When secession talk is in the air, the nation has lost its bearings
Zach Wamp, an eight-term Republican congressman from Chattanooga, is leaving the federal government behind to run for governor of Tennessee.
Last week, Wamp suggested that he might not be alone, that the entire state of Tennessee might leave the federal government.
Rep. Zach Wamp (R-03) suggested TN and other states may have to consider seceding from the union if the federal government does not change its ways regarding mandates.
“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” said Wamp during an interview with Hotline OnCall.
He lauded Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who first floated the idea of secession in April ‘09, for leading the push-back against health care reform, adding that he hopes the American people “will send people to Washington that will, in 2010 and 2012, strictly adhere” to the Constitution’s defined role for the federal government.
“Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” said Wamp, who is competing with Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam (R) and LG Ron Ramsey (R) for the GOP nod in the race to replace TN Gov. Phil Bredesen (D).”
Over the weekend, Wamp backed away from that suggestion, saying that if elected governor, he would take secession off the table. While that might be cause for relief, it’s a sign of very strange times that such remarks would even by uttered by legitimate candidates for major office.
But before you start dismissing those folks up in Tennessee as a little tetched in the head, let’s remember that the Georgia Senate last year passed a resolution also endorsing secession as an option, but in much more explicit detail.
Among many other things, SR 632 stated that under the Constitution, the only crimes the federal government could prosecute were treason, piracy and slavery. “Therefore, all acts of Congress which assume to create, define or punish [other] crimes … are altogether void, and of no force,” the resolution declared.
SR 632 also warned that if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is automatically rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded.
The Senate approved the resolution 43-1, largely because few people knew what it contained. However, it was sponsored by most of the GOP leadership in the Senate, who presumably were more familiar with its contents. And rather than take the side of sanity, every Republican in the race for governor at the time, including Karen Handel, endorsed the resolution’s message. (Nathan Deal, still in Congress at the time, was not yet an announced candidate and to my knowledge has not taken a position.)
It might be interesting, and revealing, to get Handel and Deal on record again before the Aug. 10 runoff. By asking the question, we’d get an answer to a more important question:
Which of the two is more willing to pander to the crazies?
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349 comments Add your comment
Tuckerman
July 26th, 2010
11:45 am
This question was settled in 1865, and the Georgia Senate has trashed the memory of 620,000 Americans who died to decide the question. I’m a proud Southerner, but any talk of secession is akin to defecating on the graves of every soldier who died in the Civil War. Did they die for nothing? Even in loss, the Confederate soldiers lives should be held as sacred for giving their lives to resolve, once and for all, whether we live in a loose confederation of states, or one united nation. It should be high treason to try to start that battle again. Absolutely despicable.
TGT
July 26th, 2010
11:46 am
I wonder if Jay and the rest of you libs were talking about “pandering to the crazies” when the secession talk was coming from the left: http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/04/when-bush-was-president-secession-talk.html
TGT
July 26th, 2010
11:47 am
When Bush was president, secession talk was cool: http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/04/16/when-bush-was-president-secession-talk-was-cool/
N-GA
July 26th, 2010
11:47 am
Desperado – They’re doing great because their citizens can read and write.
Outhouse GoKart
July 26th, 2010
11:47 am
Seems the Presidential Knob will be appearing later this week on The View.
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
11:48 am
“The CSA went down in flames, never to rise again.”
and you can’t sign any kind of treaty with an entity that doesn’t exist
obama's fault
July 26th, 2010
11:48 am
Finn McCool, It sure is interesting how you just tried to skew the stats. In 1929, the bottom rate was .375%. By 1941, it was up to 10%. great attempt at a slight change in history though.
Jefferson Davis
July 26th, 2010
11:48 am
Once you Join the Union you can’t quit. Kind of like the army. I believe the federal government decided that 1861-1865. If I remember correctly.
Outhouse GoKart
July 26th, 2010
11:50 am
Kinda like The Mafia.
BADA BING
July 26th, 2010
11:50 am
What is the difference between Germany, Japan, and the Confederacy? After the war, the US helped rebuild Germany and Japan.
Finn McCool
July 26th, 2010
11:53 am
What is $202 billion divided by 862,370 equals???????
Idiot math?
If my company spends $750,000 per year and has revenues of $1 million per year and employs 1,000 people. Then your math would suggest that each employee spent $750 and that each employee brought in $1,000 dollars, and each employee gets to enjoy an equal part of the $250,000 profit – no matter the employs position (CEO makes what the janitor makes.)
Yeah, we are experiencing the brainpower of a conservative today! Whoa. Stand back! Feast your eyes!
