Many today speak as if the United States has just recently become diverse. The founders knew otherwise and attempted to construct a limited government that would leave room for (to use historian David Hackett Fischer's term) different folkways while providing enough unity to protect against foreign attack.A neighbor is much enamored of Texas secession talk. I get it, but I think he's willfully blind to the issue of defense.
The diversity I wish we'd pursue
More from a series of "best of 2024" Powerline features: this excerpt from a piece by Michael Barone pitching, in part, his then-new book "Mental Maps of the Founders":
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
On the issue of defense, I looked at this some years ago when the 100,000-signature petition movement was supposed to force the Obama admin to respond to the petitions.
The seven States that achieved the signature threshold on petitions calling for secession were contiguous north to south; were self-sufficient in a number of (not all) critical resources including wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and iron; had access to the sea; strong waterway transportation systems; and nuclear weapons as well as large stores of conventional weapons and the forces to use them. Seizing the nukes would not have been guaranteed, but neither would the central government's ability to defend them be.
Still, I didn't, and don't favor secession. Let the States that so hate our nation leave. They won't be taking much of value, either.
Eric Hines
In fairness, what kind of defense is Texas getting now?
Several years ago, California threatened to leave the US, and was surprised at how many other states said, "Adios, bon voyage, good bye." Chunks of CA, WA, and OR have threatened to form their own states, apart from the western sections.
For all that Texas talks about departing, or other people talk about departing, defense, trade treaties, and the power grid are all serious concerns. (I'm partial to the threat to import alligators from Florida and stock the Rio Grande with them, but I don't think they'd do well in the winters.)
LittleRed1
Is your neighbor a longtime resident of Texas, or relatively new?
Kevin Williamson attended a Texas Separatist convention a couple of months ago
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/jacobins-yall/?vgo_ee=7IMTlPkz9zRJYbsp6vrXfCOaKGwRPofaMvixg0i%2FExizvQSBPf6ueGG3%3AvxthEEPTaS9va9UVlGvCLcEumtFJ4t0q
The article is behind a paywall, but there's enough readable....
Williamson's disparagement of MAGA and Tea Partiers is enough to demonstrate that he's no one to take seriously.
Eric Hines
I remember him chiefly as the guy who thought the best solution to rural America was for it to die; if they all moved to the city, they’d be more economically useful anyway.
He’s got a basic error in priority. It’s a common error among conservatives of his stripe: they tend to view the economy as a source of natural law, rather than seeing economies as man made creations that ought to serve human interests.
My neighbor has long familial roots in this very town. In his youth, though, he spent some time in ex-Soviet bloc countries, and he has a pretty strong libertarian streak.
Grim, I hear you about the invasion on our southern border, but that's not to say that it's meaningless to be part of the United States if some foreign army decides to try to annex Texas. Well, granted, under the present administration maybe that's not obvious, but long-term I'd still kind of like to be living in a credible military power. I always tell my neighbor, talk to me when Texas gets nukes.
Post a Comment