I’m so ill at the thought of people petitioning to secede that I am on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I don’t want to write any more about it because more than a few of my friends have signed their names to the farrago and I do not wish to lose their valued company.
I honestly cannot believe that this is going on.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
The current rush to secede reminded me of Alec Baldwin threatening to move to Canada when W won election. I thought it was silly of him then, I think detaching or running away is silly of us now.
But I do understand the impulse – something I invested in personally didn’t work out the way I wanted, and I felt the burning pressure to do /something/. Recognizing pressure as something out of whack somewhere, I hit my metaphorical knees to pray and resubmit myself to God alone. I realized I had been holding out hope for political processes to solve moral or ethical issues, and that’s not the role of government. I was reminded that as a Christ-follower, my marching orders have not changed since the Mount of Transfiguration: I am to love God, love my neighbor, and invest myself in the lives of people who want to follow Jesus Christ.
With that restored perspective, everything else fell back into place. I didn’t vote for the incumbent President, but I am still commanded to pray for him, and to remain a responsible, productive member of the society in which I live. And so I pray, and I get up, and I go do my work as best I can, and pay my taxes, and raise up my growing family, and do all this in a framework of Great Commandment and the Great Commission until Jesus returns to this earth or I leave it.
Selah.
But, Coble, think of the fun we could have with it! Davidson County residents can start a petition for “secession from TN in case TN secedes from the Union,” some neighborhoods in Davidson County can start petitions for “secession from Davidson County in case TN secedes from the Union and the County secedes from TN” … the possibilities for infinite regression are endless.
I’ve often considered having my basement secede from the rest of the house. But then the workout room wants to break off from the basement.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
That’s why we just have a crawl space — it helps keeps things calm.
I’m honestly relieved that people’s anger over the election is motivated into something as harmless as an internet petition.
It feels like real progress over 3/4 of a million dead husbands, brothers, and sons.
I guess it is progress. But it’s those honoured dead that I keep thinking about. Who presumes that secession is this easygoing and harmless exercise? Especially knowing what we do about what happened last time.
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Hmm. Just covered The Civil War with the kids this morning.
Have your friends read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress? 😛 Anyway, threatening to secede is practically a hobby in Texas…
Your friends are just blowing off steam. This is an even milder form of the “owning your own bomb shelter” phase we had a few decades ago. Look for the humor in this; namely, middle-class folks so incensed at the future of this nation that with great gravity and solemnity they click on an internet petition. It would be like discovering your survivalist co-worker makes sure to subscribe to Soldier of Fortune on his Kindle.
Exactly. Especially the part about Soldier of Fortune on the Kindle.
Yes. That is the PERFECT analogy.
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Only it’s even worse than that wonderful analogy, because the petitions are addressed to the President. It’s like the little kid who sends the note: “Dear X, I hate you, Love, little kid.” If they meant it, they wouldn’t be petitioning the President for permission to act out how much they hate him and their fellow-citizens.
From what I understand via a friend of mine who is actively involved in this farce, that’s on purpose. Something about how if there are X number of signatures the President has to formally address it. So they have this fantasy of him standing, I dunno, in the Rose Garden perhaps and saying “I’m sorry I suck so hard, please don’t go.” or something.
It’s all a crock. And as you pointed out, childish. I think how irritated I was years ago with the people posting pics of themselves holding signs apologizing to The World for reelecting President Bush. Back then I thought no sore loser-ship could irk me any worse. Congratulations, secessionists. The ante is upped.
It reminds me also of angry thirteen year olds threatening to grave self-harm for not being allowed to do something.
What irritates me as much as the rest is the fact that many of these people are Christians. Call me a concern troll if you must but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to take the faith seriously or treat it respectfully if this is how we act over a bureaucratic decision.
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Simply as an exercise in luciferian advocacy, would there _ever_ be a circumstance upon which secession would be the preferred alternative? If so, what? If not, then why is that option (in some states) a legal choice?
Just askin’ here. Nobody thinks it’s actually going to happen.
I don’t know that I would ever advocate secession at this stage because the US is too great a lynchpin to the global economy. Destabilization of our infrastructure would cause worldwide suffering. As a Christ follower I cannot think of any political ideal that would be so necessary.
And the option is decidedly NOT legal in any state. See also Texas v White (1869). Secession articles are not just a stupid idea, but also are a legal nullity. (Not that the jackwagons who want to secede care about a little ol’ thing like the US Constitution…patriots that they are…)
Here’s what I wrote about this the last time that everyone got freaky about secession (right after the 2008 election…) “Texas v White explicitly rules that acts of secession are null and that all states in rebellion had never actually left the Union during the Civil War, as the Union was envisioned to be perpetual. Under Article Four of the Constitution, moreover, the federal government has a duty to insure that states provide a republican form of government for their citizens, something it obviously couldn’t do if states could just pull out willy-nilly. While some post-rebellion legal theorists considered places like Texas conquered provinces whose loss of representation and political dependency left them more analogous to Indian nations, a majority on the Supreme Court (5-3) ruled with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase.”
