Sat 9 May 2009
Recently Keith Olbermann has been all “Oh Noes! Secessionists!! I smell TREASON!” at members of the Dixie Elephant Bloods gang — a.k.a.: “the Republican Party” — mouthing off about breaking from the US since the Donkey Crips took control of D.C. At first I thought it was just crude attempt at humor (i.e.: the irony of people that tend to insinuate that their opponents are UnAmerican essentially suggesting to UnAmericanize), but the passion Keith has taken on the issue is proving otherwise.
Roderick Long spotted the McCarthyist tinge to this, but what I noticed also is a whiff of ahistorical arrogance. Considering the vast scope of history, assuming the staying power of a government — any government — is a bet begging to be lost, as there’s been more fluctuation than stasis by far. Going from the date of the Constitution, the US is 222 years old. Argument that, if past world powers serve as a guide, time is almost up anyway is so easy as to have become intellectually cliche. Contrary to Keith’s naivete, not everyone who considers the US less than permanent is a right-wing whackaloon, it just seems that way because the media makes their money by encouraging consumption & irrational panic, not critical thinking.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
As a market anarchist, any move to decentralization is good. As a soft modern man, any thought of actual secession scares me – as nothing brings out unmitigated violence more than when people fight to maintain control over others. I look at my wife and think, there are worse things than increasing welfare statism – sure the chains hang lightly on me, but this is the only life that I get. I’d rather not spend the end of it living out a Cormack McCarthy novel.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Not much of an Anarchist then are you.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Of course it’s scary now, look how easy it is for people who don’t know what they’re talking about to use it code for “waaaah! we don’t dominate at the moment!!”. If my primary encounter with anti-centralization rhetoric were from the Right I’d have thought it bonkers too.
Personally I prefer the spread of information & the inevitable blind spots of government to undermine the point of state authority — leading to its derecognition — over outright secession. Territory is beside the point at best, at least from my view.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Oh Francois, I’m just not much of a martyr. And since you haven’t raged against the machine (since you are still alive), I’d wager neither are you.
I try to do my small part to spread the idea that civilization does not need a monopoly agency of force.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Since when does social change mean being a martyr? That is your aberration, not mine.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Scott:”As a market anarchist, any move to decentralization is good. As a soft modern man, any thought of actual secession scares me – as nothing brings out unmitigated violence more than when people fight to maintain control over others. I look at my wife and think, there are worse things than increasing welfare statism – sure the chains hang lightly on me, but this is the only life that I get. I’d rather not spend the end of it living out a Cormack McCarthy novel.”
Francois: “Not much of an Anarchist then are you.”
I’m going to have to second Francois on this. This is what Roderick T. Long has called (in reference to Noam Chomsky) “Augustinian Anarchism”. To modify Augustine’s famous prayer, “Lord give me anarchy, but not yet.”
The fact that “nothing brings out unmitigated violence more than when people fight to maintain control over others” is what makes secession imperative, for that is precisely what a central state is. The sort of violence you are speaking of is associated with a civil war (a war to control the state), and not secession (at least, not the on the part of the secessionists). If the opposition to peaceful secession is that the state, in its fight to maintain control, will rain down its bloody wrath- well, I’m afraid you either don’t believe in the cause or it’s just sunshine patriotism.
Your invocation of Cormac [No "k"] McCarthy is quite apropos. I happen to be a fan, but I know that the assumptions about society and nature in his novels are the sort mix of Hobbes and the Old Testament that usually underlie fervent statism. From Child of God:
“You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said.
The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don’t. I think people are the same from the day God first made one.”
Granted, the justification of anarchy has nothing to do with how evil or benevolent people inherently are (if benevolent, government is unnecessary; if evil,impossible), but since it is generally assumed to be the case, such attitudes are a good measure of statism. I’m not calling you a statist (or McCarthy for that matter, an issue which is somewhat irrelevant for his fiction), but in our political discourse this is the type of thinking which is conducive to statism.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:24 am
“Since when does social change mean being a martyr…”
Since the last time they tried secession.
Look, there are many ways to try to affect change. But an overt political action like breaking away from the federal government is not going to end well. Not because people are inherently evil, but because the vast majority haven’t thought of the alternatives to the current situation, and if they did most of them think it would look like Somalia. And because the powers in charge will use violence to keep the infidels in line. The people are not ready in their head, and poking the beast isn’t the best way to avoid the beast biting you.
