Secession tour de force

Michael Anton gets waaaay down deep into the nitty-gritty of what’s beginning to look like The Issue That Just Wouldn’t Die, and continues to live up to his usual lofty standard for excellence. Be forewarned, though, this is a VERY long article, covering a heckuva lot of ground, so the following excerpt will of necessity be lengthy as well. I ain’t gonna bother apologizing for that this time out, I think everyone here will agree with me that the infringement on fair use is more than justified by the quality of the piece.

Don’t assume, though, that Anton gets so bogged down in the niggling details that he neglects the larger picture; he covers ALL bases here, and does it extremely well. Essentially, he presents the current impasse as an existential conflict for Heritage Americans—which it, y’know, is. Not so much for shitlibs…or not yet, at least. It’s framed as a somewhat-civil discussion between "peaceful separation” advocate and Real American Tom Redmon, a trucking firm accountant who escaped the toils of Cray-Cray Cali by moving off to Texas, and his former friend, one-nation-under-Leftism stalwart and "Twitbook executive" Malcolm Bluestar, who’s perfectly content to remain back in the proving grounds for all Progtard Big Ideas, the failed state of California.

Bottom line conclusion: FAR too many difficulties and pitfalls, “secession" just ain’t ever gonna happen. And with that brief intro so’s you’ll at least know who the two protagonists are, we'll join the debate in progress:

“We totally disagree on that,” Tom said, “and, again, will never agree. So why, again, must we live together? But more to the point, you talk about ‘democracy.’ According to ‘democracy,’ winning elections is supposed to matter. It’s supposed to change policy. But when we win, nothing changes. When you win, you get what you want. When we win, you get what you want. How is that ‘democracy’?”

“There are Constitutional guardrails that delineate what can and can’t be done,” Malcolm said. “You were always the Constitution-worshiping conservative. When did that change?”

(snip)

“This plan of yours,” Malcolm said, “as I’ve already noted, effectively amounts to some of you stealing a part of the country. How is that moral? And why should you expect the rest of the country to go along?”

“We’ve already addressed that,” Tom said. “This is a proposal to secure civil peace and avoid conflict. The way we see it, the only way to stay together is for one side to rule the other. In practice, that means for you to rule us, since we don’t have the power to rule you and wouldn’t want to even if we did. We’ve already established that, for you, ‘democracy’ means you outvoting us forever and ruling us, effectively, without our consent.”

“Voting is consent,” Malcolm replied.

“In a fair system,” Tom said, “in which elections actually have consequences and change the government, yes. But not in a system in which elections are pre-rigged by ballot-harvesting, propaganda and censorship, and in which victories are routinely overturned in the courts, blocked by bureaucracies, and fought by the media and all the corporations. Nobody consents to any of that. But we keep getting off track. Please continue with your objections.”

The discussion continues, expanding to cover everything from banking and finance to the redrawing of state borders to the divvying up of military assets—all of it very thought provoking, almost none of it I can recall seeing mention of before in any other of the numerous posts I’ve read on the subject—before landing here:

“See, this is what doesn’t make sense to me,” Tom said. “You hate us—”

“Still with the paranoia,” Malcolm interrupted. “We don’t hate. You’re the haters.”

“OK, fine,” Tom said. “You don’t hate us. Perhaps ‘hate’ is in fact the wrong word. You can only hate something you envy or fear. You certainly don’t envy or fear us.”

“You’re wrong that we don’t fear you,” Malcolm said. “We certainly fear what you might do. You tried to overthrow the government on January 6th.”

“Again with this?” Tom said. “Anyway, ‘contempt’ is a better description of your attitude toward us. You look down on us. You think we’re lesser beings. Dumb. Prejudiced. Racist. Backward. Uneducated. In a word, ‘deplorable.’ I ask again: why do you insist on living with us?”

“If you want to leave,” Malcolm said, “and can find anywhere that’ll take you, go.”

“That statement oozes with contempt,” Tom said. “You want to hear my theory?”

“Haven’t I been listening to nothing but your insane theories?” Malcolm said.

“I think you need us,” Tom said. “You need us, first, to do the scutwork that you look down on and don’t know how to do. Second, you need us as a villain, an enemy, to hold your coalition together—someone you can point to as the cause of all problems. Like ‘wreckers’ in the Soviet Union. Third, you need the contrast. There’s no beauty without ugliness. You’re convinced you’re beautiful, but you need us around as the ugly so that your beauty can shine.”

“Your imagination is truly dazzling,” Malcolm said.

“I’m not quite finished,” Tom said. “The last thing is the most important. You think two contradictory things at once. On the one hand, you think we are heretics, retrogrades, irrational, Nazis, haters, cavemen, etc. On the other hand, you have universal ideals. You hate us for being heretics, and you want to force us into the one true faith as you see it. You’re like the Spanish Inquisitors. You believe that by persecuting us, you are saving our souls.”

