Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 16:05:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at keithlynch.net>
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Secession
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

I don't believe in States' Rights or in Federal Supremacy.  I believe
in individual rights.  Sometimes the state will help safeguard them
against the feds, and sometimes vice versa.  Most often both are the
enemy of individual rights.

I'm not interested in refighting the War Between the States.  Had I
been around in the 1860s, I'd like to think I'd have found a way to
avoid the draft and fight for neither side.  The Constitution nowhere
says that states may secede, and nowhere says they cannot.  I have
no sympathy for slaveholders (which were found on both sides of the
conflict).  I also have no sympathy for a military draft (which was
also found on both sides of the conflict) which amounts to the same
thing.

Had I been a slave, I'd like to think I'd have found a way to escape.
Or, failing that, simply refused to work.  But if I were like most
people then and now, I would simply have accepted my place in life,
and done what I was told.  I have little doubt that most people today,
black and white, Americans and others, would make contented slaves.
They'd grumble, of course, but not actually do anything to change
their condition.  And the authorities would be wise to use a different
term than "slavery" for that condition.

On the whole, I believe the best strategy for most individuals is to
have as little to do with government at any level as possible.  That's
how I try to live my life.

Fortunately, technological progress and worldwide capital accumulation
appear to be outpacing government's tendency to consume and control as
much as possible.

It's my hope that the government be made increasingly irrelevant to
the lives of more and more people.  Until government edicts become
like pronouncements by the Pope -- of immense importance to those who
choose to imbue them with importance, but almost completely irrelevant
to those who choose otherwise.

Government is a force for great good, and is also a force for great
harm.  I think the evidence of history plainly shows that the harm
almost always outweighs the good.  And that attempts to change this
are at least as likely as not to make things worse.

President Bush inadvertently showed that he agreed with me when he
declared the September 11th attacks an "act of war".  He was saying
that that crime was so awful, it must have been done by a government,
as no individual or private organization can do anything that horrible.
--
Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
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