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The operating principle of a world no longer based on industrial production will be decentralization. From survivalists to confederated villages, governance will be on a smaller scale than it is today. – Editors |
secessionan act of seceding; formal withdrawal or separation |
Blue State Secession: The Only Solution?
by Zoltan Grossman
The Nine Nations of North America
by Joel Garreau
An
Overview of Decentralism
by Kirkpatrick Sale
"Economic and social misery increases in direct proportion to the size and power of the central government of a nation or state."
"Liberty is not the daughter of order but the mother. In a true decentralist society, freedom comes first, upon which are then built the needs and obligations of individuals one to another, and thus the order and harmony of the community and the society at large. Liberty is the mother of order."
"Decentralism is the basic human condition; decentralism is the historic norm for human societies; decentralism is deeply in the American tradition; and, despite everything, decentralism is alive and well today."
AFTER THE FALL OF AMERICA, THEN WHAT?
A Discussion of the Options Open to Us Now in Led by Kirkpatrick Sale Sponsored by
The Fourth World
Middlebury Inn |
"Vermont is small, rural, democratic, peaceful, communitarian, egalitarian,
and independent. Vermont has suffered, as have other states, from the
debilitating effects of big business, big government, and big agriculture.
Its people have seen big markets deliver inferior goods and produce. They
have been burdened with technology that is inappropriate to their needs.
Since Vermont became the fourteenth state of the Union, the United States government has become too big, too centralized, too powerful, too intrusive, too materialistic, too impersonal, too grasping, too militarized, too imperialistic, too violent, too undemocratic, too corrupt, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities. National and Congressional elections are sold to the highest bidder. State and local governments assume too little responsibility for the well-being of their citizens - too often abdicating their responsibilities to Washington. The free people of Vermont have reached a turning point: whether to fight for "liberty and justice" or to trade in their heritage for the shackles known as progress. It is not progress. It is comfort. It is an illusion. We, the people, here assembled choose "liberty and justice," and we reject a system of intrusive federal control that is antithetical to a prosperous way of life, and to the well being of a sovereign state." |
Prairie
Grass Rising
by John McClaughry
"When we survey the sweep of American history, it is easy to become despondent about the march of giantism and centralized power. We mourn the inexplicable absence of bold leaders to force the issue of centralization and decentralization on the national public. Many of us are doubtless disgusted with the major party candidates for President, both of whom seem committed to preserving and enlarging the central power, albeit for different ends.
I daresay most of us here today share the sentiments of an out of work politician who said, back in 1978, that the real issue is not the opposition of Left and Right. 'The real issue,' he said, 'is how to reverse the flow of power to ever more remote institutions, and to restore that power to the individual, the family, and the local community. Millions of Americans, in both the small towns and great cities of this land, are steadily coming to the same conclusion.'
Three years later that man was President of the United States. Although I can think of nothing his administration did to reflect those sentiments, I can assure you that Ronald Reagan sincerely believed in what he said on that radio broadcast. So too, I think, do many millions of Americans subscribe to that incisive sentiment, although they would describe themselves politically in many diverse and conflicting ways.
Out in the western part of Kansas, bordered by waving fields of grain, is an old two lane highway. Once it was the great Route 66, America's mightiest highway, the mainline from Chicago to the Golden West. No longer do the eighteen wheelers speed over its pitted concrete; no longer do the Harleys and travel trailers push forward to new adventures.
Old Route 66 is abandoned now; the heavy traffic zooms by on I-70 to the north and I-40 to the south. Even the local small town traffic has passed it by. The prairie grass has grown up through the cracks forced open by decades of exposure to sun and wind.
But just as that soft, flexible grass has pushed through the hard, heavy concrete under the hot Kansas sun, the spirit of decentralism, often paved over and ignored, always returns to bring about a new beginning."
"Secession movements have also been thriving in America, where the first one was successfully undertaken over two hundred years ago when the colonials separated from the British government. Whatever legitimacy the new American government was able to claim vis-à-vis the British was, of course, rejected when the southern states tried to secede from the American union. The contradiction between the Revolutionary and Civil wars has left unthinking Americans in a quandary over the secession question. Any defense made of the right to secede from established political authority is often met with expressions of disbelief at the temerity of even asking such a question. One could more readily engage a thoughtful discussion on a proposal to have the government endeavor to reverse the orbit of Jupiter than to consider the propriety of secession."
"The formation and history of the AIP largely revolve around Joe Vogler, a plain-spoken gold miner, non-practicing attorney and charismatic icon of local politics who ran unsuccessfully for governor three times between 1974 and 1986....
The platform of the AIP is, as one would expect, centered on Alaskan issues. Although it is widely thought to be a secessionist movement, the Party makes great effort to emphasize that its primary goal is merely a vote on secession, something that Party advocates say Alaskans were denied during the founding of the state. A plebiscite was, in fact, held in Alaska at the state's inception in 1958, but AIP members argue that voting was corrupt and that residents were not given the proper choice between statehood, commonwealth status, or complete separation – something they say has been granted to other U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico.