SOOHSO
July 26th, 2010
11:54 am
N-GA, General Lee surrendered Just his army, not the Confederate gov’t. Learn your history!!
songbird
July 26th, 2010
11:58 am
If all the southern states seceded, they would soon fall apart because they are at the bottom of the barrel in education and I doubt seriously that would change. It would probably only get worse, since they would stop teaching science and math.
I would love for this to happen, just give me time to get the hell out first.
ty webb
July 26th, 2010
11:59 am
songbird,
why wait? see ya.
songbird
July 26th, 2010
11:59 am
Also, there would be a giant sucking sound as most businesses left the south to move where there was a more educated populace.
BADA BING
July 26th, 2010
12:00 pm
If Tennessee were to secede, we would have to import Jack Daniels !
Saul Good
July 26th, 2010
12:01 pm
Desperado @ 11:46am
I should have submitted a bid? Halliburton and KBR were the ONLY two companies that could provide many of the services they supplied with their “no contract” bids handed to them by the government.
I guess NOBODY else could supply FOOD SERVICES…AND “overcharge” our military (paid for with our tax dollars):
http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=cabal-elite/corporate/halliburton/halliburton-overcharged-16m-for-military-meals.txt
“Halliburton in $16M food probe
Report: Contractor allegedly overcharged U.S. military for food-service work.
February 2, 2004: 9:49 AM EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Halliburton Co. allegedly overcharged more than $16 million for meals at a U.S. military base in Kuwait during the first seven months of last year, according to a published report Monday, citing Pentagon investigators auditing the company’s work.
Because of the charges, which involve food-service work done by Halliburton (HAL: Research, Estimates) unit Kellogg Brown & Root, the Pentagon has extended its audit of KBR food services to include more than 50 other dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq, according to an e-mail sent Friday to more than 12 U.S. Army contracting officials and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.”
From the same source (use left sidebar):
“FBI Investigating Halliburton Contracts
Oct 28, 4:43 PM (ET)
By JOHN SOLOMON
WASHINGTON (AP) – The FBI has begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton Co. (HAL), seeking an interview with a top Army contracting officer and collecting documents from several government offices.
The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company.”
Well Desp…. thanks for clearing up that Halliburton was the ONLY company in the whole USA who could supply food or gas to our military. Heck…as long as it made some of Dick’s stock go up back then (and the stock of his “hunting” buddies)… that’s the “American way”…or should I say the “Republican” way…
K…now I’m REALLY out of here…
Normal
July 26th, 2010
12:01 pm
FYI:
http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/targets_150000_donation_to_fund_anti-gay_politics
obama's fault
July 26th, 2010
12:02 pm
Finn Mccool @ 1153, You don’t get it do you. They said that they have spent 202 Billion dollars and as a result, 682,370 jobs have been funded from the recovery act. “Job calculations are based on the number of hours worked in a quarter and funded under the Recovery Act.” Take that same company you are talking about. How long would they be in business if for every job that they have, they pay $296,000 to create it? Please, don’t try to play CEO again. That janitor job might be more along your qualifications. Of course, we do have somebody that would make that same argument currently sitting as our president. After all, as Biden said “we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt.” What a joke.
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
12:03 pm
What is amusing me is discussing this as if it’s something that might happen, some day. Give me a break! All that is happening is a few “keyboard cowards” (or in this case “microphone cowards”) are trying to build a reputation for toughness – which they don’t actuall have.
USinUK
July 26th, 2010
12:05 pm
Normal – “Sorry I’m late…had another ladder episode…don’t ask.”
um. dude. STAY OFF THE LADDERS. evidently, they don’t like you.
(sorry for the delayed response)
booger
July 26th, 2010
12:11 pm
Songbird,
Lest we forget, the US was concieved and born as a successionist nation. If you study history you will find the British took a similar view of the US after the war. A rogue country, made up primarily of farmers, would never last. They assumed the failure of the US, and figured they would return to the realm within a matter of a few years. They are still waiting.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:11 pm
Forget secession for a minute…now look at all those bitterly negative opinions so many are expressing toward the South and its people…why wouldn’t just such result in a separate identity for the targets of the venom…?
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:13 pm
Norm,
Thanks for that link…no Target for me…but what to you expect? They’re French, land of the fashion police,,,for real…
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
12:14 pm
“why wouldn’t just such result in a separate identity for the targets of the venom”
Instead of doing some soul searching to identify WHY it’s so easy to make them a “target”?
