Posted on 10/11/2017 4:58:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
The United States was born when the Founding Fathers seceded from England.
So why do so many people now see secession as a terrible thing?
Recently, people in Catalonia voted to break away from Spain -- not to declare war on Spain or refuse to trade with Spain, just to control their own affairs.
The Spanish government said they must not even vote. They sent police to shut down polling places and beat protestors into staying off the streets.
Governments never want to give up power.
The European Union was offended and American politicians shocked when the United Kingdom voted to exit the EU (Brexit). Pundits declared Britain's move a terrible mistake.
But local governments can be more responsive to the needs of constituents. No government is perfect. But keeping government close to home, keeping it local, makes it easier to keep an eye on it.
The powerful prefer one big central government. Some want the whole world to answer to one government.
President Ulysses S. Grant fantasized about countries becoming "one nation, so that armies and navies are no longer necessary."
President Harry Truman wanted a World Court. Just as American disputes are settled by our Supreme Court, he said, "There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court."
But central authorities aren't the best way to solve our problems. Competition is.
In the U.S., state governments behave not because their politicians are noble, but because people can "vote with their feet" -- move to other states.
If taxes get too high in New York, you can move Florida.
As California tortures businesses, Californians move to Arizona and Texas.
The more governments from which you can choose, the easier it is to benefit from competition between them.
All Americans, however, must obey rules set by Washington, D.C.
But what if most people in a state reject those rules and demand the right to govern themselves?
There have been several secession movements in California -- a plan to break California up into smaller states, a push to make Northern California a breakaway state called Jefferson, and now the "Yes California" movement that wants to make California a separate country.
Calexit's proponents say Californians shouldn't have to answer to that evil President Trump.
If Calexit ever happened, I suppose conservative parts of the state would vote to separate from the leftists who dominate Sacramento. Maybe we'd end up with three countries where there used to be one.
When I look at how badly Washington, D.C., governs, the idea of secession doesn't scare me.
After the Cold War, Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. "Tensions between Czechs and Slovaks have disappeared," writes Marian Tupy, a Cato Institute analyst born in Czechoslovakia. "Czechs no longer subsidize their poorer cousins in the east, while Slovaks no longer blame their problems on their 'big brother' in the west. Everyone has won."
Secession frightens some Americans because they associate it with slavery. Preserving that despicable practice was one reason southern states wanted to break away.
But obviously, one can favor secession without supporting slavery. Even some abolitionists, anti-slavery activists in the 19th century, supported the right to secede.
More recently, some black neighborhoods on the outskirts of Boston argued for turning the Greater Roxbury area into a new city called Mandela. They say it would be more responsive to locals' needs.
In New York City, Republicans on Staten Island sometimes argue for breaking away from the Democrats who mismanage the rest of New York. During the Obama administration, some Texans wanted a vote on "Texit."
None of those things are likely to happen, but I'm wary of any government that hates the idea of people escaping its influence.
President Trump weighed in on Catalonian independence. He's against it. "I would like to see Spain continue to be united," said the president.
It's easy to love a big central government when you're in charge of one. Also, national governments can inspire proud nationalist sentiments.
But Catalans smarting from police batons probably feel differently.
I say, let people go their own way.
California should join Spain.
I thought this was going to be an article on how much Sessions sucks and it’s not OK.
California is a welfare state. In Spain if you don’t work you had better have relatives or some charity to help you because you’ll starve before you get a penny from the government. That’s why most migrants who land on the coast from Africa head straight for the border.
If California seceded, it would become part of Mexico before too long. Or a Mexican proxy. And it would be cheered by White liberals — right up until the Government started seizing their property.
Countries don’t allow secession because they lose tax dollars.
Who knew General Grant was the originator of the song “Imagine”!
"The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language."
President Davis, CSA
Sounds great, and they can go... as soon as they pay up their share of the $23T deficit.
Not sure exactly how much, but in the spirit of how a corporate merger/split affects the stock share price, $2T should cover it. For now.
The secession became a rebellion when they shelled Fort Sumter. And Lincoln reacted in the only way he could.
If the South had not shelled Fort Sumter, there would have been a good chance there would not have been war.
But too many Southerners thought they were Napoleon, Genghis and Alexander in overalls, and they wanted war.
Last time I checked, California was one of the top 10 economies in the world by itself and paid more money to the Federales than it got back.
I don’t know if there is a problem with the way these things are measured or not.
But I still would not be sad to see it go. We would get rid of two Democratic Senators, and its 53 representatives would reallocated among other states, some, perhaps, to new conservative districts?
You are confusing secession with war. The two concepts are independent of each other.
> I say, let people go their own way. <
Down to what level? If, say, California has the right to secede from the U.S., does San Bernardino County have the right to secede from California? And does the town of Rialto have the right to secede from San Bernardino County?
Is there a point where it’s ‘sovereignty for me, but not for thee’?
Just askin’.
California should join Bolivia.
Actually, he was drawing a distinction between the two. He was suggesting that secession might have succeeded had the seceding southerners not attacked a US fort and started a war.
No, it started out as a secession and Lincoln had not called for troops. The South turned it into a war which turned it into a rebellion.
Then Lincoln called for troops.
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. "
And in case anyone thinks this was a momentary lapse instead of a real statement of Lincoln's opinion on the subject, he said the same thing again in 1852.
Resolved, 1. That it is the right of any people, sufficiently numerous for national independence, to throw off, to revolutionize, their existing form of government, and to establish such other in its stead as they may choose.
So we should accept Lincoln's belief that people have a right to independence if they wish it.
Mexico itself is pretty much ran by white liberals.
Wow. You really are a realist. I believe you are absolutely right about this.
They shelled Ft. Sumter because Lincoln sent a fleet of Warships to attack them. You just don't hear about it in your history lessons because it doesn't support the narrative that the Confederates attacked first.
Lincoln swung first, but the Confederates actually connected first.
If the South had not shelled Fort Sumter, there would have been a good chance there would not have been war.
This is incorrect. Lincoln needed a war and he was going to cause a war one way or the other. At the very moment the fleet of warships was sailing to Charleston to sweep away all resistance, he had a warship sailing to Ft. Pickens in Pensacola with orders to start a war there. If it hadn't happened in Charleston, it was going to happen in Pensacola.
The South was paying 3/4ths of all Federal revenues and more than that, an independent South was a grave threat to the financial interests of Lincoln's backers. There was going to be a war because it was the only way the Crony Capitalists backing Lincoln were going to be able to come out of the thing with their assets.
But too many Southerners thought they were Napoleon, Genghis and Alexander in overalls, and they wanted war.
Why would they want war? With Independence they achieved an immediate 100 million dollars per year boost in income due to the vast bulk of New York trade shifting to the South.
You may not get this, but virtually all of the export shipping from the US was carrying Southern products. The South accounted for 3/4ths of all the export revenue the nation earned, and it was only because of oppressive and jiggered laws that the return trade went through New York.
Independence meant that the South could ship product to Europe and the return imports would come back directly to Southern ports instead of going through the Federal tax collection and middlemen in New York.
The South was going to make a *LOT* of extra money from being independent, but of course the New York power brokers were going to lose a huge amount of money in the process.
That's why there was a war. One way or the other, the Crony Capitalists in collusion with Washington DC was going to have a war they badly needed to stop the South from becoming economically independent of their control.
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