
One of the strange things about this gig is what gets a response. I think the biggest shock came when I made what I assumed to be the self-evident statement: that people who want to secede from the Union are not patriots. I would even go so far as to say they are anti-American, traitors, even. Even if said person happens to be Chuck Norris.
I know that in the Internet/cable age, epithets like "traitor" get tossed around like bags of peanuts at a baseball game, but when I say someone who wants to secede from the United States hates America, I'm being absolutely 100% serious. I don't see any other way around that.
Mariam Webster's defines Treason as "the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family." So, maybe there's some wiggle room where you can say, so long as you aren't attempting to overthrow the government or assassinate the leader, you are not a traitor. Still, you can't say you love the country you want to secede from. Even those for secession, I would think, would have to admit they aren't patriots. But, apparently not:
I think its cute that you compare secession from your holy perfect government as "treason." Those who founded this nation spoke of the day when this would need to happen due to a over powerful central government who know longer represents the people. You need to put down the kool aid and read a history book or two.
And then there's this:
There is no such thing as a 'holy' government. Government is a tool, if you can't sharpen it you need to get a new tool. The only purpose of government is to protect the life liberty and property of citizens, If government is not providing that protection then why do we have it?
The current police state we have is for the protection for the government not the protection of the people.
The people attracted to government are the ones that want power over others, this is a structural defect of our current government.
Secession seems a very reasonable means of improving the liberty and prosperity of the people.
In this country, flirting with a group that wants Alaska to secede doesn't even disqualify you for Vice President, so apparently dissolving the Union doesn't in any way count against one's love of that Union for the majority of Americans. At least not enough to disqualify you from seeking office in that government which you want to shatter.
Where am I losing people?
Yet, another high office holder, a Governor and good friend of the previous President of this nation, Rick Perry, has suggested seceding because Obama has just passed the largest middle class tax cut in history, and returned taxes on the rich to ten percent below what they were under Reagan. Raising taxes on the rich, after getting the brunt of the last couple decades of cuts, is so egregious that a good portion of the country thinks we ought to consider seceding. If raising taxes is enough to return to the Civil War, then why didn't they do it when Reagan did so? Or Bush? As some secessionists have pointed out, Bush over-spent too... so why didn't they leave then?
I have always seen matters of taxes as ones of policy, and politics as a means of determining at what amount might be appropriate, matters that, in a healthy democracy in a great nation like ours, could be arrived at through politics rather than another Civil War. A good number of people had their issues with Bush, and lost a few times at the ballot box before they finally earned a victory, but they still did it at the ballot box. Despite enormous disagreements, and a belief that the previous Administration was, indeed, infringing on the rights of its citizens, abusing power and wasting away a government surplus on incompetent wars and misplace priorities, yet, they never had a Governor suggest secession. If one had, I imagine we would have heard quite a few accusations of "hating America", and rightly so.
Just as I am right to say, with utmost seriousness, that Rick Perry hates America. He hates our country. Governor Perry is no patriot. Nor is anyone else who winks and flirts with those who want to tear apart our nation. Let's call it what it is.
(Update: Anti-Americanism picking up steam in the South? Limbaugh on board the secession train. DeLay admits it's illegal, but a good idea.)