Is this the century of secession?
Here is the political question of our time: Will it be one future for all, or many futures side by side? Read on.
—Any movement toward secession is a good thing, no matter how ill-conceived. It puts a different idea in minds: defect, decentralize, opt out, strive to become more self-sufficient. This idea can spawn many new strategies, over the long run.
For example, there is a lot of noise about California seceding from the Union.
One plan would split the state up into three parts. This is currently the strongest initiative, because those three parts wouldn’t actually secede; they would become new states.
However, Congress has to OK the formation of new states, and it will never do so.
All this interesting and fertile chaos obscures something else that is happening in California. The Mercury News reports (4/24/18):
“At least 14 Southern California cities and two counties have passed ordinances, and in some cases filed lawsuits, against the state’s controversial sanctuary laws that largely prohibit local and state authorities from cooperating with federal immigration officers [who want to deport illegal immigrants].”
“While the anti-sanctuary wave is rolling across some of California’s most Republican strongholds [Orange and San Diego counties], they aren’t an aftershock from the 2016 election: Democrat Hillary Clinton trounced Trump in Orange County by 8 percentage points and San Diego County by 20 percentage points [if you believe the legitimacy of the vote count].”
According to the Mercury News, here are the local entities that have rebelled against California sanctuary-immigration policy:
Orange County Board of Supervisors
San Diego County Board of Supervisors
Beaumont — Riverside County
Dana Point — Orange County
Ripon — San Joaquin County
Los Alamitos — Orange County
Laguna Niguel — Orange County
San Juan Capistrano — Orange County
Aliso Viejo — Orange County
Mission Viejo — Orange County
Yorba Linda — Orange County
Newport Beach — Orange County
Westminster — Orange County
Huntington Beach — Orange County
Orange — Orange, County
Fountain Valley — Orange County
Escondido –San Diego County
This is where the action is. This movement has legs. It could spread even further.
For example, suppose these rebelling communities get together? Suppose a few leaders have working imaginations? Who knows what they might come up with?
Suppose a few communities in CA decide they don’t like the state’s mandatory child-vaccine law, and they want to refuse its provisions?
One idea (even an unworkable one) gives birth to other ideas. A contagion begins. For example, people consider the original notion of limited government and a Constitutional Republic. Unconscionable government meddlers are seen as meddlers and criminals. A wave builds. People experience glimpses of freedom. They hunger for more. They feel something new stirring in their bones.
They contemplate the possibility that doom is not inevitable.
What would 1776 look like, and how might it play out, today, in a state (California) that once celebrated cutting-edge innovation, before an elite fungal infection rolled in?
The best estimate of the 13 colonies’ population in 1776 is 2.5 million. A federal Republic was designed for a small group, not 325 million people. Jefferson envisioned a ladder of independent Republics—from village to ward to county to state to federal—each emphasizing freedom of the individual, each hamstringing the power of government to the strictest degree possible.
He was not alone. The whole freedom movement of the time was conscious of the danger of unchecked government and corporate control.
It fell to state legislatures to limit corporations by chartering them to do business. If a corporation harmed the public good, the legislature could, without a trial, exile it from the state. This was in line with the prevailing concept (eventually overturned by corrupt judges and business monopolists) that a corporation was not a person, and did not have the rights of an individual.
Any effort in the direction of DECENTRALIZATION is a good thing. We are long overdue in that regard.
And as far Europe is concerned—the countries who birthed the idea of individual freedom after centuries of struggle—from whom the American Founders took their political innovations—the present European Union is a lurching monster—it is a direct contradiction to the profound concept of liberty. It should be repealed on every front and summarily dumped and left at the side of the road—a relic of fascism that once posed as a purveyor of the public good.
DECENTRALIZATION really becomes fascinating when you consider the formation of intentional communities based on political ideas of every stripe. The inhabitants themselves decide the principles that apply. Some version of share and care and equality for all? A Constitutional Republic? A monarchy? Experiments proliferate and stand and fall on their own. With the advance of technology, it’s possible to outfit a local community with its own power supply, its own digital platforms, etc., on behalf of increased self-sufficiency.
The octopoid reach of overweening central governments loses strength. New cultures evolve, side by side. Whatever shapes the political structures of communities take, the underlying effort is pro-independence.
That would be authentic secession.
The vector moves toward the individual and away from the collective.
On the education front, this is already happening, as parents, disgusted with the crime, drugs, social indoctrination, and political correctness in public brainwashing centers, are opting for home schooling.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the so-called Health Freedom movement has been expanding for many decades. It is based on the concept that every person has the right to manage his own health and seek out unconventional treatments. Despite government efforts to corral the population into Big Pharma medicine, citizens have broken out of that mold. In a big way.
Then there is “alternative news.” Untold numbers of decentralized outlets have bloomed across the world. Of course, they are labeled “fake news,” because the mainstream monopolists are terrified they are losing their grip on the minds of populations. In 2001, when I launched my site, nomorefakenews.com, I was acutely aware of mainstream brainwashing in the arena of information. I defected from print journalism and went out on my own. Seventeen years later, I’m still here.
Decentralization on every front is occurring. It isn’t always pretty, and it isn’t always on target, but that’s what you get when you get freedom. Life pushes through worn ground and explores new possibilities.
It all comes back to the individual mind. Is that mind free and wide-ranging or is it programmed? When free minds cooperate, the choices are extensive, and success is possible in many directions.
DECENTRALIZATION IS ALL ABOUT IMAGINATION. That is the key. When individuals conceive the futures they want, by imagining and projecting them, doors and windows into the future open. Not one future for all—but many futures side by side.
One future for all is the totalitarian nightmare. The Globalist nightmare.
Cracking that monolith is the job of this century.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)