I think future history will be full of surprises, and our tribe has made some incredible migrations and comebacks before. Don't count us out.
Posted on 06/06/2012 6:18:45 AM PDT by CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – Nearly one-quarter of Americans believe that states have the right to secede, according to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports -- up 10 percentage points in two years.
The latest poll is just one of many that shows that Americans have “serious and growing concern about the federal government,” according to Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports.
According to the phone survey released Sunday, 24 percent of Americans believe that states should be able to withdraw from the United States to form their own country, if they want. Nearly 60 percent (59) of Americans say they don’t believe states have the right to secede, while 16 percent are undecided.
“We do see that people are concerned about the federal government in a variety of ways,” Rasmussen told CNSNews.com. “51 percent believe that it’s a threat to individual liberties.
“It may just be part of a growing frustration with other aspects of the federal government,” he said.
“But I think it’s important to keep it in perspective, growing to 24 percent still means that only one out of four Americans think that states have the right to secede, it’s not that they’re advocating for it,” Rasmussen said.
Though a minority, the number has been growing. In 2010, when Rasmussen first conducted the poll, only 14 percent of Americans said states had the right to secede. A year later, the number was up to 21 percent.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults between May 29 and 30, asked, among other questions: “Do individual states have the right to leave the United States and form an independent country?”
Only 10 percent of poll respondents said it was likely a state would attempt to secede in the next 25 years -- “a pretty generous time frame,” Rasmussen said. “So it’s not seen as a very realistic possibility,” he added.
The survey also asked whether the federal government is a protector or a threat to individual rights, to which a majority -- 51 percent -- said the government presents a danger to liberty.
“[O]nly 34 percent of adults in this country regard the federal government more as a protector of individual rights,” according to the poll.
“More Americans than ever are expressing strong concern that the federal government will run out of money,” according to Rasmussen Reports, who also found that 64 percent of Americans are at least somewhat worried that the U.S. government will run out of money. 43 percent are “very worried” that the U.S. government will run out of money, while 31 percent of adults are not worried and 10 percent are “not at all worried.”
The total federal debt currently stands at $15.8 trillion.
Rasmussen told CNSNews.com that recent polling shows that Americans have a “growing frustration” with the federal government.
“What we’re seeing in a whole range of surveys is serious and growing concern about the federal government, about the role of government in American life,” he said. “Only about one out of five Americans believe the government today has the consent of the governed. People believe that America’s best days -- about half the nation believes -- America’s best days have come and gone.”
“Only 16 percent believe that today’s children will be better off than their parents,” he said, “that’s a horrifically low number for America.”
“And then you’ve got individual proposals, [New York City] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg’s proposal of banning large sugary drinks is supported by 24 percent of Americans, 2 out of 3 oppose it,” Rasmussen added. “So there’s this frustration that’s been building.”
Your post makes no sense. It was the South that fired the shot.
If I were to gather 200 of my fellow statesmen in my yard and have a vote of secession, and we voted 200-0 to secede, would that mean my secession was proven to the Congress of the United States? Hell no. That's what the south did. That's the purpose of Article 4, to allow Congress to provide the manner in which a state is to prove its acts. Having a rabble-rousing rally is not a provable act of a state.
Fort Sumter was a federal property built to defend a main waterway of the continent from foreign invasion. If South Carolina had taken their secession to the Congress do sue for terms maybe they could have worked something out to legally secede and to eventually gain control of Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was an island built by the federal government using granite from the northeast states at great expense to the federal government. South Carolina should have taken their secession to the Congress to get terms rather than trying to gain control of something they didn't even build.
You’re still not citing anything more specific than “Article 4”, which contains a lot of provisions. Where exactly in Article 4 are you finding this spelled out, that States need approval from Congress to secede?
Did we consider the forts that the Brits built in America to be their property after we had declared independance? I don’t think so.
Who built them, how much they cost, those are just details. You can’t have a sovereign state with foreign troops stationed on your soil without your permission. That’s called being in a state of war, whether the Northerners want to admit it or not.
If you look at the first secession the ratio was about 35% to 75% also.
Article 4 says that a state must allow Congress to prescribe the manner in which a state proves its acts. Secession is an act of a state.
We had the military strength to defend our secession, the South did not. Since the South did not have the military strength they should have taken their secession through the Congress.
Who built them, how much they cost, those are just details. You can’t have a sovereign state with foreign troops stationed on your soil without your permission. That’s called being in a state of war, whether the Northerners want to admit it or not.
So we're at war with Cuba?
The reason why this is going to be a massive issue, and why they even put the poll in the field in the first place, is that eventually we’ll be asked to bail out California.
The answer will be a resounding ‘Hell no’ and we will look to kick them out of the union. We will do this to prevent the entire Southeast and most of the midwest (awash in oil and other mineral reserves) from wanting a do-over on the entire federal government thing.
There was a Russian that predicted we’d be at this point within the next seven years. I didn’t think he was that far off then (about a year or so ago).
Since the secession wasn't proven, there was no secession.
The depth of ignorance shown in this post is beyond belief.
We will have to extinguish progressivism ....even the sensitive stuff like racial redress and getting realistic about the inherent behavior in some groups
I doubt we have the stomach for it
And youth are brainwashed and assimilated
When my age dies off no one will care..
Less and less whites.....especially in the heartland and its over
We will never turn so many minorities around on a dime
We did this to ourselves.....laid in place before my own birth in 1957
I think future history will be full of surprises, and our tribe has made some incredible migrations and comebacks before. Don't count us out.
“Nice summation.”
I’ve been posting about this for a number of years now (in another life and time, as well). Here’s a relatively recent post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2866551/posts?page=13#13
“The slavery issue was the one that had divided the nation into two camps that couldn’t stand the sight of each other though. It was what motivated people to be willing to go and fight - although it wasn’t a settled matter in the North either, by any means.”
Fast forward to today.
When you speak of “can’t stand the sight of each other”, you might as well be referring to present-day liberals and conservatives. There seems to be an almost-unbridgeable divide growing between the left and the right, in which common ground is no longer possible because the belief systems of each side have become so dissimilar.
The left will never agree to your (our) principles. Never.
They will crush you (us) if that’s what it takes to force their will down your (our) throat.
Will that be the fuse that “motivates” the new rebels?
“Article 4 says that a state must allow Congress to prescribe the manner in which a state proves its acts.”
Where does it say this? I can’t find it and I’ve never heard anyone make this claim besides you.
Oh, wait, nevermind. I see you are getting that from the Full Faith and Credit clause. Well, I’m no lawyer, but I believe the second sentence in that clause is subsidiary to the first sentence, absent any other contrary indication, and only applies to “proving” the acts of the state to other states, so that they may know what they have to give full faith and credit to. You can’t extend that language to remove powers that are already inherent in the states independent of the Constitution, it’s ludicrous.
“That was in dispute with many believing that there never was a “CSA” as a legal entity.”
Perhaps, but it’s not in dispute that the state of South Carolina considered it a legal entity. Doesn’t take a genius to realize if you insisted on stationed troops in their borders, THEY were going to view it as an act of war. This is one of those things where you don’t need a mutually agreed upon perception to make something a reality; one side’s perception is all it takes.
“We had the military strength to defend our secession, the South did not.”
Ok, the might makes right argument is sensible, but it’s beside the point if one is arguing about the viability of secession, since it can only be determined after the fact. There’s no way to know ahead of time if you will prevail with force of arms. It also bears no relation to whether the states have an inherent right to secession, since they can have a right to do it even if it’s not feasible for them to exercise the right without fighting a war.
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