Posted on 01/31/2021 5:55:31 AM PST by Kaslin
Lately, there has been so much frustration with the last election and the direction of our country that some Trump supporters have been talking about “secession.” Many conservatives and libertarians are asking if it makes sense for certain states to leave the union the way South Carolina left in 1860, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States.
Whether it makes “sense” or not, we can be assured that it will not happen. Although the South Carolina state legislature voted in November of 1860 to initiate the process of secession, no state legislature would do that today. This is because most modern state legislatures, even conservative ones, do not have many members who are angry enough at the federal government to support seceding from it.
Never forget that many individual state legislators are professional politicians. They may disagree with some of the policies that flow from Washington D.C., but they are not angry enough to vote for secession, and that is what is required to secede, anger. While an official secession will not happen, there will be a different type. In fact, it has already started in our country.
Instead of state legislatures, dominated by urban dwellers, voting for secession, Americans who live in rural and some suburban areas are executing a secession of their own. They are disassociating themselves from the lifestyles, cultural mores, laws, and self-inflicted wounds exhibited in our large cities.
Of course, rural Americans are already living in areas removed from large cities, but geography is only one of the many differences. An even more striking distinction involves political ideology and attitudes on an array of issues like criminal justice.
Citizens living outside of ultra-progressive urban areas do not accept what is going on in large cities. Surely, the thinking is, “I am not one of them. They are different from me. We do not agree on basic things, like what laws should govern human conduct.”
This mental disassociation did not exist in previous times of crisis in our country. There was much more national unity in December of 1941 or even September of 2001. At that time, rural Americans and city dwellers still had many shared values and followed the same laws. Clearly, the similarity in culture and politics between rural and urban Americans is dying, and the pace of its death march is quickening.
This same type of disassociation is also felt by many Americans living in suburban areas. They recognize their way of life is incompatible with that exhibited in large cities. This results in suburban dwellers venturing into cities less often. Once there, they feel unsafe and unwelcome. According to the FBI, crime rates in our urban areas are significantly higher than in suburban and rural areas.
More crime is not the only difference Americans notice in large cities. There are also different laws regarding decency, civility, and cleanliness. Unfortunately, manners and traditional customs are rarely, if ever, practiced.
Many horrific things can happen to you in a large city without warning. You can be struck from behind in a “Knockout Attack” or wounded by a stray bullet. You can be surrounded by violent demonstrators who scream at you and call you evil because of your wealth, race, religious views, or political beliefs. This is not a place that feels comfortable or feels like home.
Over the past few decades, millions of Americans who support traditional American values, and even some who value safety, have already left our large cities. They are disgusted with the political corruption, high taxes, racial politics, homelessness and, over the past year, the excessive Covid-19 lockdown orders.
People leaving are also those who value their second amendment rights. They do not want to be charged with a crime if they have to defend their home. Who can forget what happened to Mark and Patricia McCloskey in St. Louis?
On June 28, 2020, their neighborhood was overrun by protesters and a mob was descending on the McCloskey’s home. The couple waved firearms in front of their home to encourage the protesters to leave. No gun was ever fired at any of the trespassers. Incredibly, Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey were charged with the unlawful use of a weapon even though they feared for their lives. If convicted, they could face up to four years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
As this trend continues and cities like St. Louis, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Washington D.C., and New York City decline even more, these areas will simultaneously become more similar. They already have much in common politically. Future cooperation will likely continue on issues such as drug legalization, the treatment of homelessness, gun control, permissive law enforcement, and providing a sanctuary and support for illegal aliens. With so much commonality, these cities will forge even closer bonds in the days ahead.
With unworkable policies and massive bureaucracies, these cities will need greater and greater subsidies from productive, tax-paying citizens living in rural and suburban America. Urban areas have been failing financially for many years, but as the policies become more progressive, the costs are escalating even higher.
In large cities, politicians spend vast sums of money on enormous municipal government systems which include inefficient departments featuring payrolls that are too large and too expensive. Other characteristics include broken infrastructure, rampant homelessness, and an overly generous municipal pension system.
How much longer will productive taxpayers living in rural and suburban communities agree to subsidize large cities? Sooner or later, these citizens will say “Enough is enough, we want out!” They will want the urban centers to form their own “United Cities of America” with their own laws and lifestyles.
Simultaneously, Americans living in non-urban areas will want to forge closer bonds of their own as similarities are recognized even more.
The secession of 1860 will not happen again, but a different kind is already taking place.
Exurbs for me.
Keep an eye on them. At every turn they see dozens of strangers watching their every move.
People stop talking and turn to stare. Not threatening, mind you, merely observing.
If they have ill intent they don't want a dozen witnesses.
Cities have brittle infrastructure—in so many different ways it is impossible to count all of them.
