Secession, seriously?
November 18, 2005
While I was up in Vermont, I picked up a copy of Vermont Commons at the local coffee hut. Expecting to while away my latte over one of those strident little leftie free press rags, I was surprised to find myself reading a thoughtful, well-written journal devoted to a cause that I was not at all disposed to take seriously: secession.
Now for most of us (and especially for erstwhile Southerners like myself) the word "secession" conjures up some admittedly painful historical baggage. But the Vermont secessionists are hardly unreconstructed rednecks; they appear to be serious, thoughtful people. Professor Donald Livingston's essay What is "Secession"? nicely crystallizes the argument:
...
That public corporation known as the United States has simply grown too large for the purposes of self-government, in the same way that a committee of 300 people would be too large for the purposes of a committee. There needs to be a public debate on the out-of-scale character of the regime and what can be done about it.
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Tags: secession, vermont, hobbes, aristotle
File under: Personal
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