Does U.S. Need To Split Along Political Lines? By WALTER WILLIAMS

[Hazcat]

By WALTER WILLIAMS
Posted 04/05/2010 06:55 PM ET

Ten years ago I asked the following question in a column titled "It's Time To Part Company":

"If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"

The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact and one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them.

The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.

You say, "Williams, what do you mean by constitutional abrogation?" Let's look at just some of the magnitude of the violations.

Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is authority for Congress to tax and spend for: prescription drugs, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget.

Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush.

The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do anything upon which they can muster a majority vote.

James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.

"The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

Americans who wish to live free have several options. We can submit to those who have constitutional contempt and want to run our lives. We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed and death in an attempt to force America's tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights. We can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating.

Some independence movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden; Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally.

The bottom-line question for all of us is: Should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another? My preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529360

Comments at link

[JC5123]

From the comments.

Posted By: RonOnThePond(5) on 4/7/2010 | 7:05 AM ET

I agree completely with Dr. Williams, but there is one problem that makes non-violent separation improbable: while we constitutionalists might be willing to shake hands, peaceably split, and accept personal responsibility for our own lives and well being, the other side cannot tolerate such a split. They are parasites, and without us they cannot survive. If we attempt a peaceful split they will understand that to survive they must forcibly keep us enslaved, and they will fight to do so.

I think this guy has it right. There is no peaceful way to split. The left cannot survive without the producing class and they know it. They will fight tooth and nail to keep leaching off of us. I laugh about how the left are generally a bunch of pacifists, with no guns and no huevos, but if you look at history, it has always been the far left zealots, that have been the most violent. Desperate people do some really scary things to try to preserve reality as they see it.

[crusader rabbit]

This is a seriously interesting post and worthy of discussion, but I think JC has it boiled down to the essentials--there is no way the parasitic left can afford to lose the producers.  It's been said it's never wise to back a desperate man into a corner, and that's exactly what a division between socialist states and constitutional states would do.  The producers are the meal ticket for the non-producers.

However, with all that said, I would also note that a couple of years ago a fairly intellectual Russian political scientist (whose name I do not recall at the moment) predicted a multi-way division of the USA.  He had the map configured to show six individual regions, each with its own government.  According to the Russian, this would be caused by the economic collapse of the Federal government (an increasingly stronger likelihood given our current regime) and regional alliances between states would result.  And, although I think the initial results would be turmoil and anarchy for an extended period of time, it could also result in an eventual return to a Constitutional form of democracy for the Southern and Mid-western states. 

[Solus]

Sounds like a "Galt's Gulch" on a large scale.

[tombogan03884]

The division is not between states this time, it is between Urban and rural.
City dwellers with no connection to the natural world make up the vast majority of the left, while rural dwellers with more contact with the natural world tend to be more practical and conservative .

[Sponsor]

[Ichiban]

I, too, believe the division is between Urban and Rural.  The urbanites are used to having services provided (eg. mass transit) while the rural/suburbanites tend to be more "self reliant."  Not too many DIY types living in apartments. Even if you wanted to DIY you are not allowed to.  That is why the urbanites have no problem with big government providing for them and are more than willing to give up their rights to get those goodies.

[Hazcat]

I'm not sure you can divide by state or by urban/rural.  It is ideologically driven and the 'line' are blurred. Still in general South, MidWest, Southeast, plains states are 'our type of people' but there are exceptions which are more prominate in the cities like Atlanta, Boulder, Santa Fe, Houston, etc.

In any case it is gonna get a LOT uglier before it gets better!

[tt11758]

In any case it is gonna get a LOT uglier before it gets better!

It can get uglier than Nancy Pelosi?

[PegLeg45]

It can get uglier than Nancy Pelosi?

Can we call it a draw??

[tt11758]

Can we call it a draw??

MY EYES!!!!