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I usually don’t crosspost articles, but this one was too good to pass up. We’ve said repeatedly that the USA has transformed from a free republic to an oppressive empire: in a free republic, each member state is sovereign, in the US Empire, unelected bureaucrats in Washington set “policy” on all things imaginable: from what elements you can get out of the ground to what foods you can grow on your land. Anyhow, as this article points out, it appears the Federal Government is poised to remove all doubt about the state of the Republic:
It has become clear the Federal government is the driving force behind the financial troubles of the States; every Federal incentive
is for the States to overspend as explained in The Nature of the Beast, judicial activism, the general welfare, and the butterfly effect, and What went wrong with our Republic.
Who benefits when the States go bankrupt?
This recent article from the New York Times lets the cat out of the bag.
“Some states are so burdened that the only feasible way out may be bankruptcy, giving Illinois, for example, the opportunity to do what General Motors did with the federal government’s aid.”
Do what General Motors DID? Would the Federal government now come in and OWN the State thus replacing the Governor with a hand-picked buddy of the President? Would the State Legislature be dissolved and replaced with advisors to the President? Or would it all be done behind the scenes as a “shadow government” to let us keep the illusion of a Republic?
Dan Kanna [send him email] is the outreach director for the New Hampshire Tenth Amendment Center
link: The United State of DC? – Tenth Amendment Center Blog
The RT America interview from yesterday (December 20, 2010) has now been posted on Youtube. This is the full version that isn’t cut off at the end. Check out out!
The goal of Third Palmetto Republic is to restore political independence to the people of South Carolina. That sounds simple enough, but what does it really mean?
Let’s start with Independence:
The quality or state of being independent.
Well, OK, but what does it mean to be independent?
According to Merriam-Webster:
a (1) : not subject to control by others : self-governing (2) :not affiliated with a larger controlling unit <an independent bookstore>
b (1) : not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent <an independent conclusion> (2) : not looking to others for one’s opinions or for guidance in conduct (3) : not bound by or committed to a political party
c (1) : not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood) <independent of her parents> (2) : being enough to free one from the necessity of working for a living <a person of independent means>
d : showing a desire for freedom <an independent manner>
e (1) : not determined by or capable of being deduced or derived from or expressed in terms of members (as axioms or equations) of the set under consideration; especially :having linear independence <an independent set of vectors>(2) : having the property that the joint probability (as of events or samples) or the joint probability density function (as of random variables) equals the product of the probabilities or probability density functions of separate occurrence
Definition a(1) is what we are after, and what we are trying to convey when we use the term “political independence.” Definition a(2) is a condition that may be necessary, but for now we are focused on a(1). Currently, the United States federal government controls our laws and our lives through legislative, judicial, and executive acts that trample over the Constitution and our state government. Our aim, through nullification and/or secession, is to eliminate the condition and have the state of South Carolina return to the status of sovereign, wherein we are in control of the laws that govern our individual lives.
However using only the word “independence” isn’t always sufficient to convey this, as we can see by its many varying definitions. Even though “self-governing” is the assumed meaning when “independence” is used in political conversation, as we can see by this Wikipedia entry, many times people don’t really comprehend what it actually means. For instance: when the federal government controls our currency, we are not independent. When the DHHS decides where hospitals can be built, we are not independent. When our citizen militia (the national guard) can be sent to Afghanistan to protect heroin production, without a declaration of war, we are not independent. If we are not independent, what are we? Subjects? Slaves? Serfs?
Our job, and our purpose, is to educate the people of South Carolina not only on political independence, but on the means to peacefully regain the status of being sovereign. To that end, we will develop a Plan for Independence, which will outline exactly how we can achieve a self-governing status; for instance: what federal laws and policies need to be nullified by the State of South Carolina? At what point has nullification failed and secession become necessary?
This is a huge undertaking and will require a lot of work not only from us, but from you. None of this will actually happen unless the people of this state demand it. Our hope is that we can inspire that very thing.
