Secession

This topic is chosen because it illustrates the potentially disastrous results which may come from the poor state of public discourse in America.
It disturbed me no end during last year's election that the media spent more time making fun of Gov. Sarah Palin's considerable shortcomings than over the fact your husband is a security risk. Why was so little said about the whole idea of electing a potential President(that's what a Vice-President is supposed to be)who sleeps with the enemy, literally. Her husband, John Palin , is a member of the Alaska Independence Party and she herself gave the welcome to one of their conventions. Don't people know all secessionist movements are organized treason?
Perhaps not, since according to a recent opinion poll, 48 per cent of Texas Republicans approve of walking out on the Union for the second time, which leads to the question, why are they Republicans? Don't they know the first and foremost principle of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln , a real conservative, the real reason for the Civil War in the first place. It is, after all, right in the Pledge of Allegiance: "one nation, indivisible". When you marry the United States of America by joining the Union there is no divorce, no annulment. Don't people understand that?
Certain states now legally require high school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Why should they if the governor of Texas is publicly courting secessionist voters to improve his chances in next year's primary? Indeed, how is it that in Texas, at least , a sitting governor actually believes he can improve his chances in the next primary by toying with treason? I have nothing but sympathy for the high school student in Florida who was thrown out of class for refusing to cite the Pledge of Allegiance, defying Florida state law. The courts subsequently ruled that, while the teacher had no right to throw him out of class, the state had the right to require reciting the Pledge, a perfect example of the travesties of justice possible in today's America , where people and states never have to confont the conseequences of what they say they believe in.
There is no good reason to require anyone to say the Pledge of Allegiance when there is no evidence anyone is required to obey it. The governor of Texas, Mark Perry, courts it for political reasons, as Palin does for hers, yet the only time the mainstream media disapproves is when the Hawaii Independence movement stages a prolonged sit-in at a historic Hawaiian palace. Talk of media bias, not to mention open racism!
So, let's really talk about secession.
THE CASE AGAINST SECESSION
The indivisibility of the Union, not the freeing of the slaves,was the purpose of the Civil War. That we don't seem to know this tells you our public schools have done a job on us in the miseducation department.
Lincoln insisted on this principle because the first law of democracy is majority rule. If the minority can simply walk out and form a separate nation anytime they're sick of the majority, you don't have a nation. You don't have rule of law, because it can be overriden by secession. Nothing can be accomplished, without universal consensus, because the dissidents can walk out on the country and take vital parts with them.
Lincoln apparently based his principle on his reading of Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution,which forbids states from joining any other confederation or entering into treaties on their own, Also, his understanding of the ratification process and his common sense told him joining the United States is a permanent commitment.
Most of all, some 400,000 Americans, including Lincoln himself, gave their lives for this principle. Did they die for nothing? Is it o.k. to let them die for nothing, while contemporary Americans play political football with treason, while fretting over whether our dead troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are dying for nothing? Does time make American lives less valuable?
THE CASE FOR SECESSION
We might as well talk about it, since the governor of Texas is facing neither impeachment nor charges of treason for having said he's open to it as a possibility. What reasons can there be for advocating secession?
1. Lincoln's principle implies a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence. Does it not say we have a right, even a duty, to break away from any entity promoting a long string of abuses?
True, both Lincoln and Obama would say, what abuses? Slavery was immoral, and Lincoln, in one of his most infamous statements, said he 'd be wiling to keep all slaves in chains, if that would have kept the Union together. Obama keeps pointing out he's just trying to fit a colossal fix left to him by the previous president, along with a whole series of congenital problems, like health care and the environment, neglected by generations of Presidents and Congresses. To the extent to which there are abuses, these are the abuses and now, when he's trying to fix them, is not the time to walk out on the Union.
Still, rigidly believing in "one nation, indivisible" does imply the following.....
2. You're prepared to accept a situation in which never again does Congress have to actually declare war in order to have one. Remember, the last time Congress actually declared war was the only good example, in my opinion, of where it shouldn't have had to: right after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. None of our five undeclared wars since then, including the two now in progress, ever had that kind of justification.
If you are not prepared to simply accept this situation, you have a case for secession.
3. If you believe in Lincoln's principle, then it's your duty to accept the Patriot Act, the new passport laws, the eavesdropping on both your mail and e-mail, the whole idea that national security justifies anything the government says is necessary, even things you can't do for your own personal security.
If you can't accept this, then you have a case for secession.
4. If you believe in Lincoln's principle, you accept the government can and should enfore the prejudices of those who got them elected, at the expense of the basic liberties of others. This was at the core of the South's problem with the Civil War: it maintained African-Americans were not human beings, the South had a right to own them, and the federal government was abusing their "property rights". It is interesting that to this day, almost all talk of secession, except for Hawaii, is on the right. None of the six states which have already legalized gay marriage, for example, is seriously proposing secession, should any attempt be made to circumvent their laws.
We never hear talk of secession over war or human rights. No state has ever proposed secession to improve the environment, secure universal health care, or pursue cleaner and cheaper energy sources. Secession is almost exclusively the province of right-wingers who think the mere existence of taxes is an abuse, discrimination against whomever they can't stand is both their right and something the government must enforce for them, and having to live with a black president is too much to ask of them.
Why is that? If you are left -wing you might find it more reassuring that the left is more patriotic than the right, except it raises the question of whether the right is more principled than the left? Is the left prepared to see none of its goals ever achieved because we have to share the country with those who don't want these goals achieved, and our commitment to Lincoln's principle forbids us to break up the country and form one of our own no matter how things get?
I believe in Lincoln's principle, but sometimes, I think it asks too much of reasonable and decent people.