Bitter? Darned right, we’re bitter!

Robyn Blumner wrote an opinion piece on Sen. Obama’s now-famous comment about the people in the small towns being bitter. This column should be copied, linked, and posted as being one of the best secessionist manifestos written to date.

What is she bitter about? Read the column to capture her passion, but here’s the laundry list:
- Waging a war putting our young people in harm’s way and shifting the bill to later generations;
- Wealth and taxes shifted to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class;
- A “macabre” health system that lets a single illness destroy the economic health of a family (a situation with which I am personally acquainted);
- “Industry insiders” put in charge of the agencies that regulate them, twisting policy to their own advantage;
- Doubling of the national debt in the last seven years;
- Iraq reconstruction funds wasted in corruption;
- A counterproductive foreign policy that makes enemies of long-time friends;
- The willingness to use torture, making us recruiters for our enemies.

Let me add some more:
- Continued destruction of Ohio’s manufacturing sector with no relief in sight;
- Federal resistance to developing industries to create sustainable and environmentally-friendly solutions to our energy and transportation needs.
- Playing on the fear of terrorism to accelerate the erosion of our Constitutional liberties.

The system is fouled up beyond repair. None of the Presidential candidates can (forget about will, the correct word is can) resolve these issues at the Federal level. The Federal Government abuses its power because it has the power to abuse and knows it.*

The Republic of Ohio:
- Will be incapable of waging foreign wars; but very capable of defending itself and its borders;
- Will be 26 times more accountable to its own people, better insuring a fair system of taxation;
- Can find a sensible solution to health care within its own borders, using its own resources;
- Can, with the accountability mentioned above, ensure that regulators do the job they are hired to do.
- Will continue to operate on a balanced budget, every year, as it has every year since 1852.
- Will limit or eliminate governmental foreign aid, but have the ability to coordinate private efforts abroad.
- Pursue a non-military foreign policy according to its own interests, particularly with respect to trade and commerce.
- Will strictly follow the Geneva Conventions in time of war, in the highly unlikely event that a war should occur.

* See chapter 2 in Leopold Kohr, The Breakdown of Nations.