Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Independent States of America?

posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:15 PM Permalink


Several states are now so disgusted with what the Republican-led government has done to our nation that they are considering breaking off into independent countries managing their own affairs.
In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.

That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.[…]

They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.

If allowed to go their own way, New Englanders "probably would allow abortion and have gun control," Hill said, while Southerners "would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now."

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.

Vermont, one of the nation's most liberal states, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

Thomas Naylor, the founder of one of those groups, the Second Vermont Republic, said the friendly relationship with the League of the South doesn't mean everyone shares all the same beliefs.

But Naylor, a retired Duke University professor, said the League of the South shares his group's opposition to the federal government and the need to pursue secession.

"It doesn't matter if our next president is Condoleeza (Rice) or Hillary (Clinton), it is going to be grim," said Naylor, adding that there are secessionist movements in more than 25 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas.
Congratulations to the GOP, Republican Party, Neocons, Conservatives, bushies, or whatever else you might want to call yourselves today. You may well have succeeded at doing something no other country or group of countries could ever do: breaking up and destroying the United States of America. Aren't you just so proud? You created such an evil, overbearing government, that doesn't even know how to govern, that many states just want to quit the Union and secede.

Seems to me someone spoke of things like this before in some little known document:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security…
Truer words were never spoken, and the action contemplated is certainly not for, "…light and transient causes…" but for the reasonable apprehension of, "…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…".

And, personally, I think California would make a fine country with the sixth largest economy in the world from day one.

9 Comments:

At 8:03 PM, Blogger Toast said...

I would actually be perfectly happy to see the Northeast secede. (New England + New York, and maybe Jersey.) We're already the Brainland of America™. I bet we'd kick ass as an independent nation. And really, after the last decade and a half, I'm sick to fucking death of sharing a nation with Wingers.

 
At 8:36 PM, Blogger The Vidiot said...

I'm all for secession. Secession Rocks! But the state, and I mean the US Government, would VIOLENTLY quell this sort of thing. Are we prepared for such an action? And not just on an intellectual level? 'Cause that's what would happen. Whiskey rebellion? Anyone? Anyone?

 
At 11:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ain't nothing in the Constitution or Declaration that forbid it, and, in fact, the Declaration seems to insisit on the rights of the people to throw out a government and form their own. And I'm not sure even bush/cheney could order troops to open fire on Americans, or that the troops would obey such an order.

 
At 11:40 AM, Blogger The Vidiot said...

Didn't we say the same thing about the troops at Kent State?

 
At 1:03 PM, Blogger Bill Arnett said...

Point taken.

 
At 1:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a bunch of morons.......
The Democrats and Liberals have destroyed this country. The Republicans aren't a whole lot better. But Obama and the liberal Demoncratic party are spending trillions of dollars to expand government and enslave the population.

 
At 2:23 PM, Blogger The Vidiot said...

I hate to break it to you, Anonymous, but that whole democrat/republican thing is a completely phony construct. There are no dems v repubs. There's only the monied and the powerful v the rest of us.

 
At 5:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm 100% for the independent States of America...or how about just America! No Central government or tainted DC. Let the States govern themselves. Think of it as growing up and moving out of your parents house￿￿￿￿￿! saying "thanks for everything you've showed me, but I've got it now"!

 
At 1:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with breaking off into different states. The federal government is too powerful, the continent is becoming polarized. The government is fighting the states (legalizing marijuana, Arizona SB 1070)

 

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