Celebrate Secession!
Posted on July 3rd, 2009
by John Payne |
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I just posted this up at my personal blog, but I thought it might stimulate some discussion over here for Independence Day weekend.
To honor the United States’ secessions (yes, that is meant to be plural; up until 1865, it was the “United States are” not the “United States is”) from the British Empire, the good folks at A Thousand Nations have been blogging on the topic of secession all week. You can find an index of posts here, and I highly recommend them, especially for those of you who have never given much thought to breaking up the United States into more manageable units.
Although those contributions to the debate are ample, allow me to offer my own take on why secession is still a good idea.
1) The most basic reason for supporting secession is that it makes government more accountable to the people it governs. The smaller a polity is, the easier it is for an individual’s objections to be heard whether that be through voting, petition, protest, etc. It also becomes harder for one group to oppress another the more they have to interact with each other. Dehumanizing some distant group is very easy; it is much harder to do with your next door neighbor. In the words of my all time favorite libertarian hero Karl Hess, “Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany is a horror; Adolf Hitler at a town meeting would be an asshole.”
But even if some Hitlerian figure were to take over an independent state or town, it is far easier to flee a small polity than a larger one. Getting out of the old Soviet Union was extremely difficult; getting out of Missouri, not so much.
2) The harmful effects of bad policies are seen and felt far more quickly the smaller the polity. A huge nation like the United States or China can easily persist in wealth (or even life) destroying policies for generations because their benefits are concentrated at special interest groups that agitate to continue the policies while the costs are dispersed onto the rest of the population. This is why our government subsidizes corn so heavily. But it would be nearly impossible for Iowa to continue those policies if it seceded. There would be fewer people to tax and more people expecting benefits, leading taxpayers to demand subsidy reductions and corn farmers to care less about keeping them as each individual farmer’s share of the loot would drop.
3) The United States long ago ceased to be anything resembling the republic the Founders envisioned. When the Constitution was ratified there 30,000 people for every representative in Congress, and for many of the Founders, like George Mason who spearheaded the drive for a bill of rights, this number still seemed high. But now with over 300 million people in the country, and the number of representatives capped at 435 there are almost 700,000 people for every representative in Congress–a number that will continue to grow. It may be absurd to believe that one person can represent 30,000, but that just makes it all the more absurd to believe one can represent 23 times that much. It is the equivalent of six people representing the entirety of the American population at the time of the Constitution’s ratification.
We can only restore the level of representation circa 1790 in two ways: expanding the number of representatives from 435 to just over 10,000 or by dividing the country up into smaller polities. The first option raises the obvious question of how an organization of 10,000 could function and where they could meet, but it would also make each representative’s power negligible in exact proportion to how much it would strengthen each citizen’s power to influence her representative, making the whole point moot. The only possibility for each American to live in a representative republic (that’s not my ideal, but I prefer it to the monstrosity we live in now) is secession.
4) Many of our states are as large as most other countries. There are more people in California than Canada; more in New York than Taiwan, Australia, or North Korea; more in Florida than the Netherlands; almost as many in Missouri as Ireland; and more in Texas than Austria, Switzerland, and Isreal combined. Furthermore, our state economies are even larger than our populations relative to the rest of the world. Check out this map to see what country the GDP of each state matches up with; it’s pretty mind boggling. New Jersey is on par with Russia; Nebraska with the Czech Republic; North Carolina with that supposed paragon of social democracy Sweden. The most common objection I hear to secession is that the states are too small to survive on their own, but that position has no basis in reality.
So given all this, why not secede? What exactly do we have to lose but trillions of dollars in debt, an overly aggressive foreign policy that does nothing to keep us safe, and federal taxes that are sure to only go higher? So citizens of America….uh, disunite?
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I’m fixin’ on serving as iron-fisted president-for-life of the Great Lakes Republic one of these years.
Thanks for the links; nothing honors independence better than honoring independence. (And I’m spent on tautologies for the day.)
The will of the people decided our connections to England
[...] here). John Payne offers four reasons to Celebrate Secession at his blog (cross-posted to The American Conservative): The most basic reason for supporting secession is that it makes government more accountable to [...]
I think its great that conservatives are thinking of secession now. When Bush was in the white house they called liberals traitors for talking about it. Long live Liberty.
Two points:
1) I am not a conservative, even though I’m blogging at a conservative website.
2) I supported secession during the Bush Administration, advocating it in my college’s conservative/libertarian paper.
I agree with succession. One thing the federal government forgets — the South is in this country by force!! It probably won’t take much more from the gov before the South decides, again, that it has had enough.
