Divided We Stand
Brace yourself: This ringing endorsement of local self-government comes from the most unlikely of sources -- the Wall Street Journal:
Remember that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: “You say you want a revolution?” Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.
There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world.
It then introduces the leading secessionist movements around the world, and local organizations advocating breaking up the 19th-century dinosaur the national government has become, including, naturally, the League of the South:
Below the Mason-Dixon Line, groups like the League of the South and Southern National Congress hold meetings of delegates. They discuss secession as a way of accomplishing goals like protecting the right to bear arms and tighter immigration policies.
Breathtaking, isn't it? Nary a word of the usual panting warnings from the Southern Poverty Law Center that secessionists are bad, bad people who really want to re-enslave black people and kick puppies. Instead, we get to see some of the strongest evidence yet that secession is a mainstream idea and movement. The reasons for this, as the article points out, are solid: DC's archaic, centralized control is slowly strangulating our economy, as well as eroding our civil liberties, powerful motivations for self-determination I explored in my book.
Devolution is coming. And it's about time.
posted by Old Rebel @ Saturday, June 13, 2009
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10 Comments:
The League has already gained several new members from the WSJ article. Wonders never cease . . .
WSJ. This appears to be big, big news indeed.
Michael,
I love free publicity.
Snaggle-Tooth Jones,
Yes, it is. The word is getting out, and folks are realizing there are few alternatives.
Novacadia made it onto the pages of the WSJ! Will wonders never cease. Fourteen months to get from my imagination to a continental readership. I'll take it!
In spite of Kirk Sale's ragging on the progress, we're doing just fine, thanks very much.
I think as soon as the average person understands that "secession" or "confederacy" are not four letter words and that there is nothing in the constitution that forbids states from seceeding there will be a ground swell of support.
Furthermore to the WSJ article:
The secessionist community is going ga-ga over this exposure. My original take was: Why this? Why now? And why via the WSJ? I have some murky thoughts that are not yet clearly worked out. My most concrete thought is directly related to Post-Peak Oil collapse, i.e. with a financially bankrupt federal state, the public is being prepped on its having to bail out, ergo my entire notion of secession-by-default. This latter take on secession makes me a bit of a freak even within the secessionist community. For the most part, they're all States' Rights, go-get-'em, defend the Constitution types...no understanding of systemic and entropic collapse.
However, having said all of that, it's still important to play the game and grab what one can. Personally, I am basking in the fact that it took only 14 months for Novacadia to make it from my imagination to the pages of the WSJ. Hey, I'll take it.
As far as Kirk Sale having shat all over the notion of Novacadia goes, there are light years of difference between "disputes" and political ineptitude and sabotage, be the latter conscious or not. One should stick to one's knitting, be that either academic sojourns or political organizing. It is a dangerous spot to be in when the most visible, go-to, self-anointed, unelected voice of a movement becomes its greatest liability.
Now, if only the LoS wasn't a top-down autocracy built on the current model they might have something. Of only there was a Confederate government in existence that accomplished the goals President Davis and Co. set out to achieve.
Oh, that's right. There is. It is the government that was NEVER SURRENDERED to the federals. It is the very government that Dr. Hill eschews in favor of a "new" South, desecrating our heritage and dashing hopes of a restored South against the rocks of hubristic enterprise.
Deo Vindice.
wylde007,
But the Confederate government that disappeared in 1865 has one really big disadvantage -- it doesn't exist.
A real government has to be recognized as such by the people who elected it. And the people who elected the Davis administration are all dead.
What does that leave us? The task of educating our people about what the current regime is doing to them, and how their real history, their rights, and their untapped strength can lift them out of their current predicament. In other words, the same thing the colonial and Southern secessionists had to do.
The notion that some self-appointed group can claim the authority of a long-dead political entity is role-playing along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons.
So then where does that leave anybody? Every single group falls into such a category.
The government, as an instrument of the people, OUR PEOPLE, exists in a state of dormancy. All it requires is a group of patriots to revive, and restaff it.
Currently the men that are working for a restoration of our founding principles are acting in a provisional manner. They are performing as liaisons to the people to get the word out and to encourage others to participate in the efforts for Southern independence.
Shall we wait for the quislings and sheeple to "elect" Southern representatives? The closest thing even remotely close to a reasonable compromise is the Southern National Congress, but our salvation must still be formed on a basis of our dormant confederate government.
I predict and fear that we shall see events unfold that are not unlike our last bid for independence from federal tyranny. I only hope the conclusion is more favorable this time 'round.
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