Leo the Lion
July 26th, 2010
12:15 pm
Food fro thought from James Howard Kunstler:
“Behind the incoherent cargo of conflicting complaints that makes up Tea Party doctrine — like “keeping the government’s hands off our medicare!” — stands the more basic dissolution of the Sunbelt’s miracle economy, along with the pain and bewilderment of the southern peckerwood political nexus that rose out of the dust after World War Two to build the suburban nirvana of universal air-conditioning, happy motoring, Jesus tub-thumping, over-eating, and Friday night football that defined Sunbelt culture. They sense now that history is about to thrust them back into the okra patch, with the hookworms and the chiggers, as the economy whirls down the drain, and the car dealerships close up, and the idle production homebuilders succumb to methedrine addiction, and the price of Reba McEntire tickets exceeds their dwindling resources, and they are none too happy about any of that.
Of course this Sunbelt political culture has tentacles and outposts all over the USA, wherever a few generations of laboring folk enjoyed debt-fueled parabolic rises in living standards during the cheap oil decades, and now find themselves in foreclosure hell, indentured to the very WalMarts that they welcomed with open arms (and allowed to destroy their local businesses) — and, of course, it’s yet another paradox that these are the same folk who will still defend the big box masters to their deaths. The America they stand for is a weird contradictory mish-mash of Confederate nostalgia, hyper-individualism that really owes allegiance to nothing, racial enmity, religious paranoia, and potemkin patriotism — especially involving anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around.
The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill.”
Normal
July 26th, 2010
12:16 pm
USinUK,
Imagine, if you will, a Grandson, a glider, a tree, a ladder and a cat (unknown at the time)in a tree…Wait! there’s a signpost up ahead…you have just entered the free fall zone…
BADA BING
July 26th, 2010
12:16 pm
Memo from the US to the new Tennesee President: revoke Al Gore’s passport.
USinUK
July 26th, 2010
12:20 pm
Normal –
next time, tell the kid “you got it in the tree, you get it out”
heading home – have a good night!!
BADA BING
July 26th, 2010
12:21 pm
Nashville would become the new Tijuana.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:22 pm
Doggone
There is more than enough soul searching and, I submit, that is precisely what has stymied this part of the empire. That soul searching is an obsession coloring every facet of the weltanschauung here in Uncle Sam’s Oldest Colony (Alan Tate)…the problem is that the Wah-uh is considered the begin all and end all in that identity. The 250+ years that went into the make up of that people before that ill-fated attempt at self-determination is simply not a part of the discussion, and because it is not, the 150 years since has been a history of frustration which, most often, is expressed in reactionary philosophies…
stands for decibels
July 26th, 2010
12:23 pm
When Bush was president, secession talk was cool:
gosh, TGT, your hotair link doesn’t seem to provide any like:like examples of actual aspiring Democratic elected officials actually making nice with such secessionists during gw Bush’s presidency.
Best they can do is some news article citing Howard Dean, back in 1991, apparently asking some town hall attendees how they felt about such things.
I’m sure that’s just an oversight.
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
12:23 pm
josef: Normal – For the record, secession was never declared treason and the question was never settled constitutionally.
Not so fast……
The military resolution of the secession question was then given legal force by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1868 case of Texas v. White. The Court ruled there that even Texas–an independent republic before it joined the Union in 1845–had no right to secede. “The Constitution,” the Court said, “in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” By What Mechanism Can States Secede Through Mutual Agreement?
Despite their rhetoric about the permanence and indestructibility of the Union, both Lincoln in his First Inaugural, and the Supreme Court in Texas v. White, strongly implied that it would be possible for one or more states to leave the Union with the consent of the Union as a whole.
By what legal mechanism would such secession through mutual agreement be accomplished? The most obvious answer is a statute enacted by Congress. Just as Congress can approve the admission of new states, the argument would go, so it can let old states leave.
I have other sources, I can quote them, but can’t link to them because they are part of LexisNexis and you need a password (and a license) to link to them. I hate to give you info without you seeing where I got the info from (Unlike Whine and a few others…..)
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:29 pm
DDR
Thanks for the reference…am familiar with that…the key element being “mutual consent,” thus the constitutionality of such is still up in the air…
getalife
July 26th, 2010
12:29 pm
GOP Senate Candidate: Tea Partiers Questioning Obama’s Citizenship Are ‘Dumbas ses’.
We have some here.
Finn McCool
July 26th, 2010
12:31 pm
Paul’s in Texas.
If they secede he’ll be USinMexico!
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
12:33 pm
“There is more than enough soul searching”
And I don’t agree. I think there are too many people who cling to their outmoded ideas and beliefs and who NEVER do any soul-searching on the subject.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:33 pm
DDR–
Here’s a link
http://supreme.justia.com/us/74/700/case.html
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:36 pm
Doggone
So would you say the same for those Americans of African Descent? Or American Indian descent?
