Thursday, April 23, 2009

"Leave us the hell alone, or we shall not leave you alone this side of hell."


Leonard Pitts is shocked, SHOCKED to find polarization and secession going on here. Of course, calling his opponents "some group of gun-toting goobers that meets in the woods" probably isn't the best out-reach.

Pitts, liberal darling columnist of the Miami Herald, has just discovered that we are two countries, sharing a language and a common border but not much else. Well, doh.

If you go here, you will find Pitts' latest column. It ran in my local paper, The Birmingham News, under the headline "What does talk of secession say about us?"

Some snippets:

Have you ever had one of those moments when you gazed across and did not recognize your fellow Americans? I find myself in the middle of one. . . I felt it last week, that jolt of unrecognition, that instant of worry for the state -- and future -- of the Union. Not because of the so-called "teabag" protests on April 15. No, it was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaking after one such demonstration, who made the moment surreal.

"When we came into the Union in 1845," he told reporters, "one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pay attention. We've got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that?"

You may read it twice if you wish, but it does not improve upon repetition. To the contrary, it becomes all the more incredible. That is, indeed the Republican governor of Texas -- not a yahoo from some group of gun-toting goobers that meets in the woods, but the honorable James Richard Perry himself -- saying Texas doesn't like the way things are going in this country and suggesting that if we don't get our act together, his state might take its mountains and rivers and go home. . .

That it is borderline traitorous for Perry to obliquely threaten it might be tried again goes without saying. That it is dangerously irresponsible in a nation where there are, in fact, goobers in the woods with guns, is likewise obvious. . .

I just find myself wondering what it says about us that secession even enters the discussion. I suppose Perry is just the conservative analog to all those dispirited Democrats who threatened to relocate to Canada four years ago when George W. was re-elected. But isn't it telling that leaving the Union or sundering it has now been floated as a possibility by the losers in two consecutive elections? In a sense, it feels as if secession has already occurred, except that it's not geographical but, rather, what columnist Michael Gerson has dubbed a "spiritual secession," a nation of extremes pulling away from the center, rejecting the very idea of common cause.

Perry's words have made him a hero out on the angry fringes of conservatism. Those of us who do not live on that fringe can only mourn this new reality in which ideology supersedes country. Country, after all, is supposed to be that which pulls us back together after everything else -- politics, race, religion -- has conspired to pull us apart.

But there are too many days lately when it does not. And too many days when you find yourself wondering if anything still can.

Leonard Pitts' E-mail: lpitts@miamiherald.com


Pitts' memory is as defective and convenient as can be when he minimizes "those dispirited Democrats who threatened to relocate to Canada four years ago when George W. was re-elected." For four years ago, THIS is what passed for liberal thinking.

In a 16 November 2004 article entitled "If at first you don't secede" in that liberal on-line bastion Slate, Michelle Goldberg wrote:

Feeling they've lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals are turning to an unfamiliar philosophy: States' rights. In the days after the election, fantasies of blue-state secession ricocheted around the Internet. Liberals indulged themselves in maps showing Canada gathering the blue states into its social democratic embrace, leaving the red states to form their own "Jesusland." . . . These sentiments were so pronounced that they migrated into the mainstream. Speaking on "The McLaughlin Group" the weekend after George W. Bush's victory, panelist Lawrence O'Donnell, a former Democratic Senate staffer, noted that blue states subsidize the red ones with their tax dollars, and said, "The big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government."

A shocked Tony Blankley asked him, "Are you calling for civil war?" To which O'Donnell replied, "You can secede without firing a shot."

For now, of course, secession remains an escapist fantasy. But its resonance with liberals points to some modest potential for constructive political action. After all, as the South knows well, there are interim measures between splitting the nation and submitting to a culture pushed by a hostile federal government. Having lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals may be about to discover states' rights -- for better or worse.


One of the liberals quoted expressed fear of a visceral sort:

"We are being attacked and really caricatured," says Cannavo. "There's been an attack on the blue states as out of touch with the country. You had 48 percent to 51 percent in the election, but the 48 percent is considered somehow illegitimate."


Yeah, well we gunowners have felt that way for a long, long time. Just ask Pitts' "group of gun-toting goobers that meets in the woods" if you can find anybody that answers to such a cartoon caricature. Or how about the unfairly tarred "right wing extremists" in Janet Napolitano's world? THEY are being caricatured by THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT in hysterical fashion and with the potential of deadly consequences of offical violence, no matter how illogical or unfounded.

