people to think through the actions necessary and quietly recruit substantial citizens and military vets if possible. In spite of our culture and government being rotten with moral corruption and a really vicious sort of materialism a great many Americans nurture beliefs that the US government is something it most certainly is not. Getting them to see what is so is the first battle.
> This is the way almost all New Yorkers feel too. Most people north and west of Westchester County would prefer if all of the NYC & Long Island area was a separate state.
There is a secession movement in New York State.
http://www.newamsterdamny.org/
The first step is getting it passed by the state legislature and then the U.S. Congress.
Also, I cringe when the word “secession” is incorrectly applied to states proposing to split.
Some of us will NEVER live under communism and the evil it brings so unless this country grows brains and returns to GOD, I do not see how we remain united.
I support it as long as it divides liberals leaning from conservative leanings.
Most of all, I’m for the secession of Texas and a reformation of a southern confederation, based on our non union, right to work and no income tax.
‘Some of us will NEVER live under communism and the evil it brings so unless this country grows brains and returns to GOD, I do not see how we remain united.’
Rhetoric is fine but until there is a real organized movement it remains simply a statement of opinion. The US will not collapse like the former USSR without fighting and fighting hard . It has truly enormous resources and even with the most inept military leadership and many worthless soldiers can still project overwhelming power onto limited geographic areas and don’t think the majority of the armed forces won’t fire on other Americans. Inertia and peer pressure and the threat of prosecution and loss of pensions and benefits will do the trick for the majority.
Forget a fence along the border. I’d like to build a fence at the GA state line to keep the liberal yankees from moving here. They come to GA to escape the North then vote for the stuff to turn us into the chithole they came from.
A lot of the things people are unhappy about are imposed from Washington, sometimes via mandates to the states. So splitting the state doesn’t get you anywhere.
The problem is Washington and the problem is a citizenry that has largely abandoned the constitution.
Good catch. I recall about 1990 the state of Virginia had some sort of a supposed budget shortfall and it announced it was going to forgo state payments to the feds for certain specifically local items. One was state stipends to the Dept. Of Agriculture for a fractional amount of the cost of having a County Agent. The uproar was enormous. I recall specifically the volume of outrage in Rockbridge County and the anger I got when i pointed out the county was easily well off enough to cover the payment. No New Jerseyites every made the ‘Wesse entitle’ snarl louder than those ‘proud individualistic’ residents of the Old Dominion.
If it comes to this Republic breaking apart it will happen at the State level and it will happen quickly. I pray it never does but if it does... the US as it is today will not have the money to pay their Military because an economic collapse will come if this Federal Government does not get a grip and change course. Lots of ifs. I hope and pray it never happens but we have certified idiots and communists in control and they are wrecking everything. Anything could happen.
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