Secession and Liberty
The presidential election of 2000 showed that America is now divided into two great political classes: the productive, taxpaying class and the parasitic, live-at-others’-expense class. The latter group includes millions of welfare bums, federal, state and local government bureaucrats and "contractors," and their massive supporting propaganda apparatus in the universities, on television, and in print journalism. Now that the vast majority of what the central government does is unconstitutional, there is almost no restraint at all on the extent to which the latter class can use the coercive powers of the state to plunder the former class.
The federal system of government that was created by the founding fathers was designed explicitly to deter this outcome, but that system was overthrown in 1865. The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government.
The most important protection was the right of secession, which Peter Applebome of the New York Times suggests we should revive in light of the election returns. This was quite natural, for the United States were founded as the direct result of a war of secession waged against Great Britain. The very principle of the American Revolution was the right of secession against tyrannical government. The founders understood that even the threat of secession would hold would-be governmental tyrants in check.
In his 1801 First Inaugural Address one of the first things Thomas Jefferson did was to support the right of secession. "If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form," the author of the Declaration of Independence said, "let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
MORE...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/dilorenzo2.html
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note:
The 'Reader Responses; shown on many posts/articles are almost always worthwhile reading.
Often, the comments by readers enhance the posted article greatly, and are informative and interesting.
Hopefully, all will remember to read the reader comments, and post their own as well.
Thanx
*****