Here's the deal, Leonard. When you cannot agree upon something as basic as the sanctity of life, does the fact that you agree on ANYTHING else make a difference? Yet, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.


We have co-existed without violence thus far because we are used to doing so. The nanny state liberals and doctrinaire collectivists have pushed us back over the past eighty plus years, presuming our "law-abiding" nature would protect them from retribution for all their many thefts of our liberty and our property. Thus far, they have been right. We have only ourselves to blame for that.

We do insist, however, on being left alone beyond a certain point. As MamaLiberty commented over on David Codrea's War on Guns blog: "Here's an idea...If nobody wants a 'civil disturbance,' why in heck don't they quit disturbing us?"

Over many years, it has been speculated what that precise point might be. We are there. The Three Percenters, among others, have declared that we will obey no further circumscription of our traditional liberties and permit no further seizures of our property. And let me make this plain: that means by ANY MECHANISM, DIRECT OR INDIRECT, LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL OR EXTRAJUDICIAL, BY LAW, POLICY, EXECUTIVE FIAT OR TREATY.

ANY mechanism.

Get it?


That Pitts now clucks his tongue at a Texas politician's attempt to reclaim a conservative moniker (for Perry is at best a Bushie, with all the negatives that implies) just in time for a Senatorial primary by hinting at secession is doubly silly. But it is not secession that Pitts ought to be worrying about.

Again, Jefferson:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


It may well be that the settling of our disputes may, after a long horrible conflict, end in separate countries. But that is not, should not and must not be our initial goal. Our goal must be to restore the Republic of the Founders -- ALL OF IT. Once they have, by their bad behavior and exercise of their insatiable appetite for our liberty and property, pushed us past the point of armed resistance, we should not cede one square inch of sovereign American territory to these collectivist, tyrannical pukes.

Don't worry about secession, Mr. Pitts, worry about that.

Leave us the hell alone, or we shall not leave you alone this side of hell.

17 comments:

rexxhead said...

I moved to Texas in 1981 convinced it was my last move. I therefore attempted (and largely succeeded) to become as much of a Texan myself as I could manage.

A quarter century of exile in Florida has not yet managed to scrub it all out of me.

Texas bills itself a "a whole 'nother country" and that feeling is REAL for many Texans no matter where they were born.

God bless Texas.

Sean said...

Having sh*t where they eat, they now complain about the cuisine. Let's dance.

American Genie said...

God bless you, and God bless America!

From DHS report on "left-wing extremism released in January:

"Anarchist extremists generally embrace a number of radical philosophical components of anticapitalist, antiglobalist communist, socialist, and other movements. Anarchist groups seek abolition of social, political, and economic hierarchies, including Western-style governments and large business enterprises, and frequently advocate criminal actions of varying scale and scope to accomplish their goals."

Remove the word "antiglobalization."

Does it describe anyone you're familiar with these days?

Where is all the outrage over having a "left-wing extremist" in the White House?!!!

Anonymous said...

"...saying Texas doesn't like the way things are going in this country and suggesting that if we don't get our act together, his state might take its mountains and rivers and go home."

Not just the mountains and rivers, bub. All of our oil, our fertile agricultural land and cattle, our 50 million guns, all of our veterans, all of our gunsmiths and firearms-related manufacturing facilities, Dell Computer, Texas Instruments, and other high-tech companies, our share of the armor and aircraft the Feds have here, the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly facility, etc., etc. We can feed and fuel ourselves, and with the money we make from selling oil to the half-frozen people in the Northeast, Detroit and Chicago, we can outfit whatever kind of armed forces we need to defend ourselves - better than we can already, that is.

Oh, and I suspect that oil-rich Oklahoma and a couple of other nearby states will come along for the ride.

Such are the thoughts that come to the fore when distant politicians cease to represent us, and begin to represent alien concepts and the interests of their own pockets.

Brock Townsend said...

"If a state does not have a right to secede, then the U.S.A. is just another empire based on nothing but military force. And, like all empires based on military force, it will collapse as soon as it can't pay its forces to maintain the occupation."
Vox Popol, April 23, 2009

Ed Rasimus said...

It's great to be back in Texas again. Lived here in the military for a couple of years in the '70s. Moved back four years ago after a long time in Colorado. Not a native, but got here as fast I could.

Rick may have insured his re-election with that gambit!