After all, might we not also say that they, too, “cling to outmoded ideas and beliefs?”
booger
July 26th, 2010
12:45 pm
Songbird,
At least one state has the right to succeed. Texas was a republic when it joined the union and retained that right as part of their agreement. Now if you do not think the state of Texas could go it alone, you are totally wrong. Since the recession began, Texas has created more private industry jobs than the rest of the states combined. They have no income tax, and a business friendly culture and heritage. Businesses would flock to Texas were they to succede, and with all the money flowing into the state that now goes to Washington, the sky would be the limit. The US is a burden to be borne by Texas. The world is full of countries who did quite nicely after severing ties with their mother nation. Canada and US come to mind. Tiawan, Hong Kong, S. Korea, India, Even Texas left Mexico to form it’s own republic. Only a progressive could harbor such regressive ideas about a states need for a mother country to survive.
Dusty
July 26th, 2010
12:46 pm
Josef,
The South is a great place for love and loveliness. It always has been and always will be. If only we could stop the hordes of cold, stony-faced Northerners in their army boots who come here ravaging the place with condos, complaints, cuspidors and cod fish cakes.. You can’t run ‘em off with a stick!!
‘Tis time to pack ‘em all in Spanish moss and ship ‘em to Alaska.to join the caribou and the polar bears.. I know Sarah will hate us for this dastardly act but somebody’s got to do it!!
Finn McCool
July 26th, 2010
12:48 pm
booger puts down a good case for Texas to secede. Now, can we get the ball rolling? Texas is the most overrated place in the Union.
Normal
July 26th, 2010
12:48 pm
Anybody paying any attention to the WikiLeaks thing?
Most of the documents leaked are from 2004 to 2009 and while I was no fan of President Bush and his war policies, I take umbrage at this Administration using that fact as spin. If president Obama had shut down the wars when he first got into office, we wouldn’t be having this “incident” now. BTY, the spin is also that leaking these reports is “endangering our troops’. wrong again, the stuff is too low level, but it is also eye opening as to what goes on there. Bring them home.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
12:51 pm
booger
vis a vis Texas, see DDR’s earlier post and my later one pertinent to Texas v White…
Doggone
Before I forget, in case you didn’t see my THANK YOU for that letter Friday…thanks again…!!
DDR
As per our other conversation…yes, I do plan on answering, but as you know events over the last week or so have been such that a proper response would be too colored by the events of the day and the necessary detachment would not be there…and, well, I AM enjoying my last few days of sorry, low-down, good-for-nothing blogging…grandbaby’s here…that’s fun…
TGT
July 26th, 2010
12:52 pm
More liberal talk of secession: http://www.ginandtacos.com/2005/01/25/my-favorite-2004-moments-best-liberal-meltdown/
Interesting Observation
July 26th, 2010
12:52 pm
Johnny Reb, are you saying that Americans were so stupid that they voted Mr. Roosevelt to four consecutive terms as POTUS? Keep trying to rewrite history. There are enough ingorant folks on here to believe it.
IOU
July 26th, 2010
12:52 pm
In order to succeed we must secede from a bloated federal bureaucracy.
TGT
July 26th, 2010
12:54 pm
More: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/nov/9/20041109-122753-5113r/
John Birch
July 26th, 2010
12:55 pm
What we need is a revolution, hunt down the DC and Wall Street types and return the country to the peeps. If this were 1776 the people would have revolted a long time ago. But now we have welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and XBox in high def!
TGT
July 26th, 2010
12:56 pm
Even more from the Daily Kooks: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/3/17568/04317
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
12:57 pm
“After all, might we not also say that they, too, “cling to outmoded ideas and beliefs?””
Certainly. At some point it IS necessary to remember the past…but not to live by it.
theyeshaveit
July 26th, 2010
12:58 pm
Neo-Carlinist has one heck of a point. If Tennessee were to secede from the US, they would also have to secede from the SEC. When the University of Tennessee lost Lane Kiffin to USC, the citizens were almost up in arms. You take away their football and the secessionists will have secessionist seceding from them.
tscali
July 26th, 2010
12:59 pm
But now we have welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and XBox in high def!
and dimwits vote for demwits.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
1:01 pm
Doggone
The question is, where do you draw the line and who is the arbiter thereof?
Finn McCool
July 26th, 2010
1:01 pm
A Tea Party-backed Senate candidate in Colorado was caught on tape Friday referring to ‘birthers’ who question President Obama’s citizenship as “dumbasses.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/25/ken-buck-tea-partiers-que_n_658728.html
popeye
July 26th, 2010
1:02 pm
“They have no income tax, and a business friendly culture and heritage. Businesses would flock to Texas were they to succede, and with all the money flowing into the state that now goes to Washington, the sky would be the limit.”
