I must admit that I find this entire topic to be insufferably tiring from the very beginning. Not tiring in the sense that it is boring, but in the sense that most people involved in the discussion are so ill-informed that it becomes exhausting even thinking about how to straighten them out. As with so many other topics, this one probably deserves a book of its own. Having no time for such, however, it seems at least worthwhile to me to write a very brief post about what’s going on. If for no other reason, I can send my Facebook friends a link to this article when they post stories about secession.
The stories abound, and they are new every day. For this reason, I won’t even bother to post a link here. But here’s a brief blurb I put on Facebook a couple of days ago:
Citing a news story with the headline: “15 States including Texas have filed a petition to secede from the United States”
This is bogus, folks. “States” don’t petition to secede; their legislatures enact articles of secession and submit them to the US Secretary of State. No such business is conducted on whitehouse.gov. If the citizens of the states wish to secede, and if they have any sense at all, they don’t write to whitehouse.gov. Instead, they seek to influence their own state legislators.
Now that you know this, ask yourself why whitehouse.gov would even HAVE such petitions online in t
he first place. They know that they have no legal effect whatsoever. So why would they be doing this?And why would Obama, of all people, want to give yet one more place on the Internet for people who don’t like him to make it public?I suspect that something more sinister is at work here, folks. Think about it, please.
Could it be, just to give one possibility, that they’re collecting the names and IPAs of “dissidents” throughout the country? Or could it be that they’re trying to START some sort of unrest themselves, for whatever reason they might have for such?
Who knows. But what this is NOT is any legitimate movement of people wanting secession.
Then to clarify to another friend discussing the issue, I wrote the following:
The issue is not whether Texas or any other state has a RIGHT to secede, but whether anything LEGITIMATE is going on here in this story. These “states” haven’t done a thing. If they have, then show me any ordinance of secession they have passed. Do you really think that state legislatures debated, passed, and signed into law articles of secession in just one week with NOT ONE MENTION of it in the press?
Here’s how Texas did it last time: http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htmAnd this page has all 11 seceding states’ ordinances printed. http://web.archive.org/web/20040404171724/members.aol.com/jfepperson/ordnces.html
The Ugly Past
Then there’s the really, really , ugly issue of what happened the last time actual state entities tried to secede from the Union. They were not allowed. Instead, total war was waged against them and their governments were replaced by carpetbaggers. This all happened to protect the financial interests of those who would be hurt if the seceding states were to take their business elsewhere instead of staying locked in under tariffs that gave an unfair advantage to parties other than themselves.
And all that happened in the country’s early days. Now, federally-owned lands and military installations and offices abound in every state in the Union. It is delusional, therefore, to believe that a state could secede today without being militarily invaded and conquered.
Framing
These secession petitions at Whitehouse.gov serve to “frame” the issue in the eyes of the ignorant public. When a petition seeks the administration’s “permission” to secede from the Union, this suggests to the careless public that such permission is needed in order to leave.
Similarly ridiculous is the suggestion I saw in one news story, wherein some “expert” pretended that a constitutional amendment would be required at the Federal level in order for a state to be allowed to secede. This, too, is bogus, for no such passage in the Constitution can be produced.
Further, it appears that the White House promises to “review” any such petition receiving in excess of 25,000 signatures in a 30-day period. OK, but what for? The administration has no power to grant a secession, nor to deny one. Further, the administration is beholden to the state governments, and not directly to the citizens of the states. What, therefore, could be the result of such a review?
Why might the White House want to promote the ignorance? Do they want to condition us all that we are to ask his majesty for everything we want? Do they want to stir up division gratuitously? Are they taking names of dissidents for some form of intimidation or retaliation? Or are they merely grandstanding in an attempt to draw as much attention as possible simply because they like attention?
Regardless, nothing good can come from all this mess. Secession is only a good idea if a state wants true reform back to sound principles of government and if it’s willing to go to war if it’s invaded. I know of no state wherein the majority of citizens are bulwarks of political principle. Indeed, the states have their own internal corruption that is quite like that that exists at the Federal level. In such a case, being freed of the federal tyranny simply leaves the state tyrants free to exercise their own tyranny without federal competition.
How is this any better for the people than is the current situation?
Whatever the motives in this petition craze, it scares me. The people scare me.
And meanwhile, if any state government is considering drafting an ordinance of secession, I’m not aware of it.
