There was already one civil war, which wasn't over just slavery, but state sovereignty.
Granted, last night, I was debating on a Mexican website, regarding the actual number of people that had signed the petition to leave California. It was 15,000.
California's population was something like 38 or 39 million people, putting the percentage of people who support secession at roughly .038% or something like that.
Even still, a very small percentage of people can cause quite a stir, and with feelings running as high as they are (admittedly this happens after any election), but it does seem that the feelings are similar to those of the Watt's riots, the L.A. riots (which many of us here personally witnessed), Fergussen, Milwaukee.... now Portland, and just now.... they're getting ready to walk through the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, from Panorama City to the Federal Building (I'm assuming along Van Nuys Boulevard - a major thoroughfare), and it is impossible to deny that the attitude is spreading.
Police have been assassinated in increasing numbers this year in:
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Puerto Rico if we want to include that. 52 officers died directly from engagement.
26 states and one territory. Of those, many were instances of two or more fallen officers, by a single gunman, of which, both sides of the law at times, having prior military (if not combat) experience.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/14/us/police-officers-fatal-shooting-line-duty-nationwide/If we include the numbers from 2015, 39 officers were engaged and fell as a result.
I use the word "engagement" because though under current law, it is obviously murder (if not sedition), that doesn't account for the mindset that many people who engage police officers have. To many, justifiably, reasonably (from any possible perspective) or not, there are people who see roughly 1/2 of the country as their enemy, so to them, they are often "engaging" police, whom they consider to be their enemies. The distinction is an important one.
With any killing of an officer, there is a huge amount of people decrying the fact, and calling for the death of the offender, which is understandable. What they fail to consider, is that the law that was supposed to protect all of us, failed to do so, and that the offender, in every single case where the act was not spontaneous, and even in some of the cases were the act was not premeditated, all of them acted, knowing they would almost certainly die, and still did so. Why?
To be clear, I'm not supporting the murderers at all. In fact, I may be the only one here who knows both loss of freedom, and winning the ability to serve. I had to leave the country to realize that, but I strongly support law and order, have personally faced many people who have no issues with killing us, and I strongly support every human on the planet being armed. There are good reasons for that.
It is important that we understand the subject matter correctly, and I say that based on my experience here in Mexico, and the chaos that what we confront down here has caused, as well as the fear, and the psychological changes that occur to everyone, when brutality becomes acceptable by everyone, in a way that has never occurred in the States before now, and it matters to me personally, because someday, my wife and I will be coming back.
In the last three years, there have been a total of 152 officers killed by gunfire.
In New Jersey, Melvin Vincent Santiago was directly engaged upon arrival, and had not even cleared his vehicle.
In New York, Detectives Rafael L. Ramos and Wenjian Liu, had not cleared their vehicle.
In California, there have been two instances of multiple officers falling in just over two years.
If we add the instances of Iowa, Louisiana, and Texas, where multiple officers have given their lives, there is a disturbing pattern emerging.
[source
https://www.odmp.org/search?name=&agency=&state=&from=2014&to=2016&cause=Gunfire&filter=nok9 ]
In Mexico, it is routine, to see the military on the streets, I myself have had a 3 hour gunfight at my own home with my wife present, and all of us are trained in SWAT tactics as a matter of course and some of us have special forces training in addition to that, and not because we're better than anyone else, but because our survival depends upon it, because the people we fight here, know that there are laws, and they don't care about them.
We have much stricter gun laws than the US, much more experience in direct conflict than officers in US with the exception of returning vets, and we are still ambushed, and killed in much larger numbers than Law Enforcement in the US is. People simply don't know about it because of the language barrier, or they think we're all corrupt (we're not...far from it). In Jalisco, 15 of us were killed in one ambush, and all were armed with fully automatic machine guns, level IIIA vests and ceramic plates. They all died.
I think the point I am making is clear. There are no laws that will protect any of us from a growing number of people, who have decided that we are the enemy, and that our value system and our culture is not aligned with theirs. They cannot be reasoned with and are fueled by ideology that they have no practical experience with; therefore, cannot be disproved, and sooner or later, it will come to a head. At what cost?
