Posted on 06/30/2003 6:03:55 PM PDT by B.O. Plenty
HTML> FreeRepublic.com "A Conservative News Forum"
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.
It's time to part company
One political question we have to answer is whether George W. Bush or Albert Gore shall be president, and just which party will control the House of Representatives and the Senate. But I'd suggest that there's a far more important long-run question we must answer: 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, and 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?
Like a marriage that has gone bad, I believe there are enough irreconcilable differences between those who want to control and those want to be left alone that divorce 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. Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.
Let's look at just some of the magnitude of the violations. Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution enumerates the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained it in The Federalist Papers: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."
Nowhere among the enumerated powers of Congress is there authority to tax and spend for: Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for Congress' mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. A list of congressional violations of the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end.
Americans who wish to live free have two options: We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed to force America's tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights, or we can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. That can be done by peopling several states, say Texas and Louisiana, controlling their legislatures and then issuing a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Founders did in 1776.
You say, "Williams, nobody has to go that far, just get involved in the political process and vote for the right person." That's nonsense. Liberty shouldn't require a vote. It's a God-given or natural right.
Some independence or secessionists movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden, Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally and we have fought three major wars together. There is no reason why Texiana (Texas and Louisiana) couldn't peaceably secede, be an ally and have strong economic ties with United States.
The bottom line question for all of us is should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another?
WorldNetDaily contributor Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
It was the military power of the USA and the war between the Confederacy and the USA that allowed W VA to secede from VA and join the USA as a separate state.
You are trying to make the point that a State government does not have the power to act on behalf of the counties of a state and enforce that action with force. We know that is not true.
To prove it try to get some WVA counties to secede from WVA and not to pay state taxes. You will find what the inside of W VA prison looks like quicker than you can say ... "Where do I pay."
We may admit West Virginia as a new state, not by virtue of any provision of the constitution, but under an absolute power which the laws of war give us. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory, for I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the constitution for this processing.
The federal government is way too involved with our daily lives and needs to be corrected.
At one time I actually admired libertarians for internal consistency (unlike liberals who are libertarian only when it comes to sin and fascist otherwise). But after learning a little more about them I must agree with a former professor of mine who told me libertarians are worse than liberals, although I write mostly of a different type of libertarian than you do.
The libertarians I have in mind are fans of Hitler (mach shemo), Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, what-have-you, but when it comes to America they want to abolish the state and insist that the USA is an alliance of fifty "sovereign nations." Like the hippies who advocated anarcy for America while worshipping goose-stepping military dictatorships abroad, these people apologize for militarism by foreign dictators while wanting to emasculate America.
Many of these "libertarians" aren't really libertarians at all. They merely adopt libertarian rhetoric because "libertarianism" is the American counterpart of the "throne and altar" they support elsewhere. Some of these people actually want to abolish the State because the State allegedly causes chaos and "miscegenation." Therefore when the State is abolished chaos will end, human life will assume its "natural" rigid and regimented form, and white racial integrity will be assured. Not all libertarians are of this type (Joe Sobran and the "Liberty Forum" folks are who I have primarily in mind), but I have learned not to trust any libertarian.
People who worship Stalin and Mao (mach shemam) whould work for an "orderly" military dictatorship at home instead of throwing bags of excrement about. Likewise fans of Franco and Salazar should take off the tri-corner hats and stop thumping the Bill of Rights and work for Falangism at home. But of course, this runs against the hypocritical grain.
The saddest case though are sincere religious people who acknowledge the sovereignty of G-d who have been duped into thinking that the G-d's greatest concern is the "right" to smoke! While religious people run around fighting other people's battles against "the nanny state," they are left absolutely alone by their "allies" when it comes to great moral issues.
Homosexuality is a capital offense. It has nothing to do with "liberty" or the size of government.
Unless you have credible figures that detail exactly how much FEMA money goes out in Texas and how that figures into the equation, your implication that it takes us over the 1 dollar mark is nothing more than blind speculation.
Some people make it sound like Texas supports the rest of the nation which is simply not true
Per your own statistic, which you have yet to contradict by ANY substantial data for FEMA, it certainly is.
Besides what native sons have you given us besides Lyndon Johnson?
Dwight Eisenhower, Phil Gramm, John Connolly, and Ron Paul to name a few. Throw in the non-politicians and you also get Chester Nimitz and Audie Murphy. George W. is, btw, for all practical purposes a lifelong Texan. His daddy moved when he was about 5 or something and has been here ever since.
Newsflash. At least two DID take place. Post Vicksburg and especially post Mobile, Texas became an important blockade running station and arguably the most stable state in the confederacy since it was the only one to have kept the yankees out of its borders. Lincoln knew this and tried to take it with at least two major campaigns.
The first one, which I described previously, intended to land a 20,000 man invasion force somewhere around Beaumont in September 1863. It was halted by a confederate victory at Sabine Pass.
The second attempt occurred in 1864 and was over twice the size of the first. It is generally known today as the Red River Campaign and was also a military blunder for Lincoln, thanks primarily to the confederate victory at Mansfield. The Red River invasion force sought to move up the river of its namesake through Louisiana in order to invade Texas from the northeast. Lincoln devoted to it some 45,000 men accompanied by over 40 ships in the river (including several monitors). The manpower was comparable in size to all but the biggest of the big armies in the east and the fleet was unparalleled anywhere in the war and was the largest inland naval fleet ever assembled on the North American continent.
...and Robinson is wrong
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.