So, obviously, the current petitions for state secession are ridiculous. However, they aren’t ridiculous for the reasons that many mainstreamers think they are. Instead they are ridiculous because one doesn’t sign a hilariously impotent petition to the White House for them to “review” in hopes of gaining any immediate result.
In a drunken stupor I even signed the Texas petition (I guess I’m already on a couple lists anyways…).
On the bright side, it’s putting the idea out into the air and allowing average people to at least hear a rough premise of of states’ rights. The problem is that it is instantly being marginalized by most “rational” people as nothing more than the typical Romney-ites butthurt reaction to losing the throne. Many of us are being clumped into the statist-lite majority who simply don’t want Obama as their president but would probably elect Romney or Rick Perry as Texas’ new president if they had their way.
I’ve had multiple friends who are modest “beltway” liberertarians comment on the matter and they all seem to think secession is silly. The sad part is that many of the arguments from sympathetic conservatives are the same trite and morally inconsistent arguments against the notion of voting for Ron Paul–“He can’t win, what’s the point? While I agree with you theoretically, the federal government would never allow us to withdraw from the union.”
In fact I had a friend who went as far as to posit that a powerful enough secession movement would trigger the Civil War part II. I responded that it’s not the 1860s anymore and Northerners would refuse to be shipped to the South to fight their bretheren to the death over, essentially freedom from taxes, regulations, and civil liberties. It’s the Internet age and (I’d hope that) no one would die for a cause as pure as states wanting to be left alone. At least not in my estimation of Americans.
So, instead, the Federal government will simply ignore the cries for sovereignty and ridicule us through their loyal media, attempting to asphyxiate the fires of revolution.
All this being said, what do you guys think about the secessionist movement, in both ideals and reality?
However, if there were the “Civil War” II, Obama would not use the military to “preserve” the Union. He would use the federal police state. The military would have a problem attacking the seceded states. That’s not the case for the federal police agencies.
Of coure you’re right. It would be nothing more than “putting down the rebels”. But, ideally, support would be so widespread that there would be no way for the Feds to put down the insurrection. It would be likely that they would resort to violence against the peaceful secessionists, which would prompt more staunch opposition, even in non-secession states.
I’ll tell you how a state could spark a secession crisis. The mechanism is already in place.
All it would take is for a state to pass a law saying they secede from the union, perhaps as a constitutional amendment, and as part of that law criminalize tax withholding for the federal government!!!
Can you imagine what a shitstorm would go down if that occurred.
We should be careful with our words. I don’t think it would be quite an insurrection. It would be secession. The states would just leave the compact and thus fully recover those powers constitutionally delegated to the U.S. government.
It’s for situations like this that the opinion-crafters and intellectual’s exist. They’ll demonize whomever needs to be destroyed sufficiently that the troops will go along with it just fine.
I’m not sure that, if it came to military action, the American masses would sit idly by while the military invaded Texas or Tennessee. Of course, the media would brand the rebels as some sort of evil Neo-Confederate movement that threatened to revert to slavery or something ridiculous. They would also claim that the “neo-confederates” threw the first stone to justify the military’s actions as merely reactionary.
Still, I think most people in America are oppossed to domestic violent military action–they’re either uninformed or blissfully ignorant about the current military atrocities that we perpetuate overseas. Obama supporters at least think they’re peace loving, as warped as that is. They’d be hard pressed to brush off something so blatantly violent on the homefront.
I signed the Florida one for laughs. Nothing will come of this of course. Even OWS got at least 10x more support for their movement and nothing super revolutionary came of it either.
I’d say that people will be happy to die for central government. People in the 1860s and today aren’t really that different, if at all. I’m sure nobody would ever consent to the idea that a mass amount of people would contribute to the extermination of 6 million adherents of one religion, yet it happened. Milgram’s Experiment shows that people would not only take the orders to invade the “evil” secessionist states but would probably be glad to do so. And I’m positive that the federal government wouldn’t mind giving the order.
People may not be different, but their environments have changed drastically. Although many people are still plugged into the media’s Matrix there are more free minds today than there have ever been. This can be attributed to the Internetz.
The state can no longer get away with anything they want without consequences. It’s slow going, but people are starting to realize that Uncle Sam has a dark side. Another four years of Obama should help people come to this realization nicely.
But if the military were to put down a secession movement there would be mass protest. At least I’d hope so..
Wha..? Maybe in gross terms, but as a percentage of population, there were certainly periods of American history where classical liberalism was the dominant belief, and strong suspicion of centralized power was relatively common. I know, it’s hard to imagine.
I wonder what percent of the current military ranks are actually from the states that would most likely secede? Hell, 15% of the military is probably from Texas alone.
Let me rephrase that: the most free minds post WWI America. But, still, that’s just being argumentative. The point is that we have entered a new era of communication and knowledge. It’s like the printing press revolution but even more accessible.
The Internet is full of libertarians. And those that disagree with us get smacked by logic and sensibility. As long as the Internet stays free from the clutches of the government, we will continue to gain momentum.
Should any state legislature actually vote to secede in this day and age, I think the feds would simply say, “Okay, well, all of our facilities (military bases, federal offices, etc.) in your state are still part of the United States of America [i.e. federal property], along with the interstate highways that go through your state. Furthermore, we’ll take any violation of our sovereign rights over these things as an act of war.” At that point, alea iacta est.