To honor the United States’ secessions (yes, that is meant to be plural; up until 1865, it was the “United States are” not the “United States is”) from the British Empire, the good folks at A Thousand Nations have been blogging on the topic of secession all week. You can find an index of posts here, and I highly recommend them, especially for those of you who have never given much thought to breaking up the United States into more manageable units.
Although those contributions to the debate are ample, allow me to offer my own take on why secession is still a good idea.
1) The most basic reason for supporting secession is that it makes government more accountable to the people it governs. The smaller a polity is, the easier it is for an individual’s objections to be heard whether that be through voting, petition, protest, etc. It also becomes harder for one group to oppress another the more they have to interact with each other. Dehumanizing some distant group is very easy; it is much harder to do with your next door neighbor. In the words of my all time favorite libertarian hero Karl Hess, “Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany is a horror; Adolf Hitler at a town meeting would be an asshole.”
But even if some Hitlerian figure were to take over an independent state or town, it is far easier to flee a small polity than a larger one. Getting out of the old Soviet Union was extremely difficult; getting out of Missouri, not so much.
2) The harmful effects of bad policies are seen and felt far more quickly the smaller the polity. A huge nation like the United States or China can easily persist in wealth (or even life) destroying policies for generations because their benefits are concentrated at special interest groups that agitate to continue the policies while the costs are dispersed onto the rest of the population. This is why our government subsidizes corn so heavily. But it would be nearly impossible for Iowa to continue those policies if it seceded. There would be fewer people to tax and more people expecting benefits, leading taxpayers to demand subsidy reductions and corn farmers to care less about keeping them as each individual farmer’s share of the loot would drop.
3) The United States long ago ceased to be anything resembling the republic the Founders envisioned. When the Constitution was ratified there 30,000 people for every representative in Congress, and for many of the Founders, like George Mason who spearheaded the drive for a bill of rights, this number still seemed high. But now with over 300 million people in the country, and the number of representatives capped at 435 there are almost 700,000 people for every representative in Congress–a number that will continue to grow. It may be absurd to believe that one person can represent 30,000, but that just makes it all the more absurd to believe one can represent 23 times that much. It is the equivalent of six people representing the entirety of the American population at the time of the Constitution’s ratification.
We can only restore the level of representation circa 1790 in two ways: expanding the number of representatives from 435 to just over 10,000 or by dividing the country up into smaller polities. The first option raises the obvious question of how an organization of 10,000 could function and where they could meet, but it would also make each representative’s power negligible in exact proportion to how much it would strengthen each citizen’s power to influence her representative, making the whole point moot. The only possibility for each American to live in a representative republic (that’s not my ideal, but I prefer it to the monstrosity we live in now) is secession.
4) Many of our states are as large as most other countries. There are more people in California than Canada; more in New York than Taiwan, Australia, or North Korea; more in Florida than the Netherlands; almost as many in Missouri as Ireland; and more in Texas than Austria, Switzerland, and Isreal combined. Furthermore, our state economies are even larger than our populations relative to the rest of the world. Check out this map to see what country the GDP of each state matches up with; it’s pretty mind boggling. New Jersey is on par with Russia; Nebraska with the Czech Republic; North Carolina with that supposed paragon of social democracy Sweden. The most common objection I hear to secession is that the states are too small to survive on their own, but that position has no basis in reality.
So given all this, why not secede? What exactly do we have to lose but trillions of dollars in debt, an overly aggressive foreign policy that does nothing to keep us safe, and federal taxes that are sure to only go higher? So citizens of America….uh, disunite?
[...] Almost 1500 Tea Party Protests are planned across the country (news coverage here). John Payne offers four reasons to Celebrate Secession at his blog (cross-posted to The American Conservative): The most basic reason for supporting secession is [...]
Excellent post. Very thought provoking! Would you mind if I copy this to my blog, http://www.ConfederateDigest.com, with proper attribution and a link back to your blog?
You have good reasons for secession.About 40 years ago,I wrote a paper that the country was unmanageble.I think I purposed dividing the country into 9 confederations.Each confederation would appoint or elect one person to serve on a commission for one and only one thing,Mutual defense.I’m from New Jersey originally,I agree with you it is on par with Russia.
By the way,Hans Hoppe stated in one of the seminars at the Mises institute that Montana,Idaho,Washington State with two of the provinces of Canada could form a confederation because of trade relations and economic interest they have with one another!
A very good article,Thank you!
Stewart White
I sent Lewrockwell an article, he’s presented an earlier one of mine. It’s about secession and different than all these others which argue about why secession should be considered. It offers a “plan of action” wherein secession might be attainable. It’s time to start “walking the walk” and stop just “talking the talk”. I’ll send you a copy of the article – I have it at home.