The money that flows to Washington also flows back to Texas. So if there is no income tax who’s gonna pay the freight?
Ya know like intrastructue maintenance…Air safety, teachers salaries, police the list is endless.
your simple minded solution would bankrupt the seceded state of Texas in a manner of hours!
catchynamegoeshere
July 26th, 2010
1:03 pm
Funny how you like to pick great blog worthy topics like some no-name clown talking about secession. Get real dude. At least be honest and talk about Obama not creating/saving a zillion jobs or the fact that financial reform allows banks that are “too big to fail” to control a larger share of the nation’s deposits than BEFORE the financial crisis. Restrictions on bank trading and derivitaives missed the mark. Bad loans, not trading, took down Citigroup and BOA, and few effective restrictions or controls are imposed on mortgage-backed securities and similar financial instruments that permitted giant banks to disguise lousy lending decisions from unknowing investors. 8000 regional banks remain cash strapped because TARP didn’t apply to them even though they finance the majority of small and medium sized businesses. Green jobs via windmills went to foreign companies. Yeah, we’ve stimulated everyone else’s economy and left the middle class without jobs or hope. Wake up dude. I can name off several areas where the current administration has fallen waaayyy short of their promises and here you are talking about one no-name secessionist clown from Tennessee. C’mon man!!!
tscali
July 26th, 2010
1:05 pm
state budgets have been cut due to the lack of federal dollars. the only money that does go out is greasy pork, gobbled up behind closed doors.
all politics is and should be local.
theyeshaveit
July 26th, 2010
1:06 pm
Finn McCool,
Perhaps, the birthers need to secede from the Tea Party union.
tscali
July 26th, 2010
1:10 pm
perhaps liberals need to secede from conservatives. they could call themselves pig farmers.
Disgusted
July 26th, 2010
1:10 pm
booger puts down a good case for Texas to secede. Now, can we get the ball rolling? Texas is the most overrated place in the Union.
But we just can’t allow it. What would happen to all the Texas jokes? They’d be ruined. It ain’t funny to start one that says, “A foreigner and a midget walk into the men’s bathroom together . . .”
popeye
July 26th, 2010
1:12 pm
UH, catchynamegoeshere … I don’t know if you have been paying attention or not, but the republicans have fought the demos tooth and nail to prevent bank reform. The demos tried to pass to big to fail but the republicans once again stood up enmass with a resounding NO.
You say “Bad loans, not trading, took down Citigroup and BOA”. May I ask under what administration that took place?
Where have you been for the last ten years under a rock?
booger
July 26th, 2010
1:13 pm
Jopsef,
I am aware of the potential restraints on Texas by the mutual consent clause. However they have a much stronger case for their right to sucede than any other state. I do believe I am correct in most everything else I said about their ability to be self supporting.
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:13 pm
josef regarding the constitutionality of secession – with the end of the war southern state wanted to retain their previous power in congress that they had before the war. However they had to recognize the legitmacy of the 14th Ammendment before they were allowed back into the union…….
The ensuing Reconstruction Acts placed the former CSA states under military rule, and prohibited their congressmen’s readmittance to Congress until after several steps had been taken, including the approval of the 14th Amendment. The 14th was designed to ensure that all former slaves were granted automatic United States citizenship, and that they would have all the rights and privileges as any other citizen. The amendment passed Congress on June 13, 1866, and was ratified on July 9, 1868 (757 days).
Once they recognized the legitimacy of the 14th Ammendment and were allowed access back into the Congress one can argue that they in fact entered into a contract with the US stating that they recognized and respected the sovereignty of the US over the Southern States.
josef – no worries about the conversation — I have my mom here and she’s running me ragged taking her here and there and I’m way too busy and tired most nights to even think about looking at my email!
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
1:14 pm
“The question is, where do you draw the line and who is the arbiter thereof?”
when you start re-fighting a lost cause because you don’t like who’s in charege, maybe it’s time to AT LEAST start that soul-searching.
It’s all a tempest in a tea pot anyway. Nobody is ever going to SERIOUSLY make a move towards secession. It’s all hoo-hah to stir things up and too many people are stupid enough to fall for it, but you put a gun in most of their hands and say “CHARGE” and the stampede to be LAST at the battle-front will be amazing.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
1:14 pm
tscali
@ 1:10
Heh, heh! If we’re going for Balkanization, then let’s go full tilt, eh Prince Karageorgevic? Or is that Prince Obrenovic?
theyeshaveit
July 26th, 2010
1:15 pm
Disgusted,
lol. Well, it won’t happen, because Texans approach their football with more religious fervor than they do their history books. If Texas did secede, it would be THE joke.
jconservative
July 26th, 2010
1:16 pm
I consider anyone who calls for the destruction of the United States of America to be no better than Osama bin Laden. Handel did not denounce the vote on SR 632 and she will not get my vote. If Deal does not denounce that resolution he will not get my vote. I do not vote for traitors.
