Did He Just Say—Secession?
Sneer, sneer, boo, hiss—and oh, boy! Did the "progressives" ever pour it on my governor, Rick Perry of Texas, for his playful reference at a Tea Party event to "secession" as an option possibly forming in the minds of sensible Texans. Why would we be thinking about such? Because of "progressive" depredations in Washington, D.C., the governor said, if not in so many words.
The establishment harrumphed and gagged and generally went red. Gail Collins of the New York Times: "[H]ave you noticed how places that pride themselves on being superpatriotic seem to have the most people who want to abandon the country entirely and set up shop on their own?" Etc. Ad infinitum.
Come on, lady, back off a little. No one's going anywhere—as well you certainly know. Nobody's called for a secession convention. I looked up and down the street this morning; not a single effigy of Nancy Pelosi dangled from the live oaks. Driving to the office, I heard no suggestion that we hang Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, or, preferably, both to a sour apple tree.
No matter. Sigh. The progressives have the bit between their teeth and seem bent on the usual pretense that these Texans are a bunch of ingrates whom we shouldn't trust as far as we can throw a grand piano.
Well, you know what? It's too much trouble seceding, even if we could. And, pace the governor, we can't. Rather than the secessionary right he alleged we brought with us into the Union, we brought the right—undoubted, but similarly impractical—to divide into five states. We'll have to stick around a bit longer. That shouldn't deprive us of the right to remind fellow Americans of some practices and virtues our land could do well to renew.
A key one is regard for the inherent right of local people, even under a federal union, to defend and oversee their own modes of life. In other words—golly gee!—Texans might not want exactly the same things Californians want. They might wish lower taxes and less regulation by government. Their approaches to education and health care and energy might differ as well. So also the ways they deal with simple matters like eating: more sirloins in Texas, more tofu on the Left Coast.
Alas, the Obama regime, as we may decide to start calling it one of these days, has other notions. It appears to cherish uniformity, the close alignment of ideals and methods: everybody doing the same thing the same way for the same reasons.
The Obamanistas may want uniform rules regarding the cars and trucks we drive and the energy those vehicles consume. They want, it seems, national education standards—a goal furthered, as one hates to acknowledge, by a former Texas governor, George W. Bush via the No Child Left Behind Act.
We may even wind up with national standards for humor. A joke, son, ain't a joke no more, and that's the truth. The governor of Texas no more demanded secession from the Union than he called for a Lone Star Beer to be brought him. He raised an eyebrow; he winked. Never mind. A stalwart "progressive" trying to show up conservatives is ever alert to serendipitous events and occasions.
So maybe he shouldn't have said it. That's from one perspective. Here's another: A Union of the sort our wise and virtuous founders thought they were creating is as loose and flexible as a Union can realistically be made; accommodative of divergent viewpoints, and all the stronger for it, all the more united, too.
The Union we seem to see dead ahead through the windshield, with the people of 50 different states all cuffed together in mutual subservience, isn't what the founders had in mind. Good for Rick Perry on that score: He raised a useful subject, even if to his own detriment. Let's enjoy. Such a moment may not come again for a long, long time.
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Yahoo News at this very moment states in a top story:
AP Poll: Americans high on Obama, direction of US
What! Was this poll given in Spanish?
The problem with Rick Perry supporting secession, the 10th Amendment or even the archaic term "nullification"(paging Dr. Wilson) is that he doesn't really mean it. He's in a primary battle with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, somehow the most popular politician in Texas, and he needs to feed the conservative elements of the Texas Republican Party juicy T-Bones to drive the primary rightward.
Rick Perry is still the man who wants to plow a quarter-mile wide highway through the heart of Texas, slicing up the farms and ranches of thousands of Texans that got in the way of progress. And, to put a mulitnational glaze to Governor Secession, Perry has a Spanish multinational firm in mind to run the globalist enterprise. Forgive me if my head is spinning. Can you be a secessionist and a globalist at the same time?
"Can you be a secessionist and a globalist at the same time?"
Only if you're a Republican. That's how they make their living. Sure, no normal human being could find a way to combine States' rights with globalism, but that's what makes them so special.
"What! Was this poll given in Spanish?"