Also, please comment here on our website or on our facebook page on what you think the most liberty-crushing federal laws are, and thusly which should be nullified first. Thanks!
On July 4th, 1776, the founding fathers declared the independence of the colonies from the British Empire, in what is probably the best and most morally justified government document in history. Most everyone is familiar with the second paragraph:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…..
link: The Declaration of Independence
However most people forget about the closing paragraph of the document, which comes after the list of abuses, but is the most critical piece of the entire thing:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
link: The Declaration of Independence
Indeed, for the first twelve years after the Declaration we existed as free and independent states, held together by the Articles of Confederation, which was really little more than a treaty that allowed for free trade and common defense. Unfortunately, in 1788 we adopted the Constitution, at the urging of several statists and mercantilists misleadingly referring to themselves as “federalists,” and we lost the freedom and independence that we had fought for against the British.
In fact, just about all of the calamities of the last 200 years can be attributed to the fact that we are ruled by a far off centralized government in Washington, DC instead of being a loose-knit collection of independent states. Without a behemoth US government, we would have had no navy to enforce the African slave trade, which the United States did up until the late 1860′s. Without the massive centralized government, we wouldn’t have had any of the tariffs or taxes that hurt people in one state while helping favored interests in another. Without the Federal government, we wouldn’t have had the “manifest destiny” to slaughter the indians of the west to make way for “civilization” (well connected railroad executives,) or to invade sovereign nations around the world (Mexico, the Phillipines, most of South America, etc). Without the constitutionally created empire, there would be no Federal Reserve, which caused the Great Depression and every other boom and bust cycle since then. The list goes on and on, but the point is this: free and independent states wouldn’t have been able to do any of these things, and they wouldn’t have wanted to anyway, because the cost would outweigh the benefit. However, when you have a massive central government that can force everyone to pay taxes and force everyone to serve in the military then the limits to what they can do and the atrocities they can commit are non-existent.
So it is clear to see that the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence were right, and that we ought to be free and independent states. On this July 4th, go celebrate and enjoy friends and family, but please remember that this is Secession Day, where 13 free and independent states seceded from the British Empire:
Each colony was considered to be a free and independent state, or nation, in and of itself. There was no such thing as “the United States of America” in the minds of the founders. The independent colonies were simply united for a particular cause: seceding from the British empire. Each individual state was assumed to possess all the rights that any state possesses, even to wage war and conclude peace. Indeed, when King George III finally signed a peace treaty he signed it with all the individual American states, named one by one, and not something called “The United States of America.” The “United States” as a consolidated, monopolistic government is a fiction invented by Lincoln and instituted as a matter of policy at gunpoint and at the expense of some 600,000 American lives during 1861–1865.
link: Happy Secession Day by Thomas DiLorenzo
One of the rallying cries of the American Revolution was “No Taxation without Representation!” as they were protesting a series of taxes imposed by a far away imperial government on the free people of the various colonies, without any consultation of their legislatures. Personally I would prefer the rallying cry of: “No Taxation!” but even if you accept the idea that some taxation is justified so long as there is fair representation then clearly the colonists were justified in their revolution and secession and clearly South Carolina would be justified in a modern secession.
The reason for this has two parts: First, it is a simple mathematical fact that South Carolina has zero influence on the federal government, which I will illustrate. Second, the US federal government imposes laws and taxes on individuals without any sort of check or balance from the state legislatures, as we have seen with current events such as the Bush-backed TARP bailout and the Obama-backed Healthcare takeover. If the federal government stuck to its original role under the Articles of Confederation, we may be in a different situation today. However the US Constitution (intentionally or not) gave the federal government supremacy over the state governments and therefore took away the rights of individuals to govern themselves. No matter how careful or inspired the construction of the Constitution and its series of checks and balances, mathematically it works out so that the most populous states run the show, and the rest of us are stuck with their decisions. This is especially true in our current situation since the Supreme Court has decided to re-write the constitution and since the President has the power to write laws from his desk. In effect, the home team is making up the rules as they go along, and they have the officials on their payroll.
