Most Likely to Secede
by Andrew Valentin
It was December 20th, 1860 and South Carolina had passed the first ordinance of secession, stating, “We, the people of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain…that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘the United States of America’ is hereby dissolved.” It is now December 2012, and we have come to a point where 675,000 signatories across 50-states in participation have petitioned to secede from the union once again. It seems that from a radical right-wing perspective, this is the wisest choice for the United States. Ironically enough, if this were to be the wisest choice for the state of our union, then there would clearly be no union for us to have called improved. To secede from our “socialist” President, as most of the petitions have cited as reason for secession would imply that state governments are the most qualified to lead themselves out of a debt of their own creation. For example, Texas, the leading state in this movement even back from 2009, routinely receives more federal aid than Texans pay annually in federal taxes; meaning that if Texas were to leave the Union, it would lose a surplus of revenue
Historically, secession is a punishable offense, and understandably so. In a nation where so much of the infrastructure and funding is on a federal level, especially in the case of the states who champion secession so greatly, we essentially have a nationalized country at this point in time. It is impossible to go back to a Union of 50 individual entities for the sheer fact that the states have become nearly uniform in infrastructure. If Texas were to secede from the Union, it would surely be called, officially, “The Republic of Texas,” but would it really be the independent state of Texas.
Aside from the simple arithmetic of it being unwise to secede from the Union, the fact that the media has made the statistical insignificance about half a million people wishing to blindly secede in a populous of 300 million is an example of the glorification of what makes entertaining news in our current state of affairs. 675,000 secessionists in a nation of 300 million give us a statistical minority of less than half of a percent of our nation’s country. The media however has instilled this fear into viewers, and has scared the blissfully misinformed of a problem that is really much less significant than it was made out to be. This is entertainment at most and it is most certainly how the White House will respond to these petitions for secession. When states seceded from the Union in the 1860’s, individual state governments did so, not a “grassroots” organization of people who have taken losing an election to an entirely new extreme to the point where they lose sight of national unification regardless of political affiliation. These people have lost sight of how it is not their country who has failed them, if in fact anyone has actually failed a mid-western farmer whose concept of communism is that everyone deserves to live without rationing their health because of money, but rather it is their government and politics that has failed them. Secession is not political, but rather it is a legal divorce from the Union, and to make it a political statement would be to foolishly equate a political solution with a legal solution.
Moreover, from a strictly
defensive standpoint, states have neither the resources nor inclination to provide for the common defense, a responsibility that has been taken over by the federal government out of precedence. Defense spending is nondiscretionary and would be another bill, along with the many that are footed by the federal government that the state would have to be able to handle by itself. The state would have to provide Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in order to appease those statistically insignificant secessionists, while ensuring the protection of the status quo. If it sounds impossible, that’s because it simply is. The federal government is not in any sense perfect, but a shock to the system and way of life of citizens who are not political whatsoever; as in every state that sought secession, it would cause a political, or even violent backlash if any state were to secede. Imagine had New York seceded from the Union and FEMA flew directly over the disheveled homes, tragic landscape, and displaced people only to assist a neighboring New Jersey. Although I believe that secessionists have the interests of their own states in mind, they fail to realize how globalized of a society we have become, how dependent we have become on one another. From a utilitarian perspective, we have come to the point where secession is devolution from our current state of affairs, and from a moral standpoint, we are all in the same debt. If we are protected, defended, and considered an entire nation, we cannot simply start from scratch and to believe that this would solve our current domestic crisis is simply idealistic. Furthermore, we could not possibly recognize states that have become so dependent on the Union for trade and economic success as their own sovereign nations. Will these new “countries” or “confederations” be recognized on a global scale? Can we even consider their legitimacy as individual nations with their own infrastructure, given the fact that federal funding through grants has made up more of the states’ infrastructural spending than tax revenue could ever achieve? These questions are not the hypothetical ravings of a contrarian, but rather real-time issues that these states must deal with in an alternate dimension where secession from the Union is actually a legitimate alternative to our domestic crisis and is actually a notion up for entertainment. I’m not implying that the federal government is the be-all-end-all of responsibilities and duties when all else fails; I’m simply saying that the two governments, in our modern society, cannot exist without each other without collapsing into despotism.
