Not With a Bang, But With a Whimper

This is How The World Ends - Part IV

If, as I have contented in the first three parts of this series of post, the following is true -

1. We Americans are woefully ignorant of our rights, our Constitution and political philosophy in general
2. Our Constitutional Republic from those nice stories in history books is long dead
3. Our election process is completely incapable of fixing any of this (or our other massive problems of wars, failed economies etc. etc.)

Then what does the future hold and what are the solutions (or coping mechanisms if no solution is apparent)?

Some talk of a revolution in our future - but revolutions are a complicated business. Middle classes do not start revolutions or even participate or support them until they are well under way and almost over. Sure the middle class often provide the intelligentsia of a revolution but that is a small part of the bigger requirement. The rich do not start violent revolutions - they buy what they want in influence and power. The true foot soldiers of any revolution are the dispossessed, the poor and down-trodden.

Therein lies the fix, the poor and downtrodden in the US are riding pretty fat and happy (by relative standards of poor and downtrodden) on a US government gravy train. There are enough people within government that are capable of reading that understand the key ingredients in civil discontent. So long as a willing and compliant middle-class exists to consume and pay taxes the government will be able to buy the happiness and contentment of the poor. It is as simple as that.

In any event, no sane man looks to revolution with glee. Anyone that believes the War of American Independence was a revolution simply does not understand what the term really means. It was a separatist, nah a secession movement, not a revolution.

The foot soldiers (those poor and down trodden) are apt to follow the banner of any fool with a plan and a promise once the shooting starts. Change for the sake of change is something rationale people fear, particularly considering the history of revolutions.

No, the government will keep the poor placated, and in the event they occasionally rise up in violent riots the government will put them down and the middle class will rejoice that their welfare was protected.

There are probably many in the middle class that would like the idea of change, even if it involved violence. They probably also have a solid idea of what they would do to put everything back the way it was meant to be. But, when the rubber hit the road as they say the mad middle class guy has a house, a mini van and he really does not have time to start a revolution because he has to be at work by 9am in the morning. Middle-classes almost always trade safety and security for rights and freedoms.

Secession then you say. Well as an strong advocate of the legality of secession and a proponent of states' rights you might think I would say this is the solution...I doubt it.

First, if we are honest about it there is but one government now. Our states have lost all of their rights and all of their will to attempt to assert any rights. Government down to the local level is intertwined via federal grants and regulations. In cases where the federal government has not overtly asserted some control or influence many of our state and local government officials deffer to the question of "what is the national standard".

Second, our states no longer have any semblance of a heterogeneous culture or common polity. A woman from Arkansas can be a Senator from New York for goodness sakes. People move, leave familial and cultural bonds in pursuit of paper money and trinkets. A secession movement would have a very hard time in any state with such a mix of people.

Third, the middle class is bought and paid for just as the poor - it is called social security. Until it fails people expect to get what is coming to them - secede and lose that...never. A soul sold for 30 pieces of silver.


Pretty grim stuff and I am simply not wise enough to see a way out of this. Early on in this series of post I used comparisons of the German people from 1933 on to relate to some of our traits. We talked about the coup attempts on Hitler's life and the fact that a real revolution was never a possibility in Germany. Hitler may have died in one of the coups but nothing essential would have changed. The undoing of the Germans had already occurred, they were powerless (I did not say blameless) to alter their fate. I fear we are in the same boat. We cannot vote our way out of this mess now (too may accommodations in the past), revolution is not a realistic possibility and neither is secession.

I like optimist, they inspire people. Doomsayers just scare the heck out of folks. Yet, I find it difficult to muster optimism about our future.

I will now do something I have never done in my life, quote Martin Luther King Jr.

I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, "You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God

This was from a speech called "It's A Dark Day In Our Nation" explaining why he opposed the Vietnam War but the words are applicable for any number of events in our recent and not so recent history.

We have done wrong. We have allowed greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy and pride to rule us. We have even turned those vices into virtues of sorts. We have abandoned the wise teachings, learned through history, of our forefathers in preference for our perceived enlightened wisdom of modernity. We have traded liberty and freedom for safety and security.