The US government has created such huge liabilites for the American taxpayer ($75 to $100 trillion). There is simply no way the government can meet these obligations without imposing crushing taxation and massive inflation. The dollar is already under considerable pressure abroad and the Obama administration is intent on borrowing and spending more on socialist schemes.
There are already budding secession movements and many states have acted to effectively nullify oppressive federal laws (ie Real ID). Arizona is considering a bill that would exempt residents from whatever national healthcare plan Washington imposes.
Liquidation often follows bankruptcy and the American Empire is definitely bankrupt. Foreigners are growing increasingly nervous over all the money being created by the Fed and dollar is close to being dethroned as the world’s reserve currency. This will be the breaking point. Hyper inflation will signal to the many of the productive states that it is no longer in their interests to remain in the Union.
I agree with Vick…I’m American by birth, southern by the Grace of God! As a suthner’ I would support my state (NC) if it wanted to secede the Union. In fact, as a Libertarian, I’m hoping that we will do that and do it soon. It’s a fact that you don’t mess with the south. We’ve got good manners…up to a point. You don’t go messin’ around with our rights down here. We believe in God, country and the right to bear arms.
i dont understand your comment about ‘that supposed social democracy’ Sweden, compared to north carolina. NC has a larger population than Sweden, and its GDP includes a whole series of funds it wouldnt have access to if it was independent.
Oh and Swedes are healthier, better educated, better housed, have a freer press, less corruption, a more advanced industrial and hi-tech sector, and less crime.
apart from that NC’s kicking goals
The only thing that will bring the US Federal government to heel is secessions. Here is how I see the line-up:
1. Great Lakes Republic (socialist)
2. The Left Coast (CA, OR, WA, NV, AZ, NM (socialist)
3. North Florida, South Florida (democracy, socialist respectively)
4. The NE Republic (New England, PA, Maryland, Delaware, NJ, Washington DC. (socialist bordering on communist)
5. The New Confederacy, this time including West Virginia and the entire central tier of states from Texas to North Dakota. (constitutionally limited republic)
#5 will be the dynamic, prosperous, viable new nation of the 5.
You can guess where I will choose to live! North Florida might join this New Confederacy.
Best,
Larry Sobocinski
Most Americans seem to have forgotten that the establishment of the American republic as predicated on the moral imperative of secession. If the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence were valid in the 18th century, then they’re valid today — to wit: Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and whenever they become destructive to those just ends, it is the right — the duty — of the people to alter, abolish, or throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Secession Now!
The cesspool that is DC is utterly impervious to anything save that which it can swill and waste while passing the cost on to others. It is an imperial whore on the level of the absolute worst of Rome or ancient Egypt, and if it is not broken up, it will become increasingly tyrannical in an attempt to maintain its hold on power.
It would be easier to herd a “warehouse full of cats” than to get a plurality of citizens to agree to go anywhere (let alone to agree to secession).
A simpler remedy (to achieve the same ends) is to repatriate (the opposite of expatriate) to the original “Citizen of a State” political status (rather than Fourteenth Amendment citizen.. a subject to Federal Jurisdiction).
Details regarding this option are found at http://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/Citizenship/WhyANational.pdf
Yours in Observing “Controlling Jurisdiction is Everything in Lawful Relations,
Patrick Henry
It would be easier to herd a “warehouse full of cats” than to get a plurality of citizens to agree to go anywhere (let alone to agree to secession).
A simpler remedy (to achieve the same ends) is to repatriate (the opposite of expatriate) to the original “Citizen of a State” political status (rather than Fourteenth Amendment citizen.. a subject to Federal Jurisdiction).
Details regarding this option are found at http://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/Citizenship/WhyANational.pdf
Yours in Observing “Controlling Jurisdiction is Everything in Lawful Relations”,
Patrick Henry
You ask, “So given all this, why not secede?”
Simple: thanks to postbellum propoganda, the majority of Americans thinks it’s ILLEGAL to secede, and that secession is the essence of anarchy etc; they think “Lincoln said so, and so it must be the truth.”
They have been brainwashed from birth to believe that the USA is “One nation, indivisible;” and modern “scholars” validate this legal claim. No one tells them the TRUTH, i.e. that every state IS a sovereign nation by law; rather, this fact has been obscured by 140+ years of pro-Leviathan propoganda– and that all of its blunders, i.e. the World Wars, the Great Depression, Communism, the Arms Race etc, were not CREATED by the Lincoln-juggernaut, but would have been WORSE without it.
In order to have the benefit of secession, states need the POWER of secession: i.e. to the national sovereignty over themselves– and know that the USA is NOT a nation which is the judge of its own power, limited only by a piece of ink-stained parchment.
