Let's Just Say...

[TheMaroon]

In the American Constitution, each state in the Union is recognized as an individual country (the reason why they're called states). And basically they all simply agree to be part of a higher authority (almost like the EU). That higher authority is the federal government, and the only thing higher than it, is the Constitution and it's Amendments. Each State joined the Union only after either vote of congress, or ratification of the Constitution. However while congress did have to vote on it Hawaii, California, and Texas were independent countries before joining the union on their own terms (same goes for the 13 colonies post-revolutionary war, except they ratified). So if they entered by their own will should they not be able to secede from it, like some attempted to during the Civil War. Because the way I see it is like starting a job...you come in willingly, nobody forcing you to, and at any moment you are allowed to quit your job. So say Texas and Hawaii wanted to seceede from the Union, what right does the Federal Government have to stop them? If you have an answer please leave it in the comments.

Excluding the fact that they probably could stop Hawaii and Texas militarily.

[tachosomoza]

The Federal Government can stop them because they aren't their own country, they're a part of a country. Hold a seance and ask the Confederate leaders of the Civil War what happens when you try to break up the Union. In exchange for being a part of the Union, you receive federal funding for schools/infrastructure and benefit from the protection of the US military. If Texas were to secede and the US let them go, Mexico would reconquer it faster than I typed this. That's why they haven't.

[Rugged Collectivist]

Excluding the fact that they probably could stop Hawaii and Texas militarily.

nvm

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The union is not a free association. The federal government invests tons of money into each of the states, they aren't going to pay that out and then just let them leave. I'm confused why a libertarian is asking these questions on a communist forum

[tachosomoza]

http://aquadoc.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80a53ef017ee58e8f6a970d-pi

[Popular Front of Judea]

Clearly you are confusing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. There is no provision for secession in the Constitution.

Not against secession per se. (Ask me about Cascadia) Just don't use a bogus legal argument to make your case.

[Blake's Baby]

The Federal Government can stop them because they aren't their own country, they're a part of a country. Hold a seance and ask the Confederate leaders of the Civil War what happens when you try to break up the Union. In exchange for being a part of the Union, you receive federal funding for schools/infrastructure and benefit from the protection of the US military. If Texas were to secede and the US let them go, Mexico would reconquer it faster than I typed this. That's why they haven't.

Texas is America's Ukraine.

If Mexico tried to (re)conqer* it, surely pretty much the entire state would be armed and waiting. Armed guerrilla gangs in a 'protracted people's war' scenario against the (imperialist) occupation. It's not going to happen.



*I put 'reconquer' in brackets a bit because it's not really like reconquest. Neither Mexico, nor the Texas, is really the same entity as when Mexico last had dominion over that bit of dirt. Sure, the dirt is in the same place, but a lot of water has flowed down the Rio Grande since the 1830s. It would be a bit like Britain 'reconquering' the Thirteen Colonies.

[synthesis]

http://aquadoc.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80a53ef017ee58e8f6a970d-pi

The funny thing is that I would gladly accept these conditions if it meant the West Coast could secede from the United States.

[Blake's Baby]

Because that would benefit the working class how?

[synthesis]

Because that would benefit the working class how?

Let me clarify that the West Coast is known for being, on balance - at least in the urban areas - further to the left than most of the rest of the country. It's not going to start a socialist revolution, but I do think it would improve conditions significantly.

None of that is to say that I actually believe it's in any way a possibility. I didn't specify the above because it was mostly a joke and explaining the joke ruins it, so thanks for that.

[Q]

A divided working class is a weakened working class against globally operating capital. Secession therefore is almost always a very bad idea.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Secession is generally just a power play by the local bourgeoisie of the seceding region masked in populist rhetoric.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, I can't see how splitting up existing countries helps to unify the working class. The communist position is that how the bourgeoisie organises the national framework of exploitation is neither here nor there for the working class. But I'm going to go no further with this as I see it being a rerun of the debates on Scottish independence.

[synthesis]

If I had to argue in favor of it as though it were actually feasible, I would say that the point would lie more in decentralizing the power of the bourgeoisie of a powerful imperialist nation among smaller domestic bourgeoisies, and therefore lessening the extent to which it can wield its power over the working class of its country and the countries that constitute its imperial holdings, which might strengthen the position of those working classes in a relative sense. Of course, another imperialist power can just rise up in the place of the one that has been fractured, and I don't think there's actually any historical example of this working, so it's still not tactically sound; I just wanted to posit a theoretical strategic advantage of it, but again, I don't think it's feasible and I'm not even sure I'd be in favor of it if it was.

[Blake's Baby]

A few years ago, California (if independent) would qualify as the 4th richest country in the world.

Is the revolution more likely in Germany say (about the same economic 'size', physical size and population as 'Cascadia', I reckon) than anywhere else? How, exactly, would creating something the size and power of Germany on the Pacific coast be any benefit?

[synthesis]

Revolution is not, of course, any more likely in the short term. But again - I'm not sure why I'm still defending this, because it will never happen - it's not about bringing the working class immediately closer to revolution but rather strengthening their position relative to the bourgeoisie. Would I be misusing the term "immediatism" in applying it to your argument?

[Blake's Baby]

It's not about whether it would ever happen. I'm asking why it is you advocate it.

If you're just concerned about the workers in the SW USA, how does that relate to internationalism? Isn't it just any other nationalist movement, except of course that 90% of the people you want to seceed couldn't care less?

