Monday, November 14, 2016

The Secession Question

I see from comments to the posts, A Further Comment on Cheering on Calexit and  CALEXIT: Revolution is Not Always a Good Thing that many of you hold the view that secessions are always a positive.

Some examples:
Secession: Always a good thing 
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Secession no matter what the ideology behind it should be supported under the guise of de-centralization.
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 Wrong Bob. If the people of Cali want to secede, that is their choice and it's not up to me as a non-Californian to teach them about liberty first.
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 All decentralization should be embraced... 
Let me pose this question. Suppose there is a region that wants to secede where there is a minority Jewish population and a majority population that wants to destroy the property in the region of all Jews, steal the businesses of Jews and gas any of those Jews that decide to stay around, would you view this as a positive secession?

 -RW

25 comments:

  1. Oy vey, not this shit again. The "persecuted jews" is a very tired example, can you try something else please?

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    1. America is the real promised land of the Jews. Here they have achieved the most opulent and ostentatious heights of wealth, fame, social influence and political power that could possibly be imagined. All without fear of being overrun by hordes of angry, dispossessed Palestinians and fanatical Muslim antagonists.

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  2. "Suppose there is a region that wants to secede where there is a minority Jewish population and a majority population that wants to destroy the property in the region of all Jews, steal the businesses of Jews and gas any of those Jews that decide to stay around, would you view this as a positive secession?"

    You're not differentiating secession from theft/NAP violations....straw man.

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  3. Yes, Bob, it is still moral and righteous to secede.

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  4. Secession is almost always a positive development in history; but there are a few scenarios where it would be bad in at least the short term.

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  5. "Let me pose this question. Suppose there is a region that wants to secede where there is a minority Jewish population and a majority population that wants to destroy the property in the region of all Jews, steal the businesses of Jews and gas any of those Jews that decide to stay around, would you view this as a positive secession?"

    By this logic, it would be good to have a centralized world government, because it would improve on the lives of currently oppressed peoples in third world countries.

    You don't force everyone together, or force everyone to STAY together, against their will, just because secession may end up not being very nice to some groups who prefer the protection of a centralized larger state, yet decide to stay in a seceded smaller country anyway.

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  6. Yes. And the Jews should secede from the 'region'.

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  7. Moving goal posts? Let's deal with what is possible, or at least has a slightly above zero chance of happening.

    The union is supposed to be between already delineated political entities, as a whole, that ceded certain powers/authorities to an agent. The agent has only those powers/authorities that have been granted to it. No state has relinquished their power/authority to the central government to force-ably keep a state in the compact. A state can remove itself from the union, take back those delegated powers/authorities -- secede. It is not an appeal to revolution but a political and legal action.

    Yes, I know history. Lincoln was the traitor and the revolutionary. I cannot change the past but I can help correct a hideous error. If Cali wants out, with my blessings and best wishes I will not take up arms against Cali.

    But do not expect me to bail their asses either.

    While we are at it, my Texas should also exit.

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    1. We can never say what a state will do in the future (other than breach the NAP). So trying to guess whether a particular secession will be better or worse for some group of people over any particular time frame is not a fruitful line of inquiry. The only thing we know for sure is that if a particular state is reduced in territorial size then there will be fewer means (people, other resources) to support it, rendering it weaker than before, and the bigger the threat to this state from the competition from other states. This is why we should support secession.

      Shouldn't we everywhere and at all times advocate the reduction in size and power of any state? Secession is one means to that.

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  8. Or imagine 7 southern states seceded from the US to protect the right of slave ownership... Libertarian principle recognizes individual rights, not the right of a state to do something. The state right comes at the expense of the individual right.

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    1. "Or imagine 7 southern states seceded from the US to protect the right of slave ownership... "

      The proverbial fly in your ointment is the fact that the most of the rest of the US at the time also had slaves- so the issue might have been something other than "slavery" that caused the secession in question.

      But if we use your logic further, one has to ask where you draw the line on NAP aggressions. Less than 5% of the South owned slaves at the start of the civil war- does your sliding scale of NAP violations justify the rape, pillage, & death of the 95% by one state over the citizens of another?

      Certainly there's no doubt that Wenzel is ideologically out of step with most the state of California, but he's not a slave and if they secede, which one would assume would step up their NAP violations, he could certainly leave anytime he wants.(unlike a slave)

      So the way I see it, it's important to distinguish the concept of secession from NAP violations...and the NAP violations themselves are convoluted and complex. (right down to the "right" of the state itself as you point out)

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    2. Sure. Except that the civil war was not about slave ownership.

