Reaction
After the election, a flood of calls for secession took the form of petitions on the White House web site.
It was inevitable.
Is it because Obama won a second term? Sort of. There are a lot of people out there who simply don’t like to see their team lose the big chair. But it’s more than that — a LOT more. Whether it be railing against Bush or Obama is irrelevant to the bigger picture, one in which half the country wants one set of things and the other wants another, conflicting set of things.
I say the two-party system is to blame. Even when we have a real choice on some issue both parties aren’t in bed with some special interest group related to it, we may as well flip a coin. And when half the country loses the toss too many times in a row, there’s going to be a scuffle. What a way to run a country!
Counter-Reaction
I can’t argue that for many, this is more of the usual partisan whining. But it does not delegitimize the underlying issues or deserve equally inane ridicule. Here’s the parroted buzz …
We should let them go, and make them pay for their own defense, roads, and any other federal funding, as well bill them for their part of the national debt.
We should strip anyone who signs the petition of their citizenship, maybe even deport them.
Seriously — these are actual comments infecting the blogosphere and social media. They forget that without Federal spending they could afford all these things and there’s be no debt.
Synthesis
Our political two-sided tug-of-war is about losers whining and winners gloating, but such people are all idiots. It detracts from the rest of us who are no longer content to play the game, and see starting over or establishing more cohesive geopolitical boundaries as the only alternatives.
So mope about or make fun all you want, but for some of us, it isn’t about who gets control of what house or the executive branch, but overarching federal control, period. It isn’t about Blue States and Red States, but States having the ability to opt-out of more and more blatantly unconstitutional Federal mandates. It isn’t about people like Obama, but things like Obamacare.
And even if we divested ourselves of some states, can they even be held responsible for some portion of the NATIONAL debt? Secession is a protest against having such debt in the first place, and the supporters of the federal end of the system are the ones truly responsible. Iceland had it right in declaring the public debt void, on the grounds their leaders betrayed them to banking interests.
The Federal Government is NOT made up of the states except in the vaguest sense. It exists as a separate, and arguably disconnected, entity apart from the American people in all its local, hometown community glory. The fact that funds are taken and given by representatives of such locales is nearly irrelevant because of the power lays above and there is no recourse below.
Three Times a Charm?
The War Between the States attempted to redress this imbalance, or injustice, rather. Apart from settling the issue of slavery in favor of human rights — if it can be compartmentalized from the other issues of the time — one could say the good guys lost. And when you hear “The South Shall Rise Again!”, it is hardly plantation owners wanting their slaves back. It is about a desire for Independence echoing that of our common forefathers.
And in that respect, I don’t hope the South rises again. I hope we all do.
