[quote]squating_bear wrote:
The Declaration of Independence is not the same as just any old bunch of people revolting[/quote]
Actually, it was. That is exactly what it was, frankly.
Well, you’re half right. Yes, the right to revolt is a natural right emanating from Natural Law. But laws can be cloaked in authority without having its basis in Natural Law. Easy example - you get in trouble for breaking the law if you drive on the left side of the road on the US, but you get in trouble for breaking the law if you drive on the right side of the road in the UK. Natural Law doesn’t dictate that one of these is right and one of these is wrong, but they are laws with the force of penalty.
In other words, laws can get their authority outside of natural law.
That’s because the right to revolt is a function of Natural Law, which is what Jefferson and the Founders understood. It doesn’t come from the Constittuion or a written document.
Well, if it is indeed criminal, then point to the criminal statute it violated and seek your remedy in court (which you can). Also, seek redress at the ballot box.
Irrelevant. Representative democracy still works, it’s just that people elect not to use it. What percentage of people didn’t vote in the 2012 presidential election? When a fully engaged people act by and through the process of representative democracy and have their will thwarted, different story. That isn’t what is happening today.
[quote]When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
this sounds like secession to me[/quote]
Well, it isn’t - this is directly referring to the rights entitled by the “Law of Nature” - i.e., revolution.
And revolution must be justified by a breac hof these natural rights.
Secession isn’t revolution, and never has been. Secession doesn’t occur when someone’s natural rights are violated - that would be revolution. Secession occurs when someone formally withdraws from an arrangement under pre-determined circumstances because they no longer wish to be involved - and that could be because the arrangement no longer serves that person’s interest.
There is a universe of difference in a violation of natural rights and no longer having an interest in something. And a constitutional republic that permits states to disassociate themselves from a union merely because they no longer see being part of that union as in their interests is a national suicide pact - it makes absolutely no sense.
Neo-secessionists like secession because they see its potential for a kind of blackmail - “do what we want, federal government, or we’ll leave”. Thus, the neo-secessionists see the threat of secession as a “check” on untrammeled federal government.
It’s a fantasy, and it’s illogical. The Founders never envisioned such an arrangement, for obvious reasons. Why form a “more perfect Union” only for it to be easily dissembled by the slightest regional or state interest?
Why construct a carefully considerd and painstakingly arranged bi-cameral legislature that created a populist House and a federal Senate if states could secede? If states could secede, there would be absolutely no reason on earth to vest so much power in a carefully constructed Congress in the Constitution with such a carefully articulated manner in which to pass laws - why would we bother if a state or set of states could simply undo the work and will of Congress with one simple letter threatening secession?
Just imagine the consequences. The United States is formed for one reason to form a unified power - a nation - against the European powers interested in the New World (and dominance over the colonies). If secession were available, think of how useless the new nation would be, as European powers could cut all manner of deals and promises with states to threaten secession and impede the US federal government with interfering with European plans in North America. Of course the Founders never conceived of a mechanism thay would so easily be expolited by foreign powers to cripple and destroy the nation they formed. That’s absolutely ludicrous.
No, secession is the brainchild not of serious constitutionalists or republicans (little-r), but people who don’t like something and want the easy way out when they are in the minority way of thinking. This, frankly, is no different than the “progressives” who, when they can’t get “progressive” values enacted by and through majoritarian legislation, they simpy opt for the easy way out, claiming “unconstitutional” means the same as “stuff I don’t like” and claim a court can simply will it so regardless of democratic opinion.