      Furthermore, exactly how all the things Lincoln did to prevent this "immoral" secession attempt were somehow justified on the basis of "individual rights" is a mystery to me. You know, conscription, suspension of the writ of habeus corpus, mass murder. Things like that don't strike me as protecting individual rights and liberties.

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    3. ""Or imagine 7 southern states seceded from the US to protect the right of slave ownership... ""

      "The proverbial fly in your ointment is the fact that the most of the rest of the US at the time also had slaves- so the issue might have been something other than "slavery" that caused the secession in question.

      But if we use your logic further, one has to ask where you draw the line on NAP aggressions. Less than 5% of the South owned slaves at the start of the civil war- does your sliding scale of NAP violations justify the rape, pillage, & death of the 95% by one state over the citizens of another?"

      The Declaration of Causes for secession given by 4 of the 7 original Confederate states, make it very clear that protecting slave ownership was by far the paramount reason for their secession. Maybe you’ve never read them. Just doing a word search, the word slavery is used in them a total of 80 times.
      http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html
      Also, the appropriately labelled ‘Cornerstone Speech’ given by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens does as well. The appropriate label for this speech comes from the following passage:

      “Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.[1]”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

      Furthermore, the Confederate Constitution had numerous provisions on protecting slave ownership, and no free state was allowed.
      http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

      The civil war came later. I said nothing about it, and don't support state wars. The larger point is that the southern secession's didn't make the south better off, far to the contrary.

      "Certainly there's no doubt that Wenzel is ideologically out of step with most the state of California, but he's not a slave and if they secede, which one would assume would step up their NAP violations, he could certainly leave anytime he wants.(unlike a slave)

      Not to sound unfriendly, but you’re not a slave either and can leave the US if you don’t like it.

      "So the way I see it, it's important to distinguish the concept of secession from NAP violations...and the NAP violations themselves are convoluted and complex. (right down to the "right" of the state itself as you point out)"

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    4. You understand that it was each state, as a state, that joined the compacts -- first under the Articles Of Confederation. It was not "the people."

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    5. "Not to sound unfriendly, but you’re not a slave either and can leave the US if you don’t like it. "

      What are you talking about? I'm not even sure of your point here, would you mind explaining it? Why is it I should feel the need to "leave" at this moment? (I don't live in California, but I did once)

      1. I have no doubt that slave ownership was an issue for the seceding states, but that is NOT the reason the North warred on the South. I worded my statement poorly and should have focused on what caused the North to engage in full scale war against the South.(it wasn't just Fort Sumter)

      Slavery was a propaganda point for the North, and my points, which you did not address in your argument still remain:

      1. Various states in the North had slaves, further the Emancipation Proclaimation interestingly only freed Southern slaves, not Northern.

      So how could "slavery" have been the issue/reason the North warred on if they themselves had slave owners?

      Even further though, let's examine Lincoln's own statements on the matter:

      "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

      2. What is the bigger NAP violation? The Northern states raping, pillaging, & killing the 95% of the Southerns that weren't slave owners or the Southern states continuing the tradition of slavery, which was already starting to fail and was continually being eroded by things like the Underground Railroad and other non-NAP violating methods during the time?

      I think it important for you to express your opinion on those two points if you're going to make an argument on against secession on the basis of it's potential result in more NAP violations.

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    6. "What are you talking about? I'm not even sure of your point here, would you mind explaining it? Why is it I should feel the need to "leave" at this moment? (I don't live in California, but I did once)"
      I was applying the same token to you that you gave Wenzel, saying he’s no slave and could leave a seceded California if he wanted to (which AFAIC has a 0 chance of happening).

      The rest of your post is a non sequitur. The secessions of the founding states of the Confederacy and the formation of the Confederacy took place before the Civil War and before Lincoln become President. The unethical nature of their cause stands on its own. I never even mentioned the civil war, let alone justified what the Union army did (and don’t), except only to point out I hadn’t done so in response to the wrong headed suggestion I had.

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    7. "I was applying the same token to you that you gave Wenzel, saying he’s no slave and could leave a seceded California if he wanted to"

      That's what's odd, a "non sequitur" of sorts because I already pointed out that I don't live in California. That being said, I would definitely leave any area that was far enough out of my ideological framework so I'm not really sure if you are intending to suggest otherwise, but if you are then you are mistaken- I'd leave any area in a heartbeat if I had better options available to me logistically and ideologically.

      So your example doesn't fit anywhere that I can see.

      "The rest of your post is a non sequitur."

