Saturday, May 29, 2010

The path to independence

Attorney Wilton Strickland writes in the Liberty Defense League site, how a state can gradually achieve de facto independence without getting creamed by the feds; at the same time chipping away at the legitimacy of the federal government. The method is quite similar to the one successfully used by Kosova to break away from Serbia. (Summary below by Bill Miller at Secession and Nullification News and Information).

[S]ecession will have to become a de facto reality before it graduates into a de jure status of full legal sovereignty, since the federal tendrils run far too broad and deep in modern life to expect an immediate break. … With a good governor and/or legislature in place, the state can begin to resist unlawful federal programs and thereby impress upon the public mind that the federal government is a hostile and disruptive force. This requires a thoughtful strategy of challenging federal power in those particular areas where public opinion already clashes with it. By siding with the public on these “hot button” issues, the state will have increased its legitimacy at the expense of the federal government’s own and paved the way for greater independence in the future. … If a state indeed nullifies an unpopular federal law, it will have crossed the Rubicon and dared the federal government to enforce its will against that of the people. If the federal government does so, it will lose legitimacy and alienate the people even further; if it does not, it will lose face and encourage people to seek even more of the self-governance being denied them. … Apart from outright resistance, state governments should wean themselves from federal funds as soon as possible.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Creamed by the Feds... One must wonder... Because after all the arguments regarding the legality of secession, after all the philosophical discussions on the topic, after all the talk about whether or not this union is to exist in perpetuity, the 800 pound gorilla lurking in the room's shadow is a violent Federal response to an act of secession. But THIS secessionist contends that the political will, the economic might, and the soldiery willing to duplicate 1861 simply no longer exist at the Federal level. And yes, to paraphrase a document held most dear, I AM willing to pledge my Life, my Fortune, and my sacred Honor on that!

D.V. Arminius

Harold Thomas said...

D. V. Arminius:

This is a thought-provoking response. You may well be correct when you write that "the political will, the economic might, and the soldiery willing to duplicate 1861 simply no longer exist at the Federal level."

Truth is, that political will, economic might, and soldiery willing to duplicate 1861 is an unknown to us right now. Rational people calculate their risks; and I suggest that we need more experience, for example, with nullification, before we will be able to calculate them intelligently.