Joel said...

Our goal must be to restore the Republic of the Founders -- ALL OF IT. Once they have, by their bad behavior and exercise of their insatiable appetite for our liberty and property, pushed us past the point of armed resistance, we should not cede one square inch of sovereign American territory to these collectivist, tyrannical pukes.I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this statement. I would no more insist on pushing my views on people in Massachusetts, or New Jersey, or the California coast, than I intend to let them push their views on me. This really has become (at least) two countries in a lot of ways. Maybe it's time to seriously accept that. There's nothing sacred about national borders.

As far as I'm concerned there's no such thing as 'sovereign America.' That whole notion is what got us into this mess. There's only 'sovereign me' and 'sovereign you.' If we can get along within that paradigm, it's beautiful. Otherwise, my only request is 'leave me the hell alone.'

Pat H. said...

American Genie, that report sorta makes me laugh, because it's pretty erroneous in it's reasoning. It assumes a) that anarchy as a political philosophy is only on the left, and b) the existence of the one-dimensional left-right political spectrum, which is false. The opposite of fascism is not communism, but anarchism. And the opposite of communism is neo-liberalism (free market).

In reality, it's much more like this: http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I'm located at 9, -7.8, that makes me pretty damn anarchist, but I also firmly support the truly free market. The anarchists that the DHS report talks about are on the far lower left corner, whereas people like myself, Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, or Stefan Molyneux would be lower right corner.

Joe Carpenter said...

Is the USA Hotel California?

Chris K. said...

Pat H,
I use the term "Rothbardian Anarcho-Capitalist" as a self identifier.
As I do not believe the Libertarian Party is either very effectual or all that libertarian after the nomination of Bob Barr.

Anonymous said...

Screw Pitts

Weaver said...

They will never leave us alone. Those in control have thousands of mindless twits like pitts who care only for how the current administrations see them. They are not such idiots that they don't know right from wrong, legal from illegal. The left has an army of these "pitts brains" to push their agenda but they just can't seem to believe that we are also an army. An army who will only be pushed so far. One that will some day finally push back "all the way to this side of hell" to protect our family's futures. And, I'm certain a large percentage who are willing to follow them all they way into hell and beyond to preserve our Constitution.

Weaver

Anonymous said...

Perry cannot be trusted. He is the conmsummate silver-and-forked-tongued, nimble-footed, collectivist politician positioning himself, without really committing himself, at the vanguard of what he perceives to be a surging sentiment among his subjects. Covertly, and at times not so covertly, he has devoted his energies behind the scenes during his gubernatorial reign to advancing the NAU and NWO agendas of his sponsors in the CFR of which he is a dedicated member. Let us remember that his "bold" pro-secessionist statement included two waffle sentences: "...We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it.."

Regarding the Texas libertarian mystique, let us also recall the egregious militarized attacks which occurred on Texas soil - Waco and San Angelo - based on trumped up charges and inspired by Marxist/feminist, pro-state agendas in which local LEO agencies colluded with their federal counterparts.

Finally, let us also remember that the Reconquista movement for recapture of the mythical Aztlan empire finds its strongest intellectual leadership in a tenured Texas University professor who draws his fat paycheck from Texas tax-supplied coffers.

If freedom-lovers there be in Texas, they will be found mostly among the rank and file - those few who still think for themselves.

Regards. Sidney Black

deadbolt said...

It's simply political rhetoric. Perry has taken this opportunity to reach out to 'fringe' voters in the hopes it will boost his numbers verses Hutchinson.

deadbolt said...

Yes Sydney, I agree 100%. He's using this moment. One point I'd like to make, he also attended the 2007 Bilderberg meeting. Who do you work for Mr. Perry, the people or the NWO? What's your agenda, UN Agenda 21 or FREEDOM?

Anonymous said...

Last I heard, Texas didn't have Vermont type RKBA legislation (or, the absence of same) Texas is a big target of liberals, because of its location. I would hope it's a target bc of its culture, but I'm not sure that's as strong as it should be.
I don't often care to quote Ann Coulter, but she naile the 2004 lib
staters ppl, few as they were, saying something to the effect that
anyone who supports Roe v. Wade is
disqualified from discussing federalism (in its original sense)

Anonymous said...

To anonymous 6:36. you seem to have
nailed Perry. I forgot to mention Waco, etc. (and the FLDS IIRC) as indicating something's rotten in the state of Texas.