An Action Plan
For many months now, even years, many have written increasingly alarming articles describing the dire straits our nation is in. The purpose of this article is not to repeat their accurate explanations of how, or why we find ourselves in this deteriorating situation. These previous writings have done an excellent job of that and continue to warn the people.
However, among these warnings, both verbal and written, the counsel given to people, regarding how they can prepare has all centered on “defensive activities”. By “defensive”, I mean, acts that focus solely on how individuals and families can try to minimize the negative impact resulting from an unfolding financial crisis, increasing national and global totalitarianism, etc. For example, advice to become debt-free, store life sustaining essentials, review living location, all fall under this category. It is as if people are to accept this juggernaut to tyranny. It cannot be stopped… best to just hunker down and try to survive the coming “tsunami”.
While this certainly is not a sports game, I submit that you cannot “win” playing defense only. We need an offense. Below I propose an “offensive” action plan to obtain a goal that some have alluded to, but have yet to outline the specifics of how to achieve.
Therefore, if you conclude that;
(1) Our existing Federal government is beyond reform
(2) The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury are debauching the “dollar” that will result in serious inflation, perhaps hyper inflation, even a collapse of our currency
(3) Our Federal government is increasingly totalitarian in numerous areas, using one crisis after another, real or contrived, to justify their expansion of power over our lives
(4) The mainstream media is primarily a propaganda organ for the money-power and still exerts tremendous influence over the majority of Americans
(5) The government school system is effectively doing exactly as intended, to dumb down each rising generation to become willing slaves in the global socialist anthill
(6) That perhaps only 15% of the American public is aware of our situation and understands the proper role of government in a Constitutional Republic
Then … the best course of action [to “win”] is, separation. Let us separate the “liberty-loving wheat” from the “slavery-loving tares”. Secession.
As extreme as this action is and fraught with danger, I am reminded of the phrase that “Heaven knows how to put a price on that which It values”. The original colonies successfully seceded from the British Empire (1776) at great cost and suffering. The Mexican state of Texas successfully seceded from the Mexican Republic (1836). The Southern states tried to secede from the Union but at the cost of some 600,000 lives and much suffering, were held captive by that Great Centralizer, Lincoln.
Given such history how then to accomplish such?
Secession Action Plan
(1) I propose that my estimated 15% of Americans, that are awake to the awfulness of our situation, make the sacrifice of relocating to several specific states.
(2) I suggest Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Montana. Their populations are relatively small. There already exists within them, a minority, but significant percentage of voters with a self-reliant attitude, correctly suspicious of expanding Federal power. New England is lost. The West Coast, now a bastion of liberalism, seeks greater power at the Federal level to impose their version of utopia upon the rest of the nation.
(3) Such an influx of several liberty-loving millions could dominate local elections thereby ensuring state legislatures and governorships would be populated with liberty-loving individuals.
(4) I look mostly to Constitutional Party candidates, but also American Party, Libertarian party candidates. None from the Democratic Party or Republican Party (except Ron Paul).
(5) These would hopefully be willing to do more than pass toothless, 10th Amendment resolutions we are now seeing issued from some state legislatures, pleading with the central government to uphold their contract with the states by living within Constitutional restraints.
(6) This migration needs to be completed before the elections of 2010. Time is rapidly running out, perhaps it is too late already. But we must, at least, try and not go passively to the slaughter like sheep.
I recognize the sacrifice such a relocation entails. Further, I acknowledge the dangers secession presents. History shows that it often leads to bloodshed. Power can only be countered with power, or the threat thereof. And usually words do not successfully blunt the advances of those seeking power.
And, there are serious problems regarding “Federal lands”, Federal military installations, countered with the loss of Social “Security” benefits, Medicare, (and these are financially solvent?), Federal income tax (whoopee!), supplying cannon fodder for the Federal government’s empire building wars, etc. etc. These would all have to be negotiated. It would be traumatic.
But what are the alternatives? What kind of nation are we bequeathing our children and grandchildren? What future looms just over the horizon? In the years leading to WW2, those people who accurately saw the trends could (and some did) make sacrifices to relocate out of harm’s way. And what suffering did they and their children avoid by doing so?
Let us remember the “spirit of 1776” this Independence Day, it is not a July 4th celebration, words do mean things. It is time to “walk the walk”, otherwise, stop complaining and go along and try to buy as much time as you can before you cross the line with the state.
At every sporting event we sing this song, ending, “o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”! Everyone cheers and applauds, I think of the phrase, “the perfect slave is the one that thinks he’s free”.
I have no problem with anyone republishing the post as long as I’m linked and attributed. Thanks!
Sure, I’d be interested to read it.