We have a constitution that provides for changing the people who govern.
To date the majority of voters have decided NOT to change the people elected to govern. And they will continue to send the same people to Washington year after year. Why? Because they do not have the courage to vote their party out of power for a 2 to 4 year period. So we get Incumbents elected year after year after year after year.
When we have Republicans voting for the Democrat to get rid of a 20 year Republican dead beat we will finally get new blood in the government. When we have Democrats voting for the Republicans to get rid of a 20 year Democrat dead beat we will finally get new blood in the government.
But we all know that will not happen. You voters have no courage.
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:17 pm
state budgets have been cut due to the lack of federal dollars.
But, but, but……I thought that’s what they WANTED. No federal dollars no need to listen to the feds!! If they seceede they will get NOTHING – isn’t it better that way?
Scout
July 26th, 2010
1:18 pm
“OFF TOPIC #1″
Well, well, well ………. What have we here ?
1) Headline (Yahoo News) : “Migrants sell up and flee Arizona ahead of crackdown”
2) Headline (New York Times) : “Britain Plans to Decentralize National Health Care”
“Perhaps the only consistent thing about Britain’s socialized health care system is that it is in a perpetual state of flux, its structure constantly changing as governments search for the elusive formula that will deliver the best care for the cheapest price while costs and demand escalate.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/world/europe/25britain.html?_r=2&hp
Obams is sooooooo in over his head .
ralph
July 26th, 2010
1:18 pm
I’d like to thank President Obama for keeping us safe, thank you Mr. President!
Fred
July 26th, 2010
1:20 pm
I find it amusing how many people here seem to have forgotten how and WHY this Country was founded, and upon what principles. They also forget WHY the second amendment was added.
WHy all the blathering Saul? Wasn’t it just the other day that you stated this country was finished and a second rate power? Change your mind did you or do you wake up everyday in a new world and forget what you said the day before?
Is President Obama over reaching the Constitution in regards to states rights a tad? I think the answer is inarguably YES.
But at the same time, The Republican so-called “Patriots Act” rocked our Constitution to the very core and stripped away more individuals rights in one fell swoop than the Democrats have been able to do in a 100 years.
Secession? Interesting possiblilty. I’ll bet it never occured to our forefathers………… or did it?
“And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President, November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
1:22 pm
DDR
Without arguing whether or not that union was coerced, the implication is certainly there…
Doggone
And once again the point is missed that that identity was there 250 years before the Wah-uh and is still here 150 years after the Wah-uh…the South and the Southerner as a land and as a people exists outside that four year period…
booger
I wasn’t arguing against you per se, merely making reference to the actual court case involving Texas. As far as its viability as a Republic, quite so…it was for 9 years and did a pretty good job of it on a number of counts…that is a chapter of the American story not many people outside of Texas are familiar with…
Normal
July 26th, 2010
1:23 pm
Hey DDR,
What’s with the “Esquire”? Have you moved up from Sanka to Starbucks?
stands for decibels
July 26th, 2010
1:24 pm
TGT, I asked for actual elected Democrats who align with actual elected Republicans, who called for secession or expressed sympathy for secessionism.
You still haven’t provided me with any (and two of those links are to the same guy saying the same thing).
Would it kill you to admit that you don’t have an apples:apples thing here? Embrace your wingnuttery, my bruthuh! it’s what makes you unique in your nuttiness.
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:24 pm
booger: Texas was a republic when it joined the union and retained that right as part of their agreement. Now if you do not think the state of Texas could go it alone, you are totally wrong.
They already tried that…….didn’t get them far…..
Normal
July 26th, 2010
1:27 pm
Boy, this sure is a load off of my mind…
http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20100725/BUSINESS-US-USA-ECONOMY-GEITHNER/
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
1:27 pm
“And once again the point is missed that that identity was there 250 years before the Wah-uh and is still here 150 years after the Wah-uh…the South and the Southerner as a land and as a people exists outside that four year period…”
and just because they existed that long means they should ALWAYS exist? The Roman identity might find that an interesting concept. Identities come, identities go. Sometimes it’s sad thing when they go, sometimes it’s a GOOD thing.
theyeshaveit
July 26th, 2010
1:29 pm
Scout,
1. Yes, some migrant families will leave Arizona. I saw an interview with a family in Arizona. The father was born in the US as was his son. But the mother is undocumented. So, out of fear, they are packing up everything, uprooting their lives and leaving the state of Arizona for another state. If they were to remain in Arizona, the family value folks who drafted the Arizona immigration law would send mom back to Mexico if she were caught.