The poll was probably taken in Bruges. The only "Americans" who are high on Obama, at this late date, are toilers at the 4th estate.
Is there anything in the U.S. Constitution that forbids a State from seceding from the union? Was not the union a voluntary one formed by the sovereign States themselves to which the States delegated only a few, specific powers? Did not the States of New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island even specifically include in their ratification of the Constitution verbage that clearly declared their right to withdraw from the voluntary union if, at any time, it was found not to be in the best interests of the State and the People to remain in the union? Is it not made clear in the Federalist Papers that the Founding Fathers intentionally removed from the Constitution any reference to a "perpetual union" as was included in the original, discarded Articles of Confederation? Is it not true that the New England States on at least two separate occasions threatened to secede from the union, and it was determined that their secession would be entirely constitutional? Did the Confederacy's defeat in the War For Southern Independence determine once and for all that secession is illegal and unconstitutional, or did it simply confirm that nations which lose a war can be held against their will in a union of which they want no part, a la the Baltic States and the U.S.S.R? After the Confederacy's defeat on the battlefield, did the Confederate government (as opposed to the armies) ever surrender its right of secession, or was the government simply disbanded by the victors? After the Confederacy's defeat in the War For Southern Independence, was there ever an amendment added to the U.S. Constitution, properly ratified by the States in accordance with the provisions set forth in the Constitution, that formally made secession unconstitutional or the voluntary union a perpetual one?
This article seems to imply that any politician who brings up the subject of secession as a means of threatening the Federal government for perpetrating excesses is nothing more than a political jokester making idle comments which are tantamount to sedition against the United States. Undoubtedly, in this particular case, Gov. Perry is not serious about contemplating and encouraging the secession of the sovereign State of Texas from the voluntary union of States known as the United States, but it certainly is neither unconstitutional nor seditious.
U.S. foreign policy has for decades supported secession attempts by other sovereign States from their overseers, as in the case of the break-up of the U.S.S.R, Bosnia's secession from Serbia, the Czech Republic from Slovakia, etc, but it certainly has never considered secession from its own union anything but an act of treachery. What do you suppose the U.S. would do if, for example, Germany were to secede from the European Union? Would the U.S. consider an attack on Germany by the rest of the States of the European Union to hold it in the European Union against its will to be justified, or would it consider such an attack blatant aggression, anti-freedom, anti-democratic, and imperialism?
Most Americans do not seem to realize that our union had been formed by a group of colonies that had seceded from Great Britain, declared their sovereignty and independence, and then formed their own voluntary confederation of States called these United States. If the Federal government becomes overbearing, unresponsive to the will of the People, or tyrannical in its dealings, then there is nothing that prevents We The People and our sovereign States from leaving that union, and reassuming our powers as independent and sovereign nations.
You are entirely correct, Mr Anthony, though I dont think that Mr Murchison meant to imply that talking of secession was tantamount to sedition. Also, if memory serves me correctly, the Empire was at best lukewarm on Slovakia, and Bush I opposed the secession of the Baltic states, even tried to excuse Gorbachev for sending the Spetznaz into those states. He spouted some ridiculous nonsense about 'territorial integrity', while Gorgachev invoked Lincoln for justification, and Bush said nothing to oppose the invocation.
Of course your basic statement is right. The U.S. supported the secession of Panama from Columbia, for example (Gee, I wonder why they did that?).
The U.S. has supported or opposed secession throughout the world at different times, never on principle, nor on any reasonable realpolitic, but always based on a greedy, venal, often self-destructive selfishness. U.S. support for Kosovo secession was the extreme of hypocrisy. It was also nothing but a criminal conspiracy against a sovereign state, with no justification whatsoever. It was exactly what Lincoln falsely accused the South of doing.
On the other hand, the fully justified secession of the fourteenth colony to secede from the British empire, Rhodesia, was not only opposed by the powers that be in D.C., but they took part in the destruction of that country as well. They refused to support the morally justifiable secessions of Biafra and Katanga even though these countries, like Rhodesia, could have been allies in the cold war struggles in Africa. They justified Georgia's brutal invasion of secessionist South Ossetia.
Not only has U.S. policy regarding secession been hypocritical, it doesn't even make sense.