“I’ve never heard anything so astoundingly paranoid and fantastical,” Malcolm said.

“The longer this goes on,” Tom said, “it plays out in only one of two ways. Since there’s no way for us to get any part of what we want politically, our discontent will rise. That will require further crackdowns from your side. Essentially, more force in the name of ‘protecting democracy.’ That might, eventually, provoke a reaction.”

“Now you’re threatening violence?” Malcolm demanded.

“No,” Tom replied, “I’m speculating as to what might happen. You may not feel you’re mistreating millions of people, but if millions feel mistreated, they may react. Condemning that reaction as ‘insurrection’ or whatever won’t stop it. It will have to be stopped by force. Force might prolong the life of your regime for a while, but even if it does, force is expensive. It will cost you a great deal of legitimacy and breed a great deal more resentment. That’s if you succeed. If you fail, then your regime falls. The other possibility is that your continued dominance just convinces Red America to give up, to disengage, to die off.”

“That would be your choice,” Malcolm said. “Sometimes certain people can’t adapt with the times.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’d be too unhappy with that outcome,” Tom said. “But have you really thought it through? Red America may not produce an abundance of bankers and coders, but it does produce farmers, truck drivers, road-builders, oil drillers, and other workers you need to keep this economy going. Plus the soldiers you need to maintain your empire.”

A generous helping of more good stuff comes in here, leading up to what I consider to be the beating, bloody heart of the whole contretemps, wherein what could turn out to be a crucial distinction is made—betwixt the concepts of secession and separation—ending with a blunt, concise definition of the very word that is central to the argument.

“Do I need to repeat my anti-secession arguments?” Malcolm asked.

“No,” Tom replied. “Getting back to the main point, ‘secession’ as understood in the context of 1860 is wrong, but the right of revolution is a fundamental natural right enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It’s affirmed twice, actually. The fact that secession is unconstitutional (and illogical) doesn’t mean that a people is required to submit to a tyranny in perpetuity. In one sense, the American revolutionaries ‘seceded’ from Britain, but of course they didn’t call it that. They justified their action on the basis of the right of revolution, the ‘Right of the People to alter or to abolish’ a tyrannical government, ‘their right…their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.’ Now, the South in 1860 could not appeal to the right of revolution because the ground, the basis, for the right of revolution is human nature, the twin principles of equality and consent. Obviously, those are incompatible with slavery. The founders knew that, but they had to make compromises with slavery in order to keep the South in the Union. It was those compromises that Lincoln meant when he said he had no constitutional authority to do anything about slavery in the states where it existed. The Southern leaders of 1860 knew it too, which is why they rejected the principles of equality and consent. This is explicit in Alexander Stephens’ ‘Cornerstone’ speech. He was vice president of the Confederacy. Anyway, I don’t mean to give a history lecture. The point is…really, there are two points. First, separation is not secession as you mean it. Second, whatever you want to call it, separation today would be justified on the basis of the right of revolution while secession in 1860 was not.”

“So now you’re threatening…what?” Malcolm said. “Insurrection? Civil war?”

“I’m not threatening anything,” Tom said. “I’m simply talking about what would be justified on the basis of fundamental natural rights. I’m answering your question about the differences between today and 1860.”

“You have to know that if you tried it, you’d be crushed,” Malcolm said.

“Totally,” Tom replied. “And, to be clear, I’m not calling for anyone to take any action, much less a suicidal action. But what does it say that you’d have to crush us? I know what it says to me. It says your rule is tyrannical.”

Boldface for your pleasure and convenience, courtesy of moi. And there you have it: the whole danged Liberty vs Tyranny issue, boiled down to its constituent parts in just three short sentences. 53-foot trailerloads of compelling if unsettling reading left yet, incredible as that may seem, touching on All The Things—from ethnic cleansing to white supremacism to Neegrow reparations (ie, Dollars for Darkies) to Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ to Stalin and Pinochet and, momentarily, Tucker Carlson, before Tom finally says fuck this shit, throws up his hands, and shags his happy ass on back to the good ol’ Republic of Texas.

Like I said, it’s a long ‘un, but seeing as how this is, or soon will become, one of the most urgent, impactful debates of our time, its pivotal nature nicely balances out any objection to the length of the piece. With this magisterial, thorough, and timely work, presented in a conversational rather than a professorial tone, what Mike Anton has done is provide us with a quite useful, readily comprehensible study guide which adroitly explicates every angle, every historical predicate, every position, and every possible motivation and/or rationalization driving said debate, on both sides.

In some ways, it kinda reminds me of his seminal Flight 93 Election essay published just ahead of Trump’s 2016 victory. The issues under discussion here are certainly no less weighty than those in Flight 93—in fact, some are the exact same issues, they just haven’t been resolved yet. But don’t let’s anybody be kidding ourselves—the time is all-too-swiftly approaching when they will be. And that ain’t no way no how gonna be any fun, I’m afraid. Not for anybody, it ain’t.