Regarding Sweden’s social state, this is an attack from the left, but I think it makes most of the relevant points–it just gets the solution wrong:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/swedish-economy-social-state
Larry Sobocinski, for your #4 comment on the “NE Republic” dont count NH in on that, we are pretty much the most libertarian state in the union and will not jump on the bandwagon of socialism for “geographical conveniance”
Check out http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ for a movement argues for your point 3.
We tried that down here - it didn’t work out.
If Arizona secedes I’ll be moving out. I will not live in a state ruled by Nazi Joe Arpaio!
Larry, you can take AZ out of that Left coast socialist republic. Wouldn’t happen. More of an AZ, TX, CO,UT, NM, OK republic would be more likely
Good column.
The post by JD Ricks both shows why secession would work for everybody’s benefit and why the Liberal/Leftist Elites cannot allow any secession. If states seceded, people would naturally gravitate to states where they would feel at home. That would mean, for example, that today’s ‘blue states’ would become more ‘blue’ while today’s ‘red states’ would become more ‘red.’
Allowing red states to be traditional values Christian is something America’s Liberal Elite can never risk. America’s Liberal Elite will not rest until it crams abortion as sacrament and gay marriage, as well as race-based wealth redistribution and anti-Christian universalism, down everybody’s throat. The $PLC, to name just one example, worships an increasingly Soviet style centralized tyranny in America because that is how it can wield authoritarian power in shadow.
A threat to third trimester abortion or public sodomy anywhere is a threat to third trimester abortion or public sodomy everywhere. Therefore, the only way to preserve the Liberal freedoms to practice third trimester abortion or public sodomy is to force everyone to accept both.
Force in the names of freedom and tolerance and diversity, naturally.
Larry, which part of being instrumental in electing George W. Bush into office twice qualifies the central tier of states to be anything like a limited constitutional republic? I don’t remember hearing many Texans or Oklahomans or other Midwesterners decrying dubya’s repeated violations of every conceivable Constitutional principle and every American’s freedoms when he was in office. In fact, just about every Midwesterner I’ve ever met was (and is) so in love with our proto-fascist-commie police state that they couldn’t yell loud enough in support of it. Maybe my knowledge of freedom is a little hazy, but limited constitutional republics aren’t supposed to pass laws like the Patriot Act, are they? This whole country spent eight years under a fascist Republican administration thanks in large part to #5, and now thanks to numbers 1-4, we will get to try out some full-blown communism for a change under the Obamanable one.
This freeman says that the only valid government is a government of one, where my freedom to live my life as I choose is limited only by your own freedom to do the same. The answer is not in governments and associations, but in allowing each individual to live freely without depriving others of their own freedom. Has your #5, or any part of this country, for that matter, truly upheld this supposedly most basic belief of our nation, or have we just elected tyrant after tyrant to lord over us while whining about how horrible they are on the Internet if they’re not on “our” team?
Here’s a thought…none of them are on “our” team. In fact, they are all on the same team and we’re the suckers paying for their game, which we will lose if we continue to hand our money and freedom over to these shysters while pretending that where we live is different and better than the state next door. Truth is, every state & local government is playing ball with the feds to deprive us all of our rights, and no amount of secession short of the personal secession of every individual in this country will ever change that fact, though I guess smaller is always better where governments are concerned.
[...] Bill Miller @ 8:45 pm This article by John Payne, posted on the American Conservative Blog, Read Full Article. Leave a [...]
[...] pm This article by John Payne, originally posted July 3, on the American Conservative Blog, Read Full Article. Leave a [...]
[...] policy that does nothing to keep us safe, and federal taxes that are sure to only go higher?” Read Full Article. Comments [...]
Regarding the third point made in this article (expanding the number of representatives), please read Walter Williams’ article “Political Monopoly Powe” about enlarging representation and about Thirty-Thousand.org:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/
Then please read the 15 Questions & Answers on Thirty-Thousand.org’s home page:
http://www.Thirty-Thousand.org
Thirty-Thousand.org (TTO) is a non-partisan and non-profit organization.
“That government is best which governs least.” ― Thomas Paine
We have a grassroots movement happening here in Arizona. Should the Cap’n'trade pass AND/OR the Nazi Care pass, we’re going to petition for signatures to get Secession put on the ballot for Arizona. A similar drive is happening in Texas as well.
Keep and eye out for it.
[...] government. For that I ask, why not secession? Several very good, rational, reasons for secession have been written by John Payne for The American Conservative, excerpts: 1) The most basic reason for supporting [...]
[...] government. For that I ask, why not secession? Several very good, rational, reasons for secession have been written by John Payne for The American Conservative, excerpts: 1) The most basic reason for supporting [...]