It was December 20th, 1860 and South Carolina had passed the first ordinance of secession, stating, “We, the people of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain…that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘the United States of America’ is hereby dissolved.” It is now December 2012, and we have come to a point where 675,000 signatories across 50-states in participation have petitioned to secede from the union once again. It seems that from a radical right-wing perspective, this is the wisest choice for the United States. Ironically enough, if this were to be the wisest choice for the state of our union, then there would clearly be no union for us to have called improved. To secede from our “socialist” President, as most of the petitions have cited as reason for secession would imply that state governments are the most qualified to lead themselves out of a debt of their own creation. For example, Texas, the leading state in this movement even back from 2009, routinely receives more federal aid than Texans pay annually in federal taxes; meaning that if Texas were to leave the Union, it would lose a surplus of revenue
Historically, secession is a punishable offense, and understandably so. In a nation where so much of the infrastructure and funding is on a federal level, especially in the case of the states who champion secession so greatly, we essentially have a nationalized country at this point in time. It is impossible to go back to a Union of 50 individual entities for the sheer fact that the states have become nearly uniform in infrastructure. If Texas were to secede from the Union, it would surely be called, officially, “The Republic of Texas,” but would it really be the independent state of Texas.
Aside from the simple arithmetic of it being unwise to secede from the Union, the fact that the media has made the statistical insignificance about half a million people wishing to blindly secede in a populous of 300 million is an example of the glorification of what makes entertaining news in our current state of affairs. 675,000 secessionists in a nation of 300 million give us a statistical minority of less than half of a percent of our nation’s country. The media however has instilled this fear into viewers, and has scared the blissfully misinformed of a problem that is really much less significant than it was made out to be. This is entertainment at most and it is most certainly how the White House will respond to these petitions for secession. When states seceded from the Union in the 1860’s, individual state governments did so, not a “grassroots” organization of people who have taken losing an election to an entirely new extreme to the point where they lose sight of national unification regardless of political affiliation. These people have lost sight of how it is not their country who has failed them, if in fact anyone has actually failed a mid-western farmer whose concept of communism is that everyone deserves to live without rationing their health because of money, but rather it is their government and politics that has failed them. Secession is not political, but rather it is a legal divorce from the Union, and to make it a political statement would be to foolishly equate a political solution with a legal solution.
Moreover, from a strictly
defensive standpoint, states have neither the resources nor inclination to provide for the common defense, a responsibility that has been taken over by the federal government out of precedence. Defense spending is nondiscretionary and would be another bill, along with the many that are footed by the federal government that the state would have to be able to handle by itself. The state would have to provide Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in order to appease those statistically insignificant secessionists, while ensuring the protection of the status quo. If it sounds impossible, that’s because it simply is. The federal government is not in any sense perfect, but a shock to the system and way of life of citizens who are not political whatsoever; as in every state that sought secession, it would cause a political, or even violent backlash if any state were to secede. Imagine had New York seceded from the Union and FEMA flew directly over the disheveled homes, tragic landscape, and displaced people only to assist a neighboring New Jersey. Although I believe that secessionists have the interests of their own states in mind, they fail to realize how globalized of a society we have become, how dependent we have become on one another. From a utilitarian perspective, we have come to the point where secession is devolution from our current state of affairs, and from a moral standpoint, we are all in the same debt. If we are protected, defended, and considered an entire nation, we cannot simply start from scratch and to believe that this would solve our current domestic crisis is simply idealistic. Furthermore, we could not possibly recognize states that have become so dependent on the Union for trade and economic success as their own sovereign nations. Will these new “countries” or “confederations” be recognized on a global scale? Can we even consider their legitimacy as individual nations with their own infrastructure, given the fact that federal funding through grants has made up more of the states’ infrastructural spending than tax revenue could ever achieve? These questions are not the hypothetical ravings of a contrarian, but rather real-time issues that these states must deal with in an alternate dimension where secession from the Union is actually a legitimate alternative to our domestic crisis and is actually a notion up for entertainment. I’m not implying that the federal government is the be-all-end-all of responsibilities and duties when all else fails; I’m simply saying that the two governments, in our modern society, cannot exist without each other without collapsing into despotism.