Discuss: Bye, Bye, Miss American Empire

Some Americans are talking about Secession even as others talk about more overseas adventures.  We like to think of Theodore Roosevelt with admiration because of his Conservation, Pure Foods,  and Fair Labor activities.  But there was also alarm over “Manifest Destiny” and anti-imperialists also sponsored rumblings of secession.  Now, 100 years later, they rear their heads again, and for the same reasons.

Bill Kauffman misses the point behind secession—i.e. the national nature of a state’s popular sovereignty under international law, which means that every state is literally a separate country and the Constitution is merely a compact between them. This was never disproven, only supressed by totalitarian means; since virtually all scholars have dogmatically refused to discuss the issue—a clear abdication of duty to vigilance over government. This is why we live under empire, since government was allowed to use force without ever accounting to the people for such, but rather suppressing them until they accepted it.
The option of Nullification and secession is absolutely essential as the final check on federal abuses, as Jefferson and Madison made clear in the Resolutions; since these were destroyed along with state sovereignty, freedoms have fallen worldwide as US imperialism migrated beyond the states to the world.
The issue isn’t “re-emerging,” it was just NEVER SETTLED—murder doesn’t settle legal issues anymore than a Canadian officer can shoot a US citizen in New York and be presumed innocent.
I can’t believe anyone can continue to ignore this supremely important issue.

Johm Miller is right. There will be those many interests and factions that Madison wrote of, agitating for their policies. But McCandlies is wrong. The issue was settled well before the South went to war. It was settled in the Nullification Crisis, where Madison refuted Galhoun’s arguments for secession. It was settled by Jefferson in the election of 1800, when the attempts to take America back to the Articles came to an end.
But they have the same flaws as the older ones, not the least of which was the connection of slavery to secession by Taylor(of caroline) and Calhoun.
But, as Madison noted, an excees of liberty is as dangerous as an excess of power. People become a litle too impressed with their own interests, and feel free to place their interests above everyone else’s. That’s a faction. Factions are what America is made of. Secession will not remove the factions nor improve the situation, it will make the problem worse, as those living under the Articles found out.

No,Richard Burnette is wrong—at every turn, and is simply repeating popular myths which don’t bear up under the slightest scrutiny. Madison was not at liberty to interpret or change the Constitution at whim, but only by the original terms; and he made these clear in the 1798 Virginia Resolutions regarding Nullifcation; if he was claiming that the federal government was the final judge of constitutionality of a particular nullification act then he was contradicting himself. Jackson likewise attempted to likewise revise history by claiming—like Lincoln—that the union predated the Constitution, however this is patently false in that each state ratified it out of its respective sovereignty—and on the terms that each state would remain popularly sovereign.
However Lincoln likewise denied sovereignty out of such false considerations, and so the issue was supressed by totalitarian means rather than legally proven—since any attempt at proof would reveal the lack of such; the current Union commenced on exactly June 21, 1788—not a day before; and with only nine states, not thirteen. If states signed away their sovereignty via ratification then it has yet to be proven in any document.
Again, this is no more “settled” than a case of a New York shooting by a Toronto officer; just because people look the other way doesn’t make it legal.

In researching my book Declarations of Independence (an enyclopedia of American secessionist movements and independent governments from before the Revolution to the present day), I have consistently found that secessionism gains ground under one set of circumstances: a group of people (whether a state like Vermont, an ethnic group like the Oglala Dakota or a community like Key West) believe that their interests and ideals cannot be reconciled with those of the federal government.

Vermonters today are understandably nostalgic about their brief independence, and many disagree with the current state of national affairs. However, secessionism will never gain ground based solely on localism.

Unless Vermonters come to believe that their ideals are fundamentally at odds with those of the nation as a whole, and that there is no possibility that the pendulum will swing back in their direction, Vermont’s secessionism is a dead letter.

There is an alternative route to achieve autonomy and that is via an Article V Convention. Presently there is an effort to bring about such a Convention. The ultimate aim, as envisioned will be the dismantlement of the federal government in its present configuration, and then reassemblement at the regional level. In essence, 10(# flexible independent republics will be created on American soil(state borders intact), each having the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the basis of their new governments. Liken this to the breakup of AT&T into the baby bells some years back. This action has become necessary to diffuse the power of the oligarchy which has hijacked our federal government. It’s time for AUTONOMOUS REGIONAL GOVERNMENT!!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group.NationalConstitutionalConvention06

Click on my name in previous post to link to my yahoo group.

The reasons as to why I am a supporter of Second Vermont Republic/Middlebury Institute do not match the points discussed by Bill Kauffman in his Orion magazine article. My reasons have little to do with Marin County posting the ten commandments in public school doorways or in Nancy Pelosi drafting legislation about Vermont farmers processing maple syrup.

My reasons for supporting Thomas Naylor and his SVR team has to do more with restraining this selfish, wasteful, destructive, bullying,  arrogant, conscienceless,  behemoth known as the USA. It has become a danger to the entire planet as well as a danger to its own people.  The human capital, the soils,  the structures, the machines,  dynamic and structural parts of the behemoth together making up its multidimensional strength have all together gone way out of control. If not for all of these pieces contributing their energies, their strength, their knowledge their human capital, Bush, Cheney and Olmert would not casually drop cluster bombs or threaten to nuke anyone they so please without fear of reprisal

Although I live far from Vermont I modestly contribute because I believe and trust in the intent and knowledge of SVR/Middlebury team; that they will develop plans for decoupling the parts of the behemoth in such a way that its powers are slowly and carefully reduced without excessive and permanent destruction to humans and related social systems.  Many years have passed since I read Arthur Clarke’s “2001- A Space Odyssey” or viewed the movie, still I recall the scene where the one living astronaut begins to remove, piece-by-piece,  the logic modules from the sweet-talking , deceitful “Hal” gradually reducing its powers.  The patient and intelligent disassembly of the empire’s many parts and likewise reassembling is what I seek and is why I support the work of Thomas Naylor and Kirkpatrick Sale. 

One other point not addressed in Kauffman’s article concerns process and strategy.  Nearly forty years ago while engaged in early parts of my dissertation research one of my faculty advisors felt that I was excessively rambling about, unfocused. He stated an aphorism that it is always better to do a small amount of the right thing and do it well rather than doing a lot of other stuff and doing it poorly.  Being a supporter of SVR and Middlebury I’ll use my privilege (?) at this stage to suggest that the time is approaching where some refocusing is needed, specifically focusing on only one state which has active secession organization.  And that state should be where the likelihood of successful secession is the highest. In my humble opinion that choice is— not Vermont—but Hawaii.  If such a decoupling is done with meticulous care and in timely fashion the results would be of invaluable benefit to the planet as well as to other state secession movements.