Commenting on the American experiment Alex de Tocqueville said, "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." and "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

Pretty astute for a Frenchman in the mid 19th century but correct nonetheless.

And thus the world we thought we always knew, in the final analysis, ended not with a bang but with a whimper.

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A Majority in 32 States Agree

With Ron Paul that Lincoln was wrong to start and prosecute a war against the southern states when they seceded from the union. An act not prohibited to them by the Constitution - the act of going to war against states exercising their reserved rights is not a power delegated to the executive branch or the federal government in general. I challenge anyone to provide evidence to the contrary. Apparently the majority of folks in the less metropolitan states understand this concept.

Take a gander at the map of the poll results - everywhere that people still live with some degree of that quality that has been considered historically "American" the majority agree that Lincoln was wrong.

Samuel Chase (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) and Justice of the Suprime Court stated in Ware v. Hylton (3 Dallas 199 at 224 U.S. 1798)

In June, 1776, the convention on Virginia formaly declared that Virginia was a free, soveriegn and independent state and on the 4th of July 1776, following, the United States in Congress assembled declared the thirteen colonies free and independent States; and that as such they had full power to levy war, conclude peace etc. I consider this as a declaration, not that the United States jointly in a collective capacity were independent States etc. but that each of them was a soverign and independent State, that is each of them had a right to govern itself by its own authority and its own law, without any control from any other power on earth. [emphasis mine]

The Treaty of Paris 1783, concluding the American War of Independence, supports this conclusion:

His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.

Notice that Great Britian acknowledhes the independence of thirteen individual states as free and independent nations - not simply one joint government. The United States as a government was born from a contract between free and independent States and it was given only limited power to do specific things. As the 10th Amendment clearly states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The president did not and still does not have the power the use force against a state or states exercising their reserved rights - i.e. all rights of free and independent nations not specifically delegated to the Federal Government under the terms of the Constitution. Free and independent states are by definition free to enter into contracts and agreements and when they believe those agreements are no longer in their best interests they are free to leave those agreements. That is the meaning of being free and independent - any other definiton would inply that the states were captive and not free at all.

Alexis de Tocqueville the foremost observer of the creation of the American Republic, in Democracy in America, said:

The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States choose to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right.

President James Buchanan stated succinctly in a speech before Congress, December 1860 that the Constitution does not delegate to the Federal government the power to use force against a state:

The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not " necessary and proper for carrying into execution " any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.

Lincoln himself spoke highly of secession at one point in his career (when it was pragmatic and met his own ideological objectives)

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one which suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right-a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own so much of the territory as they inhabit.

This excerpt is taken from Lincoln's "If You Can Secede You May" (Mexico) speech, cited in Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 450.

Clearly Mr. Lincoln was wrong to wage war against the South - he did not do it to free slaves for he never freed a single slave under his actual sphere of influence. Furthermore, slaver ended in every other Western nation without war, it was an intsitution destined to end in America as well without warfare. He invaded the South outside of his constitutional mandate and beyond his delegagted power to act. His actions caused the death of 400,000 Americans and in the minds of the uneducated and more nefariously those that wish to use the Federal Government for purposes that is was never created for changed our Republic into an empire.

Ron Paul was brave to answer Tim Russert correctly but it is more encouraging to see that many of my fellow Americans still understand history and the Constitution.

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Re: A Simple Plea for Federalism

Nick Gillespie over at Reason comments on a story worth reading and considering.

From Ron Hart

My solution to the unworkable yet appealing idea of secession is to devolve more powers to the states and fewer to Washington. It is what our Founding Fathers intended. And if you read the Federalist Papers, you will realize that they never intended our central government in Washington to be this expansive and overbearing.

If you want an abortion, then move to a state that allows it. If you want to smoke weed, then go to California. If you think that we should pay for everything a lazy welfare person demands, then go to a state that gives them flat-screen TVs and, instead of government cheese, offers an assortment of French cheeses that are both delicious and presented in a pleasing manner.

