Since the topic of secession is bumbling around here in the blogosphere, I thought I would do some following up. First, there is an excellent post by Historia futura praedicit which goes through a lot of different history around secession. Second, I would like to quote one of my long-time readers
“Half the US once quit the union. That didn’t stop the feds from enforcing it.”
Which is of course a very much valid point. Obviously, no secession will ever be allowed. On that note, Karl Denninger over at the Market-Ticker had a few things to say about the recent “secession petitions”, most succinctly that you do not ask permission to secede. It doesn’t really work that way.
I have quite a few more things to say on the topic, and I will try to squeeze in a longer post sometime soon – the viewpoint I find most interesting is of comparing times of political unity and political anarchy. Which one you should wish for isn’t always clear-cut. More on that soon, I hope. For now, go read that post I just linked. Here, I’ll link it again.
I’m not sure about the status of this but this is interesting:
Lakota Indians Withdraw Treaties Signed With U.S. 150 Years Ago
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317548,00.html
I think the Lakota gets away with it because
A ) They are of no use to the state (not much tax revenue, I’d suspect)
B ) The rest of the population don’t really identify with them, so there is no risk of it spreading
Which means that freedom may be found by building a cabin in some unaccessible mountain region and creating your own language and refusing to interact with regular citizens.
Hey, wait, thats my plan!
I think the person who wrote the linked document would benefit from using libertarian class theory when making their analysis. Freedom does not depend on the state.
If your refering to my post nowhere did I mention that freedom depends on the state. It doesn’t. When I say America I do not mean the American government, I mean the American people. And when I made the comment America must stand united and free I meant that America the nation of people must survive as a constitutional republic based off the ideals of the constitution. That is the best way to preserve everyones freedoms. In my view we have three courses, return to constitutional government, the best choice, secession, bad choice, and statism, bad choice because it will eventually result in the collapse of the nation. Secession is a bad choice because in my mind it is rolling the dice, in a game were the odds are very much stacked against you. And as I have said before, if America the nation, given its tremendous advantages, cannot survive as a free nation then it is wishful thinking that any other nation could do the same.
By the way, I am very much a libertarian, but the simple fact is there are way more individuals who are not, at this point and time, and we live in their world according to their rules; until our ideas win out. And I could also be very wrong about secession, but my gut says that I am not.
I would like to add to the discussion a small datapoint : The grand total for all 30 petitions to secede from the US is now half a million people. Texas has 100.000 signatures. I think something real is happening, even if it isn’t any secession coming. This MIGHT add some fuel to the 10th amendment debate, perhaps?