Secession Petitions: Good PR But Bad Politics

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord: “Let my people go … ” – Exodus 8:1

Tens of thousands of Americans are now petitioning the White House wanting to withdraw from the union. Although peoples and regions around the world are in the process of withdrawing from debt laden, failed central governments including Scotland, Venice, Catalonia, Bavaria, Flanders and others, it won’t be as easy here in the USA. While the US petitions generate great PR for the legal right of secession, this is not the way a state or people legally withdraw from the US union.

First, to secede from the federal union on their own individuals must leave the US and renounce their citizenship, a very complicated and expensive process. Second, the legal way for states to withdraw is individually, state-by-state after conducting a state secession convention very much like a state constitutional convention on 10th Amendment issues.

Most of the individual states originally joined the union through this process and it is how individual states must lawfully leave the union. This is the same method followed by the individual Confederate States of America when they withdrew one by one following the election of Abraham Lincoln.

The right of democratic state-by-state secession did not die at the point of a bayonet at Appomattox Court House in 1865 after Lincoln’s invasion killed 600,000 Americans. The growing support for peaceful devolution of government powers and services to regions and local jurisdictions to allow citizens to control the power of politicians and government is a positive advancement for the 21st century. In addition, the right of devolution of states, geographic regions and groups around the world promotes government competition and freedom.

I believe legal state secession from the Washington Empire just might become the only way for American citizens to escape the disastrous consequences of the coming global run to liquidate holdings of Washington Treasury obligations and the dollar. Breaking free of the false chains that threaten our economic future from the likely Washington debt/dollar collapse might be our last chance to safeguard our financial security and liberty from the hyperinflation and crushing new tax increases to be forced on this and future generations from the bailouts and national debt.

Have you considered a confederation of states with no Washington income tax, no federal interference in the internal affairs of individual states, no involvement in perpetual wars around the world without a declaration of war, no Washington tax-feeding bureaucrats telling individual citizens, state legislatures or state agencies what to do?

Maybe it is time to consider the benefits of sovereign states voluntarily participating in a decentralized republic or confederation similar to America’s first central government, the Articles of Confederation, created by our patriotfounding fathers. In such a decentralized nation issues such as marriage, religious practice, history, symbolism, culture, abortion, gay rights etc. are determined at the state level and citizens can live their lives with regulations and conduct governed by the norms of a state or locality rather than a distant federal government.

I can envision the result being a healthy economy, with minimal government debts, a rising standard of living and job growth guaranteed by low taxes, minimal regulations and currency competition – all of this without the Federal Reserve and Wall Street creating excessive bubbles followed by contraction and collapse and then demanding bailouts.

In summary, I applaud the educational and PR impact of these secession petitions and I urge all readers to sign these petitions. But remember, the right to withdraw from the union requires the same process most states followed to enter into this voluntary contract, state-based secession conventions.

In the end, outright secession may not even be necessary. The mere threat to the federal government created by the potential of legitimate state-by-state secession might well be enough to shake up the power elites in Washington and Wall Street so that they get their acts together.

In closing, I would remind you that the people of a tax jurisdiction or individual state are not really free unless they have the democratic, peaceful right to leave as did the American colonies under the British Empire. Also remember that while petitioning the White House may be a great PR campaign there’s no reason to get your hopes up that the Federal government will ever say “Yes” voluntarily; while we don’t need them, they certainly need us to continue to pay their bills.

I will leave you, dear readers, with this one last reminder: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another … “