The basic reason that we fought for our independence is to do what we damn well please as long as it does not harm others. Yet at every turn, the federal government seems to want to make us do as they think we should, even if it comes down to using windmills, driving a Toyota Prius, or now, being forced to join the Hillary Health Care Plan....

Our free-spending federal government thinks it is doing things well, and is filled with enough hubris to believe that it should tell other countries what to do - it calls it foreign policy. The real answer is that less money and power need to be vested with them and more at the state level.

In this Hart has it just right, I would like nothing more than to remain united with other Americans in their states for the common good. If we take the Federalist Papers as the real intent of the Federalist and not some attempt to answer away criticism and get The Constitution accepted at all cost then we find within those documents good words. The Antifederalist certainly did not buy into the hype, their warnings have become reality.

However, laying that aside, The Constitution certainly is, at present, our best hope. If we could turn back the clock so to speak, to a time when the States had Rights and the Federal Government had limits and politicians always asked the question "is this constitutional" before proposing some new grand scheme things would indeed be much better. More than a supporter of secession I am first and foremost a supporter of a limited Federal Government, a strict interpretation of the Federal Constitution and freedom of the States and The People to do each and every thing they please that was never delegated to the Union. Citizenship belongs back with the states, as it was when the Union was formed.

Secession is not unworkable, it is just not necessary right now. That is not to say that it is not important to talk about it, to keep it in the public mind and to continually proclaim it as a legitimate right of our States. We simply cannot abandon our fate to one that forever ties our prosperity and freedom to the notion of Union. If we abandon the notion of secession, we thereby abandon all hope of restoring the Republic. Without the right to secede, all other rights become provisional and the 10th Amendment means nothing - it becomes something that is defined by the Federal Government itself - that is tyranny, benevolent or otherwise it is tyranny.

As I wrote in my last post, Ron Paul certainly is a wonderful breath of fresh air into the otherwise corrupt and perverse political landscape. Millions of us should get out and support him, we should support Constitutional Party candidates in local and state elections. We must lay aside the failed notions of pragmatism and "we simply must win". That has accomplished nothing, if you are a conservative like me you see this failure clearly within the GOP and the candidates they routinely roll out for our perusal. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans support any degree of restoration of the Republic - meaning a proper interpretation of the nature and role of the central government. We should not honor them with our treasure or concern - even if it means our votes will not be counted.

The solution to almost everything that ails The United States can be found within the simple notion of devolving back to what our government was intended to be - no other ideology, political party position or single-scope issue approach will save us.

Don't lose heart, don't take my words as defeatism - stand firm for those that believe and support the right things, no matter how many temporary defeats we may suffer. Heck, get involved!

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If You Really Want to Get Involved

I realize the number of folks that can see the ideas of States' Rights and Secession as legitimate is pretty small - but this is a growing minority. If you believe like I do that "small is beautiful", "politics should be local" and "there has to be a better way" perhaps you are ready to get involved.

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The Chattanooga Declaration - Point 1 Analysis

I plan to write seven separate posts dealing with each particular point of the Chattanooga Declaration in an effort to provide inarguable truths related to the necessity of such a declaration and the various secession movements within the united states.

1. The deepest questions of human liberty and government facing our time go beyond right and left, and in fact have made the old right-left split meaningless and dead.

Who seriously believes that there is any real difference between Republicans and what they claim to represent and Democrats and what they claim to believe. To be certain there are various points of difference in their approaches, otherwise their entanglements would not make for such fun sport. However, we are not talking about simple issues such as how many billions should be taxed from the people and where those billions ought to go, i.e. what government program. We are not talking here about subtle differences such as should the government have socialized medicine or merely expand current programs.

Just think honestly for a minute, Democrats and Republicans really do not disagree that much, in fact they agree much more than they disagree. They agree that the Federal Government can solve many problems. They agree that the fastest and best solutions to most problems is to write a new law. They all understand that most of these new laws require additional governmental resources and therefore more taxation. Each party, despite what words they may speak during the election cycle, trusts the Federal Government more than The People or the various states to solve problems.

