Wednesday

Parting Company

By Walter E. Williams

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's Time To Part Company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"

The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact and one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upsmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.

You say, "Williams, what do you mean by constitutional abrogation?" Let's look at just some of the magnitude of the violations. Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is authority for Congress to tax and spend for: prescription drugs, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do anything upon which they can muster a majority vote.

James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

Americans who wish to live free have several options. We can submit to those who have constitutional contempt and want to run our lives. We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed and death in an attempt to force America's tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights. We can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. Some independence movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden; Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally.

The bottom-line question for all of us is: Should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another? My preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.

3 comments:

Mulligan said...

well said

many things you mention here mirror the discussion prior to my divorce.

when one side says this the way I want to live my life and the other says I have no intention of ever doing that, there is a problem.

the choices are simple as you said: one must force the other to conform, perpetual conflict or separation.

Since there is no 'New World' across the ocean, we cannot simply abandon this country and move on to form a new nation. Even if there was, would they allow us to live in peace separately? They won't let us live in peace now, so I doubt it.

MikeH. said...

In a marital separation, one party is usually forced to pack up and move out. But finding an apartment, house or flop space is fairly easy. If we part company with the leftest hermaphrodites we share this country with, where do we (or they) pack up and move to?

Even if there were some place to go, the ones who leave will be pushed and prodded to keep going for all eternity. Give an inch... they'll want a mile. And conflict will be inevitable when backs are pressed to the wall. (ie. Israel, Bosnia, various parts of Africa, etc.)

Even if there were a "New World" across the ocean, the "New World Order" isn't going to allow anyone to leave their control. They can't afford to. Recent changes in the taxing of off shore banking and on citizens living outside the country is the proof of that. (I suppose they would call that "alimony payments")

There is no amiable solution here. Even if one hundred and fifty million Americans could be convinced to stage a sit-out style strike, (see Poland / Solidarity, 1980) it would no doubt result in threats, force and, before long, violence.

There are only two choices... assimilate into the collective or, fix bayonets.

MikeH

Chief Instructor said...

The federal government will never allow a voluntary separation, at least while there's money to be made.

My "plan" is to slowly remove myself from the tax-paying public (as much as is possible), and let it all crumble. My fear is that they will come after us "Galtians" and there will be violence.

We'll be ready, though...