I don't see any reason why someone would dis-agree with secession. If a region in a country wants to break away, then that's fine. They are breaking away for viable reasons. (Most of the time.)

I did not say antebellum, either. Really, the conditions i'm thinking of are early 20th century, mostly because i've been reading "Fall of Giants" in large chunks lately; Jim Crow, laws hindering reproductive rights, further enshrinement of Christian traditions at the expense of others, criminalization of homosexual activity, a total ban on teaching evolution in public schools, could you honestly say some or all of these things are good, and that they would not happen if some states got their way?

Progress can be objectively measured as the optimization of human happiness.

Also, a lot of the would-be secessionist states are net takers of Federal money. America's balance-sheet would likely be better off with them gone, not the other way around.

Oh, so the South has progressed since the Civil War, it just hasn't progressed beyond the 1920s? Gotcha.

But yeah. I guess that, in a world where Mississippi votes down a personhood amendment, I am not particularly fearful of some kind of Saudi Alabama arising should our enlightened overlords ever avert their all-seeing gaze for a moment. To whatever degree red states and blue states do actually behave like the caricatures that their opponents make them out to be, I think it's more to say "fuck you" to the other side in the kulturkampf as anything else. Separation and self-determination would be more likely to make them grow the fuck up and act like adults rather than to continue down the path of polarization just to spite their equally idiotic opponents.

So Colombia is the most progressive country in the world?

"I can't let you leave. But don't worry, it's for your own good."

Completely irrelevant, and frankly reeks of concern trolling. That's a problem for seceders, not imperialists.

I want to secede from your pants.

Well, like I said: cum at me, bro.

Okay, Jim Crow is unlikely given the shifting demographics in the south, but would there not be total bans on abortion and restrictions on many contraceptives? Would having gay sex not become a crime again? Lawrence v Texas was in 2003: would Texas really change that much in 10 years that they wouldn't want to go back to having their sovereign law restored? Many Southern states are trying lots of silly things (like removing Thomas Jefferson from social studies classes because he was "too radical") even as we speak, and the only thing stopping them in the cases that they are stopped is a force bigger than they are.

The Personhood amendment's failure in Mississippi does suggest that things have come far in regards to reproductive rights, but with all the noise coming from the right about rape-pregnancies and such (to the benefit of Democratic candidates who should easily have been defeated otherwise) its not difficult to imagine what might be tried in some states.

Although you're right, and I acknowledged, that it would not be a horrible thing per se, but it would be worse than the system that exists currently, which is why it should not be done. The long and short of it is that people should not be free to make bad decisions, insofar as preventing such is reasonably feasible and not overly burdensome.

Even ideology-neutral, their departure from the union would create little countries, weak countries, with few differences from the remaining United States save in that they are less able to provide better opportunities for their people due to simple matters of scale.

secession is perfectly legit. the means by which its done is the only concern of mine. If all 3 branches of your state gov't handle the process then great!! Because then, obviously its popular enough an idea to elect representatives to handle transition.


petitioning for secession is plain stupid. just look at the hundred flowers slaughter in china. giving a list of secessionists to your gov't will get you first in line at a FEMA camp.

Just go through the proper channels.

Yes the South will rise again .

If the women put up with it, then I guess so. If Mississippi's personhood amendment vote is any indication, though, probably not.

Doubtful. It's one thing for the government to use an ancient law to prosecute a few people here and there, and it's quite another to actually pass that legislation all over again. And yeah, Texas has changed a lot in the last 10 years. For one thing, they've imported almost 400,000 Californians over just the last five years. I don't think those 400,000 additional gays would just sit there and take it (unless that's their thing, NTTAWWT).

The Texas textbook fights are pretty embarrassing all around, and so is the media coverage about it. It's not like Thomas Jefferson was stricken from existence altogether. His name was removed from a question about influential thinkers and, yes, replaced with three others who were more to the conservatives' liking. That's silly enough, but the media hyperventilation over it was sillier still. Plus, as usual the coverage was ridiculously one-sided. I thought it was just as silly when the liberals on the board pushed to eliminate a comparison between Lincoln and Jefferson Davis' inaugurational addresses (not like Davis was an important figure, or the president of a bunch of states, or anything) and call out individual WWII soldiers based solely on their ethnicities (identity politics, rah!) and delve into the influence of rap music (like kids don't already get enough rap in their day to day lives). As far as Jefferson goes, I also think the educational system's general sanitization of Jefferson's anti-federalism and pro-occasionally-overthrowing-the-government-ism is pretty silly.

But only by being able to make bad decisions can we ever truly be free or ever really make progress. If you just take things as an article of faith - for example, that things would definitely be worse if some states seceded and formed their own union, therefore it should never, ever happen - then you can never find out whether or not it's actually true. You'll always just assume that it is.

I'm not saying that you should personally favor secession in this or any other particular instance, or that I do myself, but the whole idea of being violently anti-secessionist just gives me the creeps. I mean, I can understand why the government is. But people who wield no power? I simply can't grok it.

This thread was actually inspired by something I was reading in which Ron Paul had made the case for why secession is legitimate and inextricably tied to the concept of self-governance, so the Christian Science Monitor offered a knee-jerk response that such talk was simply unAmerican and besides, the Civil War already settled that matter.

I hear that particular line a lot, and it unnerves me how many supposedly civilized and intelligent people say it like it's the most natural thing in the world. "We had a war about this, you know! I won't hear any more about it! Now eat your sprouts!" All the Civil War settled was that the Union was strong enough and bloody-minded enough to force the Confederacy to stick with them at that particular time. It doesn't mean that they were right to do so. "Bitch, I'll kill you if you leave me" may indeed be the government's policy, but to invoke it as some kind of logical or moral argument is completely bizarre.

1: That's the benefit of federalism; we can see the kinds of policies that these states might enact if they let loose: good for owners, bad for workers, and who knows what would happen to their (admittedly) solid state budgets if that net-inflow of federal dollars was eliminated?

2: I get that. You asked to explain why the viewpoint isn't hypocritical, and it could (as a lot of our debates here boil down to) come down to a case of Blue and Orange Morality, but the position I initially posited is (as far as I can tell) not

3: I'll grant you that point, which is ultimately a matter of "winners write the history books" being applied to a situation out of its time (and made hairier because the war was retroactively deemed one of slave liberation, whereas modern secession would be based on things much less cut-and-dry).

I've rather enjoyed this debate so far, though. Both interesting and blessedly civill.