Ideologically, the AIP is considered to be a hybrid of conservative Republicanism, populism and libertarianism. Among the issues advocated by the party: the direct popular election of the state attorney general and all judges, the right to keep and bear arms, the privatization of government services, the right to home schooling by parents, and a constitutional amendment to ban property taxes. The AIP, following Vogler's infamous confrontations with officials from the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, remains steadfastly opposed to environmental regulations and actively promotes the private ownership and widespread development of Alaskan land. Sixty-six percent of the land in Alaska is owned by the federal government and it has fewer miles of highways than New Hampshire."
Alaska and Statehood,
A Factual Primer
by Joe Vogler
"When did the United States 'take due account' of the political aspirations of Alaskans? There was absolutely no effort made to make Alaskans aware of our Right to Political Self-Determination. Instead, they told many Alaskans that they could not consider commonwealth! And instead of promoting the realization of our rights to political self determination, they concealed it and limited us to 'yes' or 'no' to statehood! This was not only nonfeasance, it amounted to malfeasance. America knew what it was doing to Alaska! Its actions were deliberate!
[United Nations] General Assembly Resolution 566 VI (18 January 1952, Participation of non-self-governing territories in the work of the Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories) is most clear that 'the direct association of the non-self-governing territories in the work of the United Nations, and of the specialized agencies is an effective means of promoting the progress of the peoples of those territories toward a position of equality with member states of the United Nations', and encourages this practice. Again, with monotonous repetition, the United States ignored this recommendation. We were never informed of these opportunities and when some of us inquired at the time of the statehood vote, we were told that we could not go back to commonwealth. By now, it should be evident to everyone that the United States was deliberately avoiding both the spirit and the law of the Charter and the General Assembly.
General Assembly Resolution 626 (VII). Right to exploit freely Natural Wealth and Resources, 21 December 1952 indicates that because '...the right of peoples freely to use and exploit their natural wealth and resources is inherent in their sovereignty, and is, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, ... (2) Further recommends that all member States refrain from acts, directly or indirectly, designed to impede the exercise of the sovereignty of any state over its natural resources.'
We would ask how the United States' retention of over two-thirds of Alaska land fits into this recommendation? Why must our oil be shipped to the 48 states, to be refined, and to promote jobs for their residents, while Alaskans suffer the effects of no industry or development? Do we exist solely to provide raw materials for their factories and refineries? That is the purpose and intent of Colonialism!
... For America to have been the progenitor of the United Nations Charter only increases the magnitude of this violation of the human right of political self-determination, the center-pin of their Declaration of Independence.
... Alaska is nothing more than a colonial warehouse of natural resources to fuel the factories of the United States. Calling our association with the United States 'statehood' is only a false mask for their continued exploitation.
... We ask that a courageous member of the United Nations sponsor us to appear before the General Assembly to present our case, that we may be restored to the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories so that we may eventually secure our right to self determination. We would also like to take the matter before the International Court of Justice if such is feasible.
... Very little development will be undertaken and our lands will remain a temple for the nature worshippers, as they note in their wilderness literature."
"From far and wide across the amber waves of grain, in books and cyberspace, in private dreams and public declarations comes the great bleating rally cry: 'Take Back America!'
This whole notion of 'taking back' America is in fact tangled up in the root of our problem, American exceptionalism. Rather than holding on to the illusion that America is something that can be reclaimed, I argue, better to let go of the myth of national unity, to accept and work for the inevitable decentering process."
"In truth, there is not much of America left to take back. It has been paved over, sold out, and put on mood-control drugs."
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"So let us solve the great problem of our time, the disease of excessive size and uncontrollable proportions, by going back to the alternative to both right and left – that is, to a small-scale social environment with all its potential for global pluralistic cooperation and largely unaffiliated self-sufficiency, by extending not centralised control but by decontrolling locally centred and nourished communities, each with its own institutional nucleus and a limited but strong and independent gravitational field." |
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Political scientists, sociologists, and political economists attempt to describe and explain the causes and effects of secessionist movements and of states' reactions to them. Philosophers focus on the moral issues and on clarifying the conceptual framework for thinking about secession. Philosophical work on secession can be divided into three categories: (1) attempts to articulate the conditions under which a group has the moral right to secede; (2) examinations of the compatibility or incompatibility of secession with constitutionalism, (3) attempts to determine what position international law should take regarding secession."
"Democracy relies on a prohibition of secession. A democratic regime assumes a 'demos' – a unit of political decision-making which is constant between decisions. If every dissident minority secedes after every opposed decision, then there is no democratic regime. (There would be no political regime at all – at least not for standard political theory).