I know, you may argue that the hot botton issues of each party are different - this is true. They appeal to different demographics but when in power their actions do not differ that much. The result of the actions of both parties has been a bigger Federal Government, more taxation, less liberty for individuals and an erosion of States' Rights. The facts supporting that statement are undeniable and therefore inarguable.

Therefore the deepest questions of human liberty simply cannot be answered within our current system. I am a Christian, I am conservative (paleoconservative to be exact) and a Southerner that was raised to respect certain things. However, I have traveled the world and seen many things. I do not like everything I have seen, I do not approve of everything I have seen and I would not intentionally condone everything I have seen in my home (read State of SC). I am, however a lover of liberty, God himself granted us liberty, the freedom to choose right and wrong, good and bad. Who am I to judge (i.e. force action upon) people exercising that liberty in their home (i.e. state/community)? How hypocritical it is to believe that a political system as large as the Federal Government could at once ensure the liberty of everyone and at the same time protect the moral virtues of everyone else.

Let us take two "hot-button" issues for a moment and examine them - gay marriage and abortion. I am opposed to both IN MY STATE, I disagree with both anywhere. Here is the kicker, as a lover of liberty I believe it is the RIGHT of people to determine locally how they view these issues and establish local laws accordingly. The counter-argument is that it would be too cumbersome in our current system to allow gay marriage in one state and not in another or that such would be unconstitutional. I say to that if the current system is what is preventing the exercise of liberty then the system should change. People should be able to resolve these issues locally, that is true liberty, that is protection of the minority view (insofar as such is possible).

We could similarly take every moral issue that plagues the current "right/left" divide and assign those back to the place where the founders always thought these matters would be resolved, the states. Secession is not a simple solution to complex problems it is the only solution that guarantees the protection of minority rights and viewpoints and ensures that liberty lives with us instead of as a word in a history text.

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Open Your Mind To Real Diversity

Joshua shared a link to a video related to the Chattanooga Declaration. I find it to be a particularly touching presentation of the wording itself.

Point #7 of the declaration sums it all up "Without secession, liberty and self-government can never be sustained, and diversity among human societies can never survive." Think on that for a moment. Put aside your false notions of "American nationhood" and if you just cannot do that read the article I previously wrote below. Big is not beautiful in all matters and when it comes to a political union big certainly can become oppressive to the minority view. We talk so often of our love for diversity but in politically correct terms that means only approved diversity - true liberty does not grow in such infertile soil.

The United States, America and The People: Our allegiance is to God, our families, our home, our country and then the government that represents us. So long as that government represents us well it is fit to stand. Whenever it may cease to serve its intended purpose it deserves neither our respect nor our loyalty. That is a very American point of view.

Do you agree? Sign the Declaration of States' Rights

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The Chattanooga Declaration

The Chattanooga Declaration was drafted and approved by delegates to the Second North American Secessionist Convention on 4 October 2007.

We, the delegates of the Secession movements represented at the Second North American Secessionist Convention, acknowledging our differences, yet agree on the following truths:

Read the Declaration

If you need a refresher read the Burlington Declaration as well.

Digg This and pass the word along!

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Oklahoma Takes a Stand on Illegal Aliens

STATE LEGISLATURES DON'T HAVE TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Is your legislature comprised of cowards and scalawags? Then throw 'em out at next opportunity!

Well, it passed! Oklahoma is no longer OK for Illegal Aliens........
It seems that at least one state has decided to take matters into it's own hands, since the Federal Government keeps dragging it's feet on this Illegal alien stuff and even reversing popular opinion on how to handle it.

BRAVO OKLAHOMA! (Too bad all politicians don't have the 'guts' to do this)

Every State needs to do this!!!!

Oklahoma's Governor Brad Henry has signed a sweeping immigration Reform bill: House Bill 1804, that its sponsor believes will go a long way in dealing with the illegal alien problem in the state.