      Untrue, you simply refuse to post an opinion on whether you think the secession itself resulted in more or less NAP violations- which means you don't want to address the heart of the issue.

      "The unethical nature of their cause stands on its own."

      And that's my point, you aren't distinguishing between secession, which is not "unethical", versus the reasons for secession- which while I agree with you some which are unethical, are not the "act" of secession itself.

      Ostensibly when you made the argument, a rational person would draw the conclusion that you inferred the atrocities/NAP violations following the secession itself were "justified"- if you didn't intend that, great- but the fact remains that secession is not "unethical".

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  9. Yes, we should always support the principle of secession. Whether we support the reason given for secession is an entirely different question.

    "No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want," Ludwig von Mises

    "The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars," Ludwig von Mises

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  11. As a matter of principle I welcome the secession of Commiefornia from the U.S.A. As a practical matter this would irretrievably weaken the DemocRat Party nationally and lead to it's demise, which would certainly be a good thing since it is nothing more than an organized criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party.

    On a more personal basis though it would mean having to sell the family "homestead" in a rather pleasant neighborhood in one of Commiefornias last remaining bastions of political sanity. But hey, it's past time to get out of this hideous lunatic asylum of a state anyway. Commiefornia is both deplorable and irredeemable and should be forced to go it's own way by the rest of the country. Good riddance.

    P.S. Were Commiefornia to actually secede from the union (it won't of course) there would be nothing to prevent the northernmost and easternmost parts of the state from seceding and rejoining the union. That would be a beautiful thing since it would shrink Commiefornia to a coastal strip populated by leftard elitists and their illegal alien, barbarian minions who would soon tear them to shreds prior to rejoining Mexico.

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  12. Quite frankly, not only do i support secession, some part of me would also support giving the damn state back to Mexico.

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  13. As a libertarian residing in California secession is not favorable for me based on the reasons of those that are pro Calexit. But because CA is a lot like the USA in that there are centers of liberalism/socialism in the bigger (mostly coastal) cities and then there the more rural areas including large areas of farming/ranching that are more conservative. Calexit could backfire on the ones pushing for secession.

    According to http://ruralhealth.stanford.edu/health-pros/factsheets/ 87% of the CA population live in urban areas. This seems to go against my argument. But what is the percentage of these urbanites that are lefties. I live in an urban middle class area. Based on those that I am in contact with I roughly put the percentage of the 87% urban population at 60% lefty to 40% non-lefty. That puts the lefties at only 52% of the total population.

    So the lefties have the vote right? Well it matters who votes. If the more conservative crowd thinks they are in peril they will be more likely to make an effort to make it to the polls while the pinko crowd could be more apathetic thinking they have such a great majority they do not need to be diligent. Isn’t this part of what happened with Brexit and to Hillary?

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  14. Bob,

    Think of a comparison with the Yanomami.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3946254/The-incredible-moment-Amazon-tribe-untouched-civilization-stare-wonder-photographer-s-plane-flying-them.html

    If some liberal states want to branch off and do crazy things, even devolving all the way back to a Yanomami tribe, is it any of our business? I view it like I view problems in China or Saudi Arabia. One child policy? Not my problem. Saudi Arabia abuses it's citizens? Not my problem. I'm not bringing "democracy" to Saudi Arabia.

    Your problem is that you live there. But obviously this is so easily fixed it's a no brainer. MOVE (if this hypothetically happened). Yes, California would be worse off, but the U.S. would be better off. America would be less powerful and less socialist/communistic and the region would be less politically centralized. Break up the state! Hoppe- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBg23AqZlJI

    Further, as we look upon the failed Neo-Yanomami, let it be a lesson to furture secessionists. But, by all means, please move if CalExit becomes something : )

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    1. To answer your question specifically, "would you view this as a positive secession?" We need to know, from whose viewpoint? There are two important viewpoints, and a subset viewpoint for Jewish people:
      1. Those within the seceding state and
      2. Those outside the seceding state.

      If I'm outside the seceding state, I am encouraging all Jews to join me outside the state, and encouraging the Jew-haters to stay in and secede. If all Jews get out unscathed, this is a positive secession for the outsiders to get rid of the hateful dangerous people, while at the same time breaking up and decentralizing our larger state.

      If I'm inside the state and I'm Jewish, it's only bad because I have to move, but thankfully, most of the Jew-haters reside there and I will leave them behind. And now I will have much nicer neighbors.

      If I'm inside, but not a Jew, I'm an idiot if I stay and deserve whatever Neo-Yanomami lifestyle I get.

      I'd say it's a positive secession if the Jewish people leave prior to the secession taking place.

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