2. Cameron’s newly elected government in the UK is Conservative. His coalition there is tenuous. De-centralizing health care in the UK, even if it makes it through political argument, will not look like what you expect. In the meantime, countries like Japan and Sweden are doing fine.
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
1:31 pm
Doggone
Then let’s go full tilt boogie and bury the United States of America and the American identity and be done with that, too! And you think cultural genocide of the Southern people is a GOOD thing?
DDR
Actually, Texas DID try the independent republic route and it did a pretty good job of a lot of things…
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
1:31 pm
“Texas was a republic when it joined the union and retained that right as part of their agreement”
Well…let’s see, you could maybe say that Pennsylvania was not, and still isn’t a state. That’s why it says COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania on their state seal. But you know what, that has NO LEGAL meaning whatsoever – they’re still legally a STATE. Just like Texas.
moonbat betty
July 26th, 2010
1:31 pm
The nation has lost its bearings.
Tune into The View at 11am Thursday and obama will tell you all about it.
Then at 4pm, Judge Judy will host obama to weight in on the administation’s stance on state’s secession rights.
Be there or be square.
Ivan
July 26th, 2010
1:32 pm
The Founders knew when writing the Declaration that abolishing a government should never be seen as “crazy”. The ability of a State to secede from the grasp of the Federal Government, should be a constant reminder to Federal leaders to stay within their own boundaries.
Just look at any recent poll that asks, “Is Government too big?”
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:33 pm
josef: DDR – without arguing whether or not that union was coerced, the implication is certainly there…
Oh yes, the south was soooo wronged…..that’s why the immediately, upon the end of the civil war, instituted the Black codes, so that they could, with malice, systemically alienate millions of legal US citizens because of the color of their skin. OH booo hooo, I feel so sorry for them. They could’ve kept their codes but that would’ve cost them their power, oh what to do? you can’t have it both ways. You can’t expect the feds to wipe your nose and come to your rescue with aid and help when your state coffers are bare, then slap their hands away when they try to collect their due.
Normal – the Esquire is because I passed the Georgia Board’s on my first try, (Debbie doing the running man and the Chicago Shuffle in her cubicle); and I wanted just to brag a little bit. Can’t help it, it’s a girl thing…..
Doggone/GA
July 26th, 2010
1:34 pm
“And you think cultural genocide of the Southern people is a GOOD thing? ”
Who said that? Certainly not me. My attitude is, and always will be, that when your “cultural identity” is holding you back, it’s time to rethink that identity. Keep what’s good and let what’s bad go. It’s long past time for “the South” to let go of what’s bad.
You know what? “The South Shall Rise Again” right? Well look around you. IT ALREADY HAS, but if old attitudes can’t be buried with the past…it just might have to FALL again to get the message. And I’m not, BTW, speaking of another war…I’m talking economics. The “New South” has risen on economics, but if old attitudes hold it back in education and infrastructure…then economics just might bring it to it’s knees.
TGT
July 26th, 2010
1:36 pm
sfd: First of all, you didn’t ask for anything. Second, I haven’t expressed my personal views on secession at all. Third, Jays post, to which I have been responding, places no limits–such as only those holding political office–on secession “crazies.” Fourth, from Wikipedia: O’Donnell “was a key legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. From 1989 to 1991, he served as senior advisor to Moynihan. From 1992 to 1993, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, then chaired by Senator Moynihan. And then from 1993 to 1995, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, once again under Senator Moynihan’s chairmanship. He thus led the staff of the Senate’s tax-writing committee during the consideration of President Bill Clinton’s first budget, which Congress enacted in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.” In other words, not your average “crazy.”
Disgusted
July 26th, 2010
1:37 pm
“And you think cultural genocide of the Southern people is a GOOD thing?
Maybe not, but a few thousand hangings for treason after the Civil War would most certainly have improved the gene pool.
stands for decibels
July 26th, 2010
1:37 pm
cultural genocide of the Southern people
First they came for the grits and I did not speak out because I did not eat grits.
Then they came for NASCAR and I did not speak out because I did not follow NASCAR…
Normal
July 26th, 2010
1:37 pm
Well, congrats DDR, ESQ!!!
booger
July 26th, 2010
1:37 pm
DebbieDoRight,
Mass. is also a commonwealth, however a commonwealth is quite different from an independent republic.
jt
July 26th, 2010
1:38 pm
I would have liked to have seen Jay Bookman call Button Gwinnett a “crazy”.
Bip!
Finn McCool
July 26th, 2010
1:39 pm
De-centralizing health care in the UK, even if it makes it through political argument, will not look like what you expect. In the meantime, countries like Japan and Sweden are doing fine.