If you are an anarchist, I don’t see how secession makes your top 100 ways to reduce the impact of monopoly government in your life.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Scott:
While I prefer undermining government until secession becomes irrelevant over directly seceding, invoking the Confederacy (if that is what you’re doing; I’m not 100% sure, but that’s the first thought I had to that remark) is an awkward tactic. That secession was AGAINST social change, basically an elite vs elite (northern industrial wealth vs southern land wealth) rebellion triggered by rejecting a proposed racial norm that was still bad in favor of the even-worse status quo.
As for the “no state = Somalia” fear, that is exactly why I chose the tactic I have. IMO, people have to learn (or re-learn, depending on your interpretation) the problem with centralized violence before it can go away. Once that’s realized, it wouldn’t be a matter of fighting, but tactical denial.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Of course the statist trolls always bring out Somalia as an “Anarchist utopia” to disprove Anarchism. As if that proved anything!
May 11th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Scott, if I understand you aright, I believe it is what Murray Rothbard called the “educationist” approach. That is to say, we all have to be converted to anarchism (or at least some of super-majority critical mass) before we can have an anarchist society. There is something to be said for this, because, as Rothbard also said (following Hume and de la Boetie), even the most tyrannical state rests on majority approval.
Even so, it would seem that if you succeed in raising consciousness of the alternatives at some point you are going to have to make the leap to mass civil disobedience, which would probably include but is not limited to secession. This will invoke state repression (even, perhaps, some martyrs!), to be sure, but with faltering support, the state will not be able to follow through and still maintain its legitimacy. This is why it is vital that the cause be clearly just- we know this quite clearly from the Confederate example.
And yet, what is one to do with existing secessionist movements? Denounce them as slouching toward Somalia and “asking for it” by flaunting their independence?
May 11th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
“And yet, what is one to do with existing secessionist movements? Denounce them as slouching toward Somalia and “asking for it” by flaunting their independence?”
Wish them well, and stay out of the line of fire.
But seriously, even if a particular secession movement had bad foundations (“we want more Puritanism!”), I’d be hard-pressed to denounce it, since the marketplace needs choices and people need to see they can have choices in who rules them (and one day, perhaps, they can see that no one need rule them).
My wariness with regards to secession is more about psychology in dealing with a schoolyard bully. Ignore him when you can, pretend to go along when he is looking for a target, and if you have enough people on your side, take him down. But don’t stand alone and tell him you did his mom last night. While I’ll be silently cheering and even admire your moxy, you are going to suffer. Sure, if your initial act gets others to follow suit (I am Spartacus!), that’s great. But looking at the state of society today, I just don’t see that happening on any appreciable scale.
“That secession was AGAINST social change…”
I brought up the Civil war not to show what happens when the cause is just, but to show what happens when you threaten to take away territory and tax money from the federal government, which, compared to today’s Leviathan, was a teething baby.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I call BS on your “unjust” cause for southern secession. It was over taxes not slavery!
May 12th, 2009 at 11:08 am
It wasn’t 100% slavery (the proportion of slaveowners among the southern population wasn’t much), but the idea that slavery wasn’t a major factor I don’t get.
I’m not saying the intentions of the north were any better. The whole thing was basically disagreement on the economics of it, not human rights.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Again BS Psycho! Read your history and I don’t mean listen to your State controlled teachers in your State controlled schools. Remember the title to this article “History cannot fail, it can only be failed”.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
So you’re actually arguing it had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with slavery? What’s your reasoning?
Of course there were many people who fought in it on the side of the Confederacy that didn’t own slaves, and they had to be convinced somehow. That’s obvious. But why emphasize the commoners fighting for pride over the interests of the types that sent them into battle?
May 13th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
The American Civil (sic) War was about slavery –for some who fought–. One only has to look at the Emancipation Proclamation to get a good grip on the issue: it freed slaves only in “states in rebellion” where the Union culd not actually enforce the edict. Slaves in NY, NJ, and PA were not affected. How much could it have been “about slavery”?
After the war, work on the Capitol dome was finished using slave labor. Huh?
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Slavery was not the motivating factor for the WNA, it was a secondary factor. Preserving the Empire was the motivating factor (for Lincoln, anyway). Slavery was the pretext.
In fact, it was to their economic advantage: ending slavery was much better for the growth of the capitalist class than keeping slavery. Cheap labour slows down modernization. (in the same general way, slavery in Ancient Greece prevented science from becoming popular)