GC likes to say that the knees are a release valve for the hips. I've always loved that saying.
If state constitutions were left to themselves, to be run democratically, conservatively, or even independently as with state like Vermont, this wouldn't be such an issue. The problem is that the United States Supreme Court does legislate from the bench, they do override state law with federal law, and they do not allow states to decide for themselves, which thrusts everyone into a winner take all endeavor, and as a result, mentalities change, people die over it, and insecurity ensues, that harms everything, even the economy, which in turn creates a cyclical problem that is difficult to eradicate. When jobs are lost (as with so many inner cities), people turn to illegal activities, to survive (as with here), and the issue continues.
The above can only be fixed with the following:
The people that are idealists (violent or not), need to have the opportunity to prove or disprove their own theories, so that they can discern for themselves whether or not they are mistaken.
Farming, manufacturing and construction workers should have the social respect that a lawyer, doctor, or politician demands, and the pay should reflect that, because if not, you wind up with a massive influx of people that want to just be lawyers, doctors and politicians, but no one to produce the goods that we depend on for survival, and is anything, the former should be paid more, given the hard labor involved, driving much needed workers into those groups, because otherwise, there is a CLEAR direction people will take, given the lazy nature of so many, especially with this generation and an increasing amount of humans living in metropolitan areas.
Even the US military, in a video allegedly from the Pentagon, has already begun preparing for massive internal conflict, and are said admit, that the problem of large scale urban warfare in the United States may well be impossible to control, and with complete respect for every law enforcement officer that has ever served, and even with "militarizing the police," if the military has stated they cannot control it, neither can the police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb9ZV_eFd3IWhether the video comes from the Pentagon or not, the point remains the same. What is happening in the middle east, could easily happen in the US, one patch of dirt being equal to another patch of dirt and tactics being tactics. The only thing that has changed is the geographic location and the immediate impact it will have on us.
It is important to discuss options that will alleviate the social and political problems that face us. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence was nothing less than what we're discussing here, whether in favor of the idea of secession or not.
To many, the legality of secession has not been well defined. The Articles of Confederation contradicts itself in that states are allowed their sovereignty, but creates a "perpetual union."
per·pet·u·al - never ending, lasting forever, indefinitely long time.
As GM correctly quoted in another thread;
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..."
The Founding Fathers themselves, were themselves guilty of what the British Crown considered to be "High Treason."
"High Treason
The most serious of all felonies was high treason, or treason against the King of England. Eighteenth-century laws describe the four basic types of high treason:
1. "When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of our lady his queen, or of their eldest son and heir" [1].
2. "If a man do violate the king's companion, or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son and heir" [2]. This aspect pertains to carnal knowledge, forced or unforced, of a royal female. The intention of this law is to guard the royal blood from any suspicion of bastardy, whereby the succession to the crown might be rendered dubious [3]. It is important to note that in a monarchy, the transition of rule and the reign of the monarch must be unquestioned, less civil unrest result.
3. "If a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm" [4].
4. "If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere" [5]. This aspect of the treason law pertains to trading with enemy nations, as well as trading with pirates. Many English colonies, including the American colonies, trading openly with pirates because the merchants could avoid the high English tariffs.
The original colonists themselves were no less divided than the current situation in the States are. The Founding Fathers also intended to grant to themselves, the same power that the king granted to himself, so long as they were in charge, just by stating "perpetual union." Isn't that what they just left? And now, wish to thrust others under the same yoke?
There is a way for territories to join theStates, but no way defined for one to leave it. That, in conjunction with their use of the word perpetual, does mean, that they indeed intended for states to not be able to leave, because the idea to codify joining the union was clearly presented.
While some people say that Washington and other founding fathers walked away from power, which, in a way, they did, they also made sure to retain that power to the country itself, not allowing for others in coming generations or centuries, to have the ability to leave the Federal Crown, as they had done, short of warfare.
If a substantial number of people no longer feel represented by their government, if this causes too much conflict for the likes of every day Americans, isn't it worth discussing a suitable alternative that is peaceful in nature, in the interest of everyone, specifically to maintain, liberty, peace and prosperity?