Switzerland, France, Italy, Norway, Iceland, Germany, etc, etc, etc.
Give it up. You couldn’t stop health care reform and you never will. You lost, get over it already.
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:41 pm
josef: DDR – Actually, Texas DID try the independent republic route and it did a pretty good job of a lot of things…
That was before 2010, heck before the Civil War even!! Let them try it now, and we’ll see how fast Texas becomes “The New Republic of Mexico and/or South America”. Texas can not defend itself from an emass attack from another nation. It can not make treaties or enter into contract with another nation. (And before you mention agriculture, etc. just stop for a moment and think about what you’re saying). Texas can not, without the nod of the rest of the world, even enter into the coffers of the World Bank. Which means they can not get a loan if needed etc. Without money, or the access to money, Texas would be no more independent than Samoa or Puerto Rico or HONG KONG.
Normal
July 26th, 2010
1:42 pm
New topic, and more important than this one…
Bob Dylan “went electric” at Newport 45 years ago yesterday.
For it or agin’ it?
I was agin’ it at first, then a Rainy Day Woman showed up…I was rockin’ with Bob after that!!!
tiredofotall
July 26th, 2010
1:42 pm
The Republican party has become so corrupted by the religious right that they can never again have power in this country. . They must be forcefully disbanded and all their members tried for TREASON!!!!
DebbieDoRight Esq.
July 26th, 2010
1:46 pm
Thanks Normal!! And BTW, that should be “Bar” instead of “Board”. I was typing an answer to you and talking on the phone at the same time. Sorry about that from now on I’ll give you my full attention.
std: First they came for the grits and I did not speak out because I did not eat grits. Then they came for NASCAR and I did not speak out because I did not follow NASCAR…
You almost made me wet myself when I read that. Too dang funny!!!!!
stands for decibels
July 26th, 2010
1:47 pm
Third, Jays post, to which I have been responding, places no limits–such as only those holding political office–on secession “crazies.”
Ok. Well, Jay’s post seems pretty specifically about elected officials and their willingness to leverage secessionist sentiment for political gain, which is why I sought some like:like examples.
If your point is simply that some lefties expressed similarly nutty ideas about breaking up the Republic on account of Team Bush, I’ve no argument with you there. My point is, we didn’t have elected Democrats who felt compelled to woo those so disaffected by Bush, and we, now, seem to have elected Republicans (and probably a few southern conservaDems, I’d imagine) looking to snag some of these disaffected with Obama. That’s my point and I think, implicitly, Jay’s as well.
Dusty
July 26th, 2010
1:49 pm
Great balls of fire,
Is this thing still going? I have seceded at least four times and won the war five times and this thread is older than Doggone’s army boots. Now that DebbieDoLaw has graduated we are going to hear a case every day. Whoooeee! We also have to get Josef back in school before he shoots off a cannon at Fort McPherson (Ft. Sumter is too far away!) and we just can’t keep Normal out of the trees..
Come on, Bookman. This blog is getting to be like day old bread. You can eat it but it has lost all freshness.. How about cessation of Secession??? Huh huh huh.
Oh nevermind. I have to leave anyway. Duty calls. Ah yes, for whom the bell tolls! Thank you, Ernest. Yes, it tolls for me. I must run. Bye…
josef nix
July 26th, 2010
1:49 pm
DDR
Who said they were wronged? I said without arguing whether or not that (and I should have said reunion) were coerced…and you’re a legal scholar, that segregation was okayed by the FEDERAL Supreme Court with Plessy v Ferguson and the only vote against it was the lone Southerner on the court, Justice Harlan, himself born into a slave owning family…his dissent should be required reading in every American History class…
Doggone
For the love of G-d, woman, get rid of that “The South Shall Rise Again” frame of reference…you’re so stuck on that and keep fighting it to the point that a discussion of the culture, and with it its errors, simply cannot be discussed. Do you suggest that we ban the novels of Welty, Faulkner, Wright and the plays of Williams? Do we ban country western, gospel, blues, jazz, rock and roll? No more grits and greens? Arrest and detain those caught saying y’all…?
I’m trying to move on…so are millions of other Southerners, but we won’t be able to do that until we take a good, hard and unbiased look at what went into our make up and we won’t do that if we inisist that it did not exist before 1861—that’s absurd.
booger
July 26th, 2010
1:51 pm
Debbie,
Only a liberal would suffer under the illusion that access to the World Bank is the only source of funds there is. And remember. well over half the country’s oil comes from Texas, and 70% of the refining capability is in Texas. The idea that they would go broke because they couldn’t get a loan is pretty out there.