For the purpose of this post, I will focus on the mathematics. As you are well aware of, the US Government consists of three branches, the executive, judicial, and legislative. I will show you how your vote as a South Carolinian has absolutely no effect on any of those branches. Lets start with the executive:
When electing a president, the United States government uses the Electoral College, wherein each state is assigned a certain number of votes based on population. Once a candidate has earned 270 electoral votes, they have won the election. South Carolina has 8 electoral votes out of a total of 538.
This pales in comparison to the larger states: California has 55, almost 7 times as many. New York has 31, nearly 4 times as many as South Carolina. To put that in perspective, in order for the smallest states to cancel out the vote of just the one state of California: South Carolina, West Virginia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming would all have to vote for the same person (the opposite of California’s vote.) How likely does that sound? Not very.
Clearly you can see that your vote for president (as a South Carolinian) simply has no effect on the outcome. In fact, all that’s needed to win the presidency are the electoral college votes from the following states:
The next branch of government is the Judicial, and as we have illustrated before, the members of the Supreme Court simply do not represent the people of South Carolina. Also, the judicial branch is appointed by the executive branch, and as we have no impact on the executive, we also have no impact on the judicial.
Finally there is the legislative branch. This branch is broken into two parts: the House of Representatives, with representation apportioned to the states by population, and the Senate, where each state gets two representatives without regard for population. In the House there are 435 seats (as opposed to the constitutionally guaranteed 1 seat per 30,000 people), of which only 6 are from South Carolina.
Again we can compare this to California, who has 53 seats, or nearly 9 times as many:
In fact, in order for a bill to pass the house, in only needs to meet the approval of the members from the top 9 states:
So here again we see that your vote in South Carolina just doesn’t matter. You could take your favorite politician ever, clone them 6 times and put them in all of our seats in the House, and they wouldn’t make a bit of difference whatsoever. Their votes are simply drowned out by those of the larger states.
Moving on to the Senate, we finally see a group where South Carolina has equal representation with the other states. However, this legislative body is far removed from its intended purpose and has become a cesspool of lobbyists, pork barrel spending, partisan politics, etc. The reason for this is the 17th Amendment to the constitution, which changed the Senate from a body of representatives of each state into a body of popularly elected legislators, just like the House of Representatives. The reason this is so damaging is that Senators have 6 year terms and have a great deal of power and authority, so once they are elected they quickly lose interest in representing their electors or their state, and instead serve special interests and lobbyists. If they do something against the wishes of their state, so what! Where the state once had the authority to remove them and appoint new Senators, now we have basically an oligarchy that can do whatever they want.
To sum it all up, the situation is thus: the federal government controls our lives, and we have no say in it. They make laws that we must live with, and their laws affect what we can and cannot do in a supposedly free country, and we are left begging at their feet. If we wanted to drill offshore for oil to lower the gas prices and bring in thousands of jobs, too bad. If we wanted to legalize marijuana so that we could stop arresting people for ridiculous reasons and wasting so much money that could be spent elsewhere, too bad. If we wanted to encourage new construction of nuclear power plants to become more energy independent, too bad. If we wanted to protect jobs by enforcing immigration law, too bad. If we wanted to allow competing currencies to protect the buying power of our poor and our seniors from constant inflation, too bad. South Carolina’s citizens do not own their own lives and do not control their own government, and that will be the case so long as we are a member of the United States. The mathematical case for secession is clear.
Today I added a new page to the site called “Issues” which will serve as a reference for how the establishment of South Carolina Independence would affect certain issues, and just how much better off we’d be if we had the right to choose our own governance, and with it our own fate.
Check it out, and let me know what you think of the idea. I think it is essential for us not only to work towards independence, but to explain why that would be better than our current situation.
