Ron Paul writes:
Is all the recent talk of secession mere sour grapes over the election or perhaps something deeper? Currently there are active petitions in support of secession for all 50 states, with Texas taking the lead in number of signatures. Texas has well over the number of signatures needed to generate a response from the administration, and while I wouldn’t hold my breath on Texas actually seceding, I believe these petitions raise a lot of worthwhile questions about the nature of our union.
Is it treasonous to want to secede from the United States? Many think the question of secession was settled by our Civil War. On the contrary, the principles of self-government and voluntary association are at the core of our founding. Clearly, Thomas Jefferson believed secession was proper, albeit as a last resort. Writing to William Giles in 1825 he concluded that states “should separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers.”
Keep in mind that the first and third paragraph of the Declaration of Independence expressly contemplate the dissolution of a political union when the underlying government becomes tyrannical. Do we have a government without limitation of powers yet? The federal government kept the union together through violence and force in the Civil War, but did might really make right?
Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. Some thought it was treasonous to secede from England, but those “traitors” became our country’s greatest patriots. There is nothing treasonous or unpatriotic about wanting a federal government that is more responsive to the people it represents. That is what our revolutionary war was all about and today, our own federal government is vastly overstepping its constitutional bounds with no signs of reform. In fact, the recent election only further entrenched the status quo.
If the possibility of secession is completely off the table there is nothing to stop the federal government from continuing to encroach on our liberties, and no recourse for those who are sick and tired of it. Consider the ballot measures that passed in Colorado and Washington state regarding marijuana laws. The people in those states have clearly indicated that they are ready to try something different where drug policy is concerned, yet they will still face a tremendous threat from the federal government. In California the feds have been arresting peaceful medical marijuana users and raiding dispensaries that state and local governments have sanctioned. This shouldn’t happen in a free country!
It remains to be seen what will happen in states that are refusing to comply with deeply unpopular mandates of Obamacare by not setting up healthcare exchanges. It appears the federal government will not respect those decisions either.
Read the rest here.
Awesome op-ed. I love seeing Ron Paul move in a more radical direction a la Rothbard.
ReplyDeleteGo Ron Paul!
There is nothing radical about anarcho capitalism/ voluntarism. It's the only logical system out there
Deletewhat's wrong with being "radical", did not Rothbard refer to himself as such?
DeleteMaybe you're attributing the word to solely "extreme" in one of its defintions instead of considering simply a "fundemental difference".
That's the problem. Like "liberal" the word radical has been negatively corrupted by Statists.
DeleteAre you guys serious? Do none of you understand what 'love' means? Anonymous 8:23 is clearly stating he enjoys and identifies with what he perceives to be a shift to a more radical direction from RP. Nowhere does he make any claim as to the value or correctness of radicalism, nor try to define it.
DeleteRelax. Try to understand that people that post here are not all trollers or statist, even if they dont all subscribe to your ideas about semantics.
seccesion is treason, this was settled in the civil war, if you try to secede you will either be killed or locked up in jail, its unpatriotic, citozens of this great land should support the government, the troops, and americas interests.
ReplyDeletetheres troops overseas fighting to protect our freedoms here and people are talking about secedingm, its disrespectful.
if you dont like it you can always move to the libertarian paradise of somalia.
Obama won, get over it. americans rejected your radical extremist utopian ideas, we voted for equality and peace, not war and corporations, get over it already.
Publick Edumacation at its finest.
DeleteI'm glad Ron has taken the gloves off. He no longer has to worry about anything other than freeing the slaves of DC. The morons who love their slave masters will be hurt the most. Poetic justice!
DeleteIt's sad that you are too stupid to recognize that the only peace candidate was Ron Paul.
DeleteYes, Obama won; those of us who do not support either letter after the name did not expect any real difference in policy between the R or the D. We are in deep trouble, and I'm afraid you do not yet understand what the "it" in your "get over it" really means with regard to what is in store for this country. But you will, and probably sooner than later.
DeleteFirst, I argued for Secession when Bush was prez, so it has nothing to do with Obama.
DeleteSecond, should we then force the Slovaks to reunite with the Checks? Should we force the Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians to reunite with the Russians?
Third, under what moral system is it correct to kill (or lock up) someone who wants to secede? Doesn't that make us slaves?
Where in the founding documents does it say that the Fed Gov in DC owns Florida, and therefore has a right to kill us if we want to leave?
haha you forgot the "*/S" to let us all know you were being sarcastic
Delete-Gitz
I can't tell if you're a troll or being sarcastic. I'm hoping sarcastic since nearly every single statement that you made was incorrect.
Delete"Obama won, get over it. americans rejected your radical extremist utopian ideas, we voted for equality and peace, not war and corporations, get over it already."
DeleteI'm not sure how voting for someone who has been happily bombing the 3rd world for years counts as "peace". I also don't recall him saying many discouraging words about "corporations". Goldman Sachs, Boeing, etc are the real winners of every election. Maybe this post was a parody?
lol, you're a spelling champ aren't you?
DeleteI keeeeed!
Anyway, Somalia isn't "libertarian" or anarchist...it's got tons of a little gov'ts in regions throughout its artificially created borders and where no recognized officially gov'ts exists it has feudal sytle warlords.
I think you're just parroting a leftist talking point.
Also, it wouldn't take you long(if you expended just a little bit of energy) to see this site didn't favor Romney over Obama(or vice versa for that matter).
This is a troll just having fun. It's too stupid to be otherwise.
DeleteLet me respond with a quote from Robert P. Murphy:
Delete"But wasn’t this issue of whether it’s a good idea for a President to forcibly put down a secession movement, settled once and for all by John Wilkes Booth in a theater?"
Source: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/11/internet-death-dealers.html
DeleteGreat parody of an Obamatard.
Delete@ Bharat- love it. I'm a member of the JWB fan club.
ReplyDeleteFuck tha police.
Wrote this on Robert Murphy's blog, but it seems somewhat wrong to compare succession today to the American Revolution.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the justification for American independence the unequal treatment under British rule? Do states today experience unequal treatment under the law?
That's not to say you can't justify secession, but I'm not seeing the comparison. (You could perhaps say that American culture was fundamentally different from British culture in the same way red state culture is different from blue state culture.)
Are the most productive not unequally treated by the state?
DeleteAre minorities not unequally treated by the war on drugs?
I agree with Tony. Although unequal in many cases may be hard to define, because there are many ways that states can be treated 'unequally', unequal treatment definitely exists. In fact, how could the government possibly treat states equally when they are different in a countless number of ways?
Delete"But wasn’t this issue of whether it’s a good idea for a President to forcibly put down a secession movement, settled once and for all by John Wilkes Booth in a theater?"
ReplyDeleteBoth hilarious and very accurate. Thanks for the quote by Murphy, Bharat. How many Republicans out there would say the "2nd amendment issue was settled" if the govt simply used force and took away all privately held arms? How many Democrats out there would say that the "abortion issue was settled" if the govt murdered all abortion providers and women who had one?
I suppose the Bolsheviks also "settled" the issue of private property in Russia, too by that logic.