[Popular Front of Judea]

So who here is willing to step forward and tell the Irish that James Connolly was wrong to fight for Irish independence, that pursuing the world revolution took precedence over everything else?

[Popular Front of Judea]

A few years ago, California (if independent) would qualify as the 4th richest country in the world.

Is the revolution more likely in Germany say (about the same economic 'size', physical size and population as 'Cascadia', I reckon) than anywhere else? How, exactly, would creating something the size and power of Germany on the Pacific coast be any benefit?

A region of the United States successively escaping the reactionary grip of the South would not be a progressive if not revolutionary development? What about the loss of revenue to the imperial war machine? The dirty secret of "Red" America is that it is a tax sink. (With the exception of Texas).

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

So who here is willing to step forward and tell the Irish that James Connolly was wrong to fight for Irish independence, that pursuing the world revolution took precedence over everything else?

Connolly was wrong.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

So who here is willing to step forward and tell the Irish that James Connolly was wrong to fight for Irish independence, that pursuing the world revolution took precedence over everything else?

Connolly's motives were pure but let's look at where the Irish and British working classes are today. Perhaps it was a political impossibility for a variety of reasons at the time, but the best of all options would have been oppressed from various corners of the British empire conspiring together to topple the oligarchs in London. Considering the fact that organization across borders has become easier than ever before with modern technology, I don't really see why national independence is a better alternative.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Connolly's motives were pure but let's look at where the Irish and British working classes are today. Perhaps it was a political impossibility for a variety of reasons at the time, but the best of all options would have been oppressed from various corners of the British empire conspiring together to topple the oligarchs in London. Considering the fact that organization across borders has become easier than ever before with modern technology, I don't really see why national independence is a better alternative.

So is launching a secessionist movement in the hinterlands of an imperial power during war time not a revolutionary act?

[synthesis]

A region of the United States successively escaping the reactionary grip of the South would not be a progressive if not revolutionary development? What about the loss of revenue to the imperial war machine? The dirty secret of "Red" America is that it is a tax sink. (With the exception of Texas).

Actually, this I wouldn't support because then we'd be leaving Southerners to deal with the reactionary politics prevalent in that region to fend for themselves. Imagine how quickly they'd repeal civil rights if we let them.

[Popular Front of Judea]

If that scenario came to pass we and the rest of the progressive developed world would embargo them like we did South Africa.


Actually, this I wouldn't support because then we'd be leaving Southerners to deal with the reactionary politics prevalent in that region to fend for themselves. Imagine how quickly they'd repeal civil rights if we let them.

[synthesis]

It's not about whether it would ever happen. I'm asking why it is you advocate it.

If you're just concerned about the workers in the SW USA, how does that relate to internationalism? Isn't it just any other nationalist movement, except of course that 90% of the people you want to seceed couldn't care less?

Well, first let me say that it's probably more than 90% of people here that couldn't care less if we seceded from the United States.

Then let me say that I don't "advocate it," except in this thread and a few times with friends. (Everyone on the west coast loves it, everyone everywhere else thinks it's stupid.) A better question is why I would be in support of it if it were on the table.

In that respect, it's just about how things would change if the demographics of Oregon, Washington and California weren't forced to obey the federal government and follow the Constitution. We wouldn't have workers without healthcare; we wouldn't have workers in prison for drug drimes, at least no more than the Dutch do, and there wouldn't be a DEA; we probably wouldn't have cops with guns on the street and we certainly wouldn't have the FBI and CIA to repress workers' movements.

We also wouldn't have to deal with actually existing currents of American nationalism. So in the short term maybe it's just a matter of "God, I'd like to not have to deal with all this bullshit."

Again, is it possible? No. Is it worth spending any energy on? Again, no. Does any of that contradict what I said in my first post in this thread? Nope. All I'm trying to do is explain why it would be nice, in a hypothetical sense.

[Q]

So who here is willing to step forward and tell the Irish that James Connolly was wrong to fight for Irish independence, that pursuing the world revolution took precedence over everything else?
Ah yes, Connolly, the one who mentioned the following (http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/01/socnat.htm):


If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.Great fellow. Sadly often misunderstood as a mere nationalist.

[TheMaroon]

What if they seceded, and created a fighting force to liberate the rest of federally occupied proletariat states, took power in the former USA, oppressed the bourgeois to extinction, and then moved on to liberate other proletariat peoples around the world under a new banner and name, say red black and royal blue banner as the ULSA?

*edit* basically a second civil war

[Blake's Baby]

What if ants had bombs, and built colonies under all the governments of the world, and blew them all up at the same time, and the psychic pandas made all the soldiers of the world lose their memories so they couldn't fight, and then all money just turned to steam, and we all lived on rainbows and exproprated everything?

Basically, a load of made-up shite?

[Popular Front of Judea]

What if they seceded, and created a fighting force to liberate the rest of federally occupied proletariat states, took power in the former USA, oppressed the bourgeois to extinction, and then moved on to liberate other proletariat peoples around the world under a new banner and name, say red black and royal blue banner as the ULSA?

*edit* basically a second civil war

Is that the plot of a new Tarintino film?

[tachosomoza]

What if they seceded, and created a fighting force to liberate the rest of federally occupied proletariat states, took power in the former USA, oppressed the bourgeois to extinction, and then moved on to liberate other proletariat peoples around the world under a new banner and name, say red black and royal blue banner as the ULSA?

*edit* basically a second civil war

You're hilarious, I'll give you that much.