I don’t know that I would ever advocate secession at this stage because the US is too great a lynchpin to the global economy. Destabilization of our infrastructure would cause worldwide suffering. As a Christ follower I cannot think of any political ideal that would be so necessary.
Now there is a petition calling for those who signed the secession petition to be stripped of citizenship and exiled.
Can we start with Marsha Blackburn and Ron Ramsey? Pleeeeeze?
Secede.. whiskey tango foxtrot? Glad I missed the memo.
“Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” Heb 11:16
Not that there aren’t consequences to political and social decisions, and as citizens we must be active and informed. (Both, please) It’s just that I thought Christians are supposed to have what genuine patriots have; a larger perspective, a proper sense of proportion, and the compassion to sacrifice for something greater than themselves.
This place is falling into some deep weirdness.
And then there is this: http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/11/the-end-of-liberty-in-america-only.html
The other day on FB a socialist friend of mine put the question to his libertarian pals, asking is if we were planning on welcoming Tea Partiers into our ranks. I emphatically said we. Do. Not. Want. Them. Because for two years now this (linked blog) is a type of person who has been coming to libertarianism.
They show up because our hands-off / limited government style appeals to them. But they don’t really want libertarianism. They want a home for their bitter invective, their hatefulness and their jingoistic outlook on what they call “politics” but is really a playground for them to Other and bully those they’ve Othered.
That isn’t libertarianism. It isn’t even politics. It’s pathology.
1. If you call yourself a Libertarian Republican you are neither. One can be a right-leaning libertarian. One can be a left-leaning libertarian. But it is impossible to be a Libertarian Republican or a Libertarian Democrat. Those who call themselves libreps are really the same flavour as the latecomers to the Tea Party.
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[…] hadn’t been giving much thought to the secessionists until I saw how deeply they bothered Coble and then another friend of mine told me he thought it was a good idea. I laughed and told him […]
There is a problem, however, that this country may be forced to face. Over half the population in this country (apparently) wants Swedish-style (for instance) “social democracy” (or whatever you want to call it). From an outsider looking in, Sweden seems to be doing some things right and if there was an example for how to make it work, it’s them. Problem is, Sweden is a *much* smaller country than the U.S. What they have will never work here, because of the amount of overhead administration it will require. If we really want to be more like Europe, we need to pair off into smaller units. Perhaps not as small as states, but smaller than 50 states. Otherwise, we are *too* big to make it work. Unfortunately some people just don’t get that, nor will they ever. The government admin/overhead is already a nightmare, I see it everyday, so lets add to it, shall we?
i keep hearing this objection — this “oh, that thing that works elsewhere can’t possibly work over here, because over here is BIGGER” complaint. and i don’t get it.
why do people think that economies of scale would somehow make possible things harder, much less impossible, when you scale up to a bigger country? bigger here means we’ve got more people to build things and to support what’s built, a larger tax base to tap, more buffer in every sense of the word.
bigger banks are sounder than smaller ones, ceteris paribus, because they’ve got more deposits in them. bigger insurance policy pools, likewise. bigger lotteries get bigger jackpots, because more players. why wouldn’t a social safety net work at least as well and probably better in a bigger society than in a small one?
Bigger is dumber. Dumb collapses on itself.
well if you truly believe that, then secession makes perfect sense.
There’s no way that “smaller units” would have the economies to foment any sort of social programs. The United States Economy is a literal wonder of the world. It’s strength comes from its unique combination of assets and territory. Any subgrouping of states would end up like Greece, France, Germany.
The social programs that half the country wants are not going to be sustainable with our aging population in its present state. The only solutions are
1. Accept a degree of austerity and cut back on social programs
2. Open the nation to wider immigration of people under the age of 30.
Otherwise there is simply no way–regardless of size–that any social program society will work. Without a large enough taxable populace to support the entitlements, there is no money to pay for the entitlements. The oft-proposed cuts in military spending, unfortunately, amount to huge cuts in employment and manufacturing so that’s not a doable option.
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I work for the fed and it’s taken me MONTHS to get new RAM for my computer (for instance). Everyday I’m reminded that running this government is an unimaginable task of epic proportions. It’s. Insane.
I’m not saying we should split up, I’m just sayin’ what the current admin wants in terms of social programs is ridiculously unrealistic. Not gonna happen, and if they *do* somehow manage to thread an elephant through a needle the results are not gonna be pretty.
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