House Bill 1804, was passed by overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate of the Oklahoma Legislature. The measure's sponsor, State Representative Randy Terrill, says the bill has four main topical areas: it deals with identity theft; it terminates public assistance benefits to illegal; it empowers state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws; and it punishes employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

Oklahoma is no longer "O.K." for illegal aliens, Terrill observes. "When you put everything together in context," he contends, "the bottom line is illegal aliens will not come here if there are no jobs waiting for them, they will not stay here if there is no government subsidy, and they certainly won't stay here if they know that if they ever encounter our state and local law enforcement officers, they will be physically detained until they're deported. And that's exactly what House Bill 1804 does."

The Oklahoma legislator is pleased the bill he sponsored into law was signed by Governor Henry and believes it will go a long way to curb the illegal immigration problem in the state. "I would remind people that states are separate sovereigns in our federal system," Terrill points out. "Anyone who doesn't understand that needs to go back and take an American federal government class in college," he says.

As a result of that sovereignty, the Oklahoma lawmaker insists, "We have as much right - in fact, I would argue, a responsibility - to protect our tax payers against that sort of egregious waste, fraud and abuse as the federal government should have a responsibility to protect that international border, but doesn't do that."

Terrill says as long as the federal government refuses to do its job of protecting the international borders of the United States, states like Oklahoma must take action to deal with the problem that is costing taxpayers in the state $200 billion a year in public benefits, law enforcement costs, and other resources.

14 GOOD REASONS TO DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS
(websites provided for verification)

Hopefully these 14 reasons will be forwarded over and over again until they are read by the majority of Americans. Then they will have something to yell at their U.S .. Congress members. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year.


$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

30% of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

$90 Bill ion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the United States

During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S. from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report.

The National Policy Institute "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."

In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.

So if deporting them costs between $206 and $230 BILLION DOLLARS, Start getting rid of em.' We'll be ahead after the 1st year!!!

Please pass this on. Americans need to wake up!

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Nice Start

BOSTON (Reuters) - Maine lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to demand repeal of a federal law tightening identification requirements for drivers' licenses, a post-September 11 security measure that states say will cost them billions of dollars to administer.

Maine lawmakers passed a resolution urging repeal of the Real ID Act, which would create a national digital identification system by 2008.

"Urging Repeal" is a good start and I am happy to see a few states addressing this issue. I really want to see a few states nullify this law entirely and simply ignore this un-Constitutional imposition from on high.

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The Big Sky Country Stands Up

The Charleston Voice passed along this little tidbit.

HELENA -- Lawmakers in the Montana House of Representatives collectively thumbed their noses at the federal government Monday by approving two bills exempting guns from federal regulations and driver's licenses from national standardization requirements.

The bills by Reps. Diane Rice, R-Harrison, and Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, do different things but are driven by the same concern: the erosion of personal liberties by the federal government.
Koopman said Monday his gun bill, House Bill 366, would inspire a home-grown industry of gun-makers who produce firearms to be sold in Montana. It also sends a message reaffirming states' rights.

[...]

Rice is sponsoring HB 304, which would prevent the state from cooperating with the federal government in establishing nationwide standards for noncommercial driver's licenses.

[...]

There was virtually no debate about the bill before lawmakers voted 94-6 to pass it, with a third and final vote expected today.

My question is - how do we find and elect state legislators in other states that actually understand The Constitution, the nature of the federal compact and the concept of States' Rights?

Montana is apparently leading the way in the battle to preserve the rights of the states against the continuing usurpations of the Federal Government.

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The Governator Takes a Stand

The governator declares secession for California - well not quite but at least there is one governor willing to use the phrase "nation-state".

From his second inaugural speech.

And yet here in this nation-state of California , people from all over the world live in harmony. I call California a nation-state because of the diversity of our people, the power of our economy and the reach of our dream. Every race, every culture, every religion has been drawn to California .

I may not want to live in a nation-state that apparently has no inherent culture as Schwarzenegger suggest for California, but I certainly support their right to establish within their borders the sort of republic and nation-state that they can live with - so long as what they do does not affect me and my nation-state.

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