Posted on 04/16/2009 6:50:11 AM PDT by rrdog
What is the root of the secessionist movement? The driving force at the grass roots level is of course money. Many Americans are rightly disturbed by the transfer of their wealth, and the wealth of their children, to companies that made risky investments, or were poorly managed. This is new territory for the government. The transfer started under George W. Bush with his bank bailout and auto makers bailouts, and the Obama administration has really poured on the spending with additional bailouts and stimulus packages. Citizens of more fiscally conservative states are finding that there money is being redirected from their pockets, and sent to other states.
In years past politicians from both parties have used the guilt factor to increase spending for the "needy". This tempers the backlash from the populace as they realize they are to sacrifice a new boat, or nicer home, for the greater good of society. Today, citizens are being asked to sacrifice their children's education, vacations, and even the home they are in, so that money can be transferred from their wallets to multi-billion dollar corporations.
When we add more government controls and regulations on everything from cigarettes, to fast food and guns, we begin to see the problem. Government is now coming at everyone at some level, over some issue. This piling on is causing those fringe secessionist movements to became mainstream very quickly.
(Excerpt) Read more at u4prez.com ...
Is there any secessionist movement in the history of the planet that you approve of?
Quote attributable to you is as follows:
“I don’t think it is inevitable. If it occurred, however, to make secession worthwhile we would still have to deal with the “Blue Staters” in our midst, who would certainly begin the process of pushing the newly freed states back into the same old patterns of government and thinking. We would also have to scrub from our minds the collectivist ideas that the left has managed to insinuate into the heads of even most conservatives.”
Your insinuation is that Texans have been polluted by the Blue Staters to the extent that we are more likely to think in that mindset.
My comment was directed to the uniqueness of what I believe makes Texas great in that its heritage is much more ingrained to conservativeness and independence to the point that we don’t follow that mindset and pattern adopted by those other Blue States.
I am not impugning your own Texas background. Am simply observing that we here think in terms of our State compared to the federal government than most states do.
No, but there were several rebellions that I think were justified.
I disagree with what you are talking about - the federal government is NOT the end-all in a Republic, and do NOT trump states rights.
Go back and reread the Constitutiona dn Federalist Papers.
Oh, that’s fine for the folks/kids in the free states,
I’m talking about the adults attempting to escape the socialist states because they’re such hellholes, and bringing the ideas with them that caused the hellholes in the first place.
I've read both, including Article VI, Section 2.
At one time not too long ago I might have added VA to that list. Now not only would I not add VA but I’d strike NC as well.
Why, if a government is deemed oppressive, is it okay to violate the law and remove it and not okay to violate the law and leave it? What exactly should Kansas do when all those illegal aliens get amnesty and leftist Democrats are locked into power in perpetuity? And they then trash what's left of the Constitution by packing the court with activist “living constitution” judges who rewrite the whole thing from the bench?
It seems to me that the conservative pockets of the nation have three choices. Submit and say thanks to Big Brother. Rebel and overthrow the government. Or secede. The latter two are both illegal by your logic, so why would one be okay and the other not? Not to mention that the reason for secession would be that our government is no longer abiding by the law or the Constitution in the first place.
It's absurd for you to nitpick about the legality or constitutionality of secession when the government we'd be seceding from has long since abandoned both the rule of law and the Constitution, when it's locked in power by giving amnesty to people who illegally entered our territory. Talk about unilateral disarmament. I suppose you'd say we should abide by treaties with foreign nations even if those nations ignore them.
I'm all for restoring the constitutional republic.
The main part of that restoration would be re-establishing the concept that the political chain of command starts with the people at the top, then down to the state government, then down to the federal government.
Secession being a state issue, such a state would need to appeal to its boss for permission, i.e. the people of that state.
Not necessarily. It would depend on where we're talking about. In the U.S., for example, I believe that secession with the agreement of all the impacted parties is allowed under the Constitution.
And since you oppose secession I suppose you think Tibet and Taiwan should belong to China in perpetuity and that Russia has a claim to Georgia, and for that matter that Britain has a claim to the United States.
In the case of Tibet and the Colonies, both were examples where the people rebelling had no say in the government that was controlling them. And in both cases, I believe the rebellions were justified. But just because they were justified doesn't guarantee their success. It'd be nice if it did.
Why, if a government is deemed oppressive, is it okay to violate the law and remove it and not okay to violate the law and leave it?
Deemed oppressive by who? What standard would you use?
It seems to me that the conservative pockets of the nation have three choices. Submit and say thanks to Big Brother. Rebel and overthrow the government. Or secede. The latter two are both illegal by your logic...
Only one is.
Not to mention that the reason for secession would be that our government is no longer abiding by the law or the Constitution in the first place.
According to who?
It's absurd for you to nitpick about the legality or constitutionality of secession...
If you toss out the law and the Constituiton then what do you have left?
Don’t be so sure about NC.
Uh, I am talking about the free states. We shouldn’t bar anyone who wants to escape Socialism, but as you say, we need to keep their toxic, leftist ideas from taking root. We can’t shoot them or hang them, so we have to neutralize their ideas. The only way to do that is to forearm our people with the information they need to realize that the leftists are wrong, and that their ideas are destructive and tyrannical. They educated (the children) their ideas into existence, and those ideas can be educated out of existence by us.
K? Sorry I wasn’t clear.
But at some point it consumes itself. Have we reached that tipping point? We can learn a little from nature here. In the natural world, for a population more or less in balance, the ratio of predators to prey is about 3%. If the $hit starts hitting the fan, you see that go up. When it reaches about 10-15%, you start seeing mass extinctions because the replenishment rate of the food supply can't offset the depletion.
Now, if we think of the mooching class in this country as "predators" of the productive class, what is the ratio? Getting close to 50%, I've heard. I think that tells us something.
Would you trust that a constitutional convention composed of Washington politicians would produce a liberty-affirming document?
I know I wouldn’t!
I didn’t think I was “insinuating” anything; I thought I stated it plainly ;-) Though less of a problem here, the Blue State mentality is a problem that is growing. Every year the government schools vomit forth hordes of semi-literate, leftist indoctrinated youth who push Texas, and the rest of the country, to the left. I don’t see the point of ignoring it.
For someone with your screen name you seem to have no idea the concept behind it. We left the crown the first time and it worked. We tried to leave the union and failed. So far the score is 1:1.
Calling for a state convention and achieving one are two different things, getting close to having one would scare the crap out of the politico’s.
“The Texas Constitution is a MAMMOTH document”
and woolly, too ;-)
Among other things. The entire infrastructure is much different than in the 1860s. Where are your investments managed - in your home state? Where is your mortgage held - in your home state? Where is your healthcare managed - in your home state? Where do the goods in your local stores come from - your home state? In 1860, gr-gr-gr-gr-grandpa grew his own food, butchered his own hogs, had no healthcare save a local doctor to set bones and deliver babies, bought his horse and buggy from the local area, and if there was any trouble brewing with the natives, the local militia could take care of it.
As much as everyone is fed up with the federal government, you and every aspect of your life is entrenched in it. The logistics of secession would be a nightmare that most people would simply not be prepared to deal with. If the Great State of Texas and others want to go that route, they better get some good detail oriented people to think hard about the consequences to the daily life of the citizens.
On the other hand, it would be ducky to be able to just string up murderers and thieves in the town square without much fanfare.
Indeed. The issue of whether secession was possible was resolved in 1865. It’s not. There’s even a Supreme Court case that makes it clear Texas does not have a right to secede. Talk of secession is idiocy.
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