So democrats have concluded, like President Lincoln in the 1860's, that secession must be suppressed. Since modern democracies are nation states, secession is now treated as an issue of national unity, and national identity: Lincoln was one of the last politicians who had to address secession as a classic political issue. Today he would talk about culture and identity – like the revived southern secessionist movement in the United States. Democrats no longer advocate force to preserve the demos, because nationalists do it for them. The nationalists advocate force to preserve the territorial integrity of the nation, which coincidentally is also the demos, the political unit. In this way, the nationalists get the bad publicity, not the democrats. Nevertheless, those who advocate democracy are also logically advocating, that at some point secession be suppressed. And almost inevitably, that implies the use of force – military force. You can not be a democrat unless you are prepared to kill. An entirely pacifist democracy might work for small homogenous groups, but not for large states with hundreds of millions of inhabitants. A large democratic state, with no armed forces, would be overwhelmed by secession."
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Vermont
Sovereignty Project
"What are your group's goals? Our goals are to work to reduce the size and power of the Federal government while increasing the powers of our state and the people of Vermont with the goal of obtaining sovereignty and home rule." "Is immediate secession a goal? No. An immediate and arbitrary secession would have little support. It would be better to lay groundwork by encouraging citizens to cooperate among themselves and with local government by educating Vermonters about our history and future potential for self government." |
"Many think in terms of 'state's rights' secession, especially in the United States, with such states opposed to secession by smaller political units. However, Secession.Net promotes "community-based secession," assuming that smaller entities like communities, towns, small cities, neighborhoods within larger cities will and must become the basic political unit, after the individual."
"All three conceptions of revolution presuppose the modern theory of sovereignty, and each is categorically different from secession. Secession is not revolution in the whiggish sense of the Glorious Revolution because it is not the restoration of anything within the frame of the modern state. Secession is the dismemberment of a modern state in the name of self-government. Nor is secession Lockean revolution. A seceding people do not necessarily claim that a government has violated its trust. And even if the claim is made, there is no attempt to overthrow the government and replace it with a better one. Indeed, a seceding people may even think that the government is not especially unjust. What they seek, however, is to be left alone to govern themselves as they see fit. Finally, secession is not Jacobin revolution because it does not seek to totally transform the social and political order. Indeed, secession is conservative and seeks to preserve the social order through withdrawal and self-government."
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"The modern unitary state is only two hundred years old. Its great achievement is to have produced a condition of unparalleled material prosperity. But it has also been one of the most destructive forces in history. Its wars and totalitarian revolutions have been without precedent in their barbarism and ferocity. But in addition to this, it has persistently subverted and continues to subvert those independent social authorities and moral communities on which eighteenth-century monarchs had not dared to lay their hands. Its subversion of these authorities, along with its success in providing material welfare, has produced an ever increasing number of rootless individuals whose characters are hedonistic, self-absorbed, and without spirit. We daily accept expropriations, both material and spiritual, from the central government which our ancestors in 1776 and 1861 would have considered non-negotiable."
The Amendment
"The sovereign authority of any State to withdraw by law from the United States shall not be questioned, and the United States shall recognize it as a sovereign and independent country."
"The ultimate right of any people is to determine for themselves their form of government. Ideally changes in the form, nature and role of a government occurs from within the systems of that government itself. History has shown that governments have a way of developing inertia that is often contrary to the popular will.
A recourse available to the people to effect change in a government that is unwilling to bend to the general will or the will of a regional, cultural or ethnic minority is secession of member states from a centralized government. The concept of the American Republic as originally intended was so noble in this regard. Regions, sections and individual States need never be subjected to the tyranny of the majority. The viable and legal option of separation exists. Such a recourse, ideally, should be a bloodless affair, akin to a peaceable divorce. The disruption of the lives of ordinary citizens in the affected areas should not be great as many governmental systems remain in place. Therefore the concept of secession in context of the American Republic is the highest form of liberty insurance found among the institutions of man."
"One thing is for sure; the next two decades are going to be tumultuous and tragic. The events that unfold will be far more radical than we dare envision today. Paradigms in banking, politics, and philosophy will be overturned. Wrenching lifestyle shifts will be forced upon millions. Something akin to what happened after the fall of the USSR in 1989-91 will take place in America. Our ruling regime will collapse and bring Russian style economic hardship to us all, but the ultimate outcome here will not be so certain, nor so quick as it was in Russia. The old guard statist establishment here in America is not as hated as the Moscow commissars were. The lines of demarcation between tyranny and justice are more blurred here. The citizens of America are still gullible and still eager to sanction their enslavers. The Demopublican statists still command a large legion of dupes and useful idiots. They will make use of that allegiance and fight viciously to hold on to the power they have so nefariously usurped. How things go will depend upon whether the nation's intelligentsia bring themselves to reject the shams of statism, or whether the government-media-academy triad is able to continue bamboozling them."
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