In this age of computers and satellites they are a thousand times more brittle than they were in past centuries.
Any “civil” war would get uncivil _very_ fast.
Large cities need to be forcibly expelled from their states and become new city-states. There is no other solution.
Our system of government makes a two party system inevitable.
The Electoral College makes a two party system a necessity because a wide coalition of disparate interest must make an alliance in order to capture the Great Prize that is the Office of the President.
In a parliamentary system our two parties would be many parties: the Greens, Labor, Libertarians, Socialist, Democratic Socialist and so on.
After the elections they would form up an alliance to form a government and select a Executive (Prime Minister).
Because of the Electoral College that alliance is formed prior to the election so that they can hope to elect or select a presidential candidate in the primary who can be elected during the general election .
One thing that the Democrats don’t seem to realize is that should they abolish the Electoral College to achieve their dream of a truly democratic system of Majority Rules, it would very likely be the death of their party.
The end of the Electoral College would be the end of the two major parties. Without the Electoral College we could very likely end up with Presidential Runoff races to get to a candidate that could achieve a majority of votes.
Most country dwellers could not live without electricity or even public water for many of them. We have come a long way from 640 acres and a mule. Give that to a family today and they would eat the mule.
I have a 2nd Amendment hat I wear on range days, and it gets overwhelmingly positive comments from people of all races and backgrounds. Only some employees at the local Sprouts grocery store seem intimidated - but even there I had an older female checker light up when she saw it, and start ripping into Biden for his gun control agenda.
As you say, people need encouragement. The majority feels overwhelmed by collectivist social media and MSM messaging.
Freedom on display.
When do the Brown Shirts arrive?
When does the Sheriff or State Police arrive to tell the business owners to get 50% of the people out of here and make them wear mask or lose your license?
Absolutely right. The Left are the Borg. They will not leave you alone until they are destroyed.
Covid-19 has killed 439,536 people in the US so far. This is nearly 9 times as many people as influenza killed in 2018, the most recent year with finalized data. Covid-19 is NOT a flu; the virus that causes Covid-19 is a coronavirus, meaning that Covid-19 is related to colds, not flu, although it is much more serious.
No, there was no conspiracy to create a pandemic to hurt Trump. However, the leftist adage of "Never let a crisis go to waste" is very much in operation here. The pandemic created the perfect opportunity for the left to fabricate the narrative that Trump's handling of the pandemic was incompetent. And this narrative was eaten up by both the left and the right. The left made memes demonstrating how stupid Trump and his supporters are, and some on the right picked up the conspiracy theories that Covid-19 is nothing, that no one really dies of Covid-19, etc. And the conspiracies provided more material for the memes. Those who fell for the conspiracies and misinformation hurt Trump just as much as any vile leftist could hurt him.
Wait til the Federal Government starts to impact the states—and states rights. Wait till a conformity is made mandatory. Wait for the Executive Order banning public ownership of “Assault Weapons” (Like they did with machine guns) or the Private ownership of Gold? (Like FDR did). Wait for the Looting of the Red States to bail out and support the Blue? Or one group getting money just because of their victim status. Wait til the next big war—and half the nation refuses to fight in Biden’s wars? Wait til the Mass Arrests of “Trump Cultist” of even of all members of the Trump Family. The Federalist Party was doomed because of their overreach with the Alien and Sedition laws (Inspired by the Radical French Revolution)—That may well be the fate of the Progressive (AKA: Democratic Party).
I encourage folks to imagine life without electricity by going through their day, each small step at a time.
That thought experiment encourages people to figure out “solutions” (or partial solutions—the perfect is the enemy of the good) with stuff they can buy _now_.
Your Covid posts are fear porn at its worst.
The average US citizen (under age 75) is about as likely to die of Covid as they are to die in an auto accident.
They are one and the same I fear.
We are in the far north suburbs of Atlanta and that’s not far enough. We are soon heading about 75 miles further north into the mountains.
I agree, and if we want to avoid that war we can do so by withdrawing financial support from the fed govt. We have enabled them, we can disable them. It wouldn't be convenient but a civil war is much more inconvenient. Go Galt.
Anyone driving on I-205 east of Portland would wonder who in their right mind would live in that city. Homeless encampments everywhere. Totally out of control and apparently the courts say the authorities aren’t allowed to forbid it.
I never thought we were unified on 9/11.
Been there, done that.
Couldn’t pay me enough to live in either city or suburbs.
Living rural is nicer & cheaper.
That’s great, but everyone is going to pay for this. What makes the author think the people in the rural areas and suburbs are safe from the leftists? Look for masses of illegal immigrants to move into all areas of the country. If you are a taxpayer, you cannot escape. Education at all levels is becoming communist and racist propaganda. Unless you are Daniel Boone living off the land out in the boonies, there is no escaping the commie revolution.
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