To be clear, I believe that secessionist talk in the United States is an idea that is just as nutty now as it was in 2004, when some liberals proposed it, but divisive politics and a faltering economy create an atmosphere where lots of previously unthinkable things could happen.
Like in Spain:
Like in Spain:
Exit polls from the regional elections in Catalonia show that pro-independence parties are winning a huge majority: up to 95 of the 135 seats in the regional assembly, according to analysis from theFinancial Times. Worse, from Madrid’s point of view, the radical pro-independence forces are doing unexpectedly well. The next Catalan government will now be convinced that it has a mandate to hold a referendum on independence that Madrid says is illegal.
In a worst case scenario, the provincial authorities will attempt a referendum that the national government tries to block. It will be interesting in such a case to see whether the police obey local authorities or listen to Madrid. At the moment, no one knows what comes next; there is zero trust between Barcelona and Madrid right now.
Comments
I'm sure there were plenty of Germans round about 1940 who thought it was 'nutty' to dare even question the unstoppable reality of the "Thousand Year Reich", and I don't mean just nutty insofar as it was almost certainly fatal to even allude to such an idea.
With the utter lunatic asylum of borrowed profligacy and authoritarian statism that is now our federal utopia it is anything but nutty and I would say probably one of the only rational possibilities to ponder, the way things are so clearly headed.
That said, I can perhaps understand saying that the probability or likelihood (at least any time soon) of secession by any of the United States is a "nutty" idea.
But it is hard not to reject outright the assertion that mere discussion of it is nutty or, moreso, that this discussion and, more accurately, the last-resort leverage that it may and really SHOULD represent to our centralized control-freak super-state overseers, even just hypothetically, is anything but quite sane and eminently rational.
One's (inherently-subjective) opinion of the worth, credibility or sanity of any of the more vocal (or perhaps the not quite acceptably effete enough) of secession's present advocates does not change its value as a rational, logical matter.
I am sure "nutty" (or some other late 18th century lexiconic equivalent) was quite a fashionable epithet directed at those rebellious wackjobs who quite madly went about founding the United States in the face of overwhelming state force and a largely-craven majority of the populace.
It is hardly bizarre to think that self-governance, representative or otherwise, is anything but a sham unless ALL options (and resorts) are on the table.
Finally, I think it quite safe to say, at least on the basis of anything close to an accurate history of its intent and notwithstanding incessant gun-hating populace-disarming lefty tripe to the contrary, that the 2nd Amendment was hardly conceived to secure state protection for such eternal human rights rights as hunting or personal self-defense (not that they aren't just as much rights, as a purely existential/survival matter).