Quote from: walkstall on November 16, 2012, 02:53:16 PM

Remember not all of Texas is conservative.   

That is true.  Most of The Valley is mexican and they vote for those that will give them things......for free.

Quote from: a777pilot on November 16, 2012, 03:25:26 PM
That is true.  Most of The Valley is mexican and they vote for those that will give them things......for free.

You do have Shooterman, so your safe in that area. 

Quote from: walkstall on November 16, 2012, 03:30:47 PM
You do have Shooterman, so you're safe in that area. 

I'm ususally armed so I'm not worried.

Quote from: a777pilot on November 16, 2012, 03:51:14 PM
I'm ususally armed so I'm not worried.

What a good Conservative!

Quote from: walkstall on November 16, 2012, 03:57:48 PM
What a good Conservative!

LOL!

Before I was a Conservative I was, and remain, a United States Marine.

Quote from: a777pilot on November 16, 2012, 04:00:53 PM
LOL!

Before I was a Conservative I was, and remain, a United States Marine.

"Unless You're Dead, You're Not A Former Marine"


"Marine Wife — Toughest job in the Corps!"

"Marine Girlfriend – Do not confuse your rank with my authority!"

All good ones.......and true.

I say GO, that would settle the debit crysis:)

To try and steer this topic back on course, I want to bring something up. I have been seeing secession discussions like this in various places the last couple of weeks, and I don't see why the topic is out of bounds. I don't want to give in, and allow myself, my fellow citizens, and the next generation to be victimized in the way we currently are, and the way we will constantly be victimized for years to come if things are allowed to persist as they are.

We hear the word secession, and people immediately call its proponents crazy. If secession is crazy, what do you call submitting ourselves to the incompetent rogues that are currently in power!? I am not directing this solely at Obama, I am directing this at the entire congress (save a select few) and several of the justices on the supreme court. Is it sanity to submit ourselves to people who are leading us to our own destruction? No matter what happens, they will be okay, we are the ones who will suffer, and yet we sit by and let these idiots in power determine our destiny and the destiny of our children. How is this sanity?

I for one, don't believe in this system anymore. Our founders were geniuses, and moral men. They made a great system, a system designed for honest men. The problem is, dishonest and unscrupulous men have gotten into power and they have exploited loopholes to undermine the constitution and our founding principles. These people use the general welfare clause, and the commerce clause to do essentially anything they want no matter how absurd it is. They nominate bobbleheads to the supreme court so the court itself becomes a formality, and inexcusably rules things opposed to the constitution as constitutional (individual mandate for one).

The day will come when the federal government will simply vote your rights away from you, they'll vote the second amendment away, or they'll get the supreme court to rule the second amendment away arbitrarily. Think it won't happen? Think again. The supreme court shocked me by upholding the individual mandate, something that is so clearly unconstitutional. Do you honestly think an Obama supreme court won't one day rule that the 2nd amendment doesn't refer to an individual right to keep and bear arms, that it is only in the context of a militia, repeating the same erroneous liberal talking point? Think this won't happen? You are naive, if you think this won't happen.

My essential message here is that the government is broken. The constitution is a formality now. No one takes their oath of office seriously, no one takes the constitution seriously. Politicians get elected and think it is a mandate to act like a king, as if the people have handed them unlimited authority to do as they will without regard for the law. In addition to this, the government cannot be fixed, the system has grown too corrupt, too bureaucratic, too entrenched to ever be rooted out. There is no fixing it! No politician will ever fix it, they are all just pieces on a chess board, and for the people to win is not for one side to get the other in check mate. For the people to win, we have to flip the board over and swipe the pieces off, the game is rigged to begin with. Can anyone disagree with me?

We have essentially become prisoners in our own home, and have developed stockholm syndrome. We have learned to love our captors. We are held in bondage, we are abused by our captors, and yet when someone speaks of escape (secession) they get shouted down as crazy or as treasonous to want to leave our captors. With this in mind, I maintain an open mind, and I want secession to be in mainstream conversation because it should be. We shouldn't be afraid to think about these sort of things, we shouldn't be afraid to want to determine our own destiny and return to the values of the constitution, because we have lost those bearings and likely won't get them back.

That is your house, I have no syndrome:) I believe if any state wants to go, let them!! Less cost to the rest of us:)

QuoteWe hear the word secession, and people immediately call its proponents crazy.

Because the only experience this country has with secession is our Civil War. It has long been my opinion that the cause that the South seceded over wasn't the only problem. It was the way the South went about it. Any change to the Constitution/Union required an Amendment. When after the Hartford Convention, the New England states decided to secede, they sent a delegation to Washington to ask for an Amendment to allow them to do so. Instead of trying the Amendment route, the South went straight to armed rebellion.

If we look at the modern era the Czech Republic and Slovakia; or the split between Norway and Sweden might be better examples. Even now were seeing the richer parts of countries negotiating to leave states that they feel just see, and use, them as cash cows - Catalonia in Spain, the Flemish region of Belgium, or Northern Italy. 

valjean:

Quote from: mdgiles on November 17, 2012, 06:28:08 AM
Because the only experience this country has with secession is our Civil War. It has long been my opinion that the cause that the South seceded over wasn't the only problem. It was the way the South went about it. Any change to the Constitution/Union required an Amendment. When after the Hartford Convention, the New England states decided to secede, they sent a delegation to Washington to ask for an Amendment to allow them to do so. Instead of trying the Amendment route, the South went straight to armed rebellion.

If we look at the modern era the Czech Republic and Slovakia; or the split between Norway and Sweden might be better examples. Even now were seeing the richer parts of countries negotiating to leave states that they feel just see, and use, them as cash cows - Catalonia in Spain, the Flemish region of Belgium, or Northern Italy.

Exactly! The South went about it for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. Overtime secessionist movements have increasingly become non-violent.  In this country, I think the only way to save the dream of the founders is to secede, get in the metaphorical lifeboat to escape from this sinking ship. I think first and foremost the idea needs to be popularized and pushed into the mainstream, that is the only way it will get enough attention and consideration. I don't want to give up on the dream of the founders, I don't want to stand by with idle hands as a deluded populace gets deceived into thinking they are unequivocally entitled to the property and labor of the productive members of the country. This attitude will destroy the country.

As Benjamin Franklin said: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

As 18th century Scottish Lawyer and History Alexander Tytler said: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

and then the fatal sequence first presented by Henning Webb Prentis Jr.: "The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."

Look at these quotes and look at our country right now, we are going down this path at an alarming rate. The people have now realized they can essentially vote themselves money through entitlements. Politicians are so derelict in their duty that they say yes to any demand just so they can get re-elected without regard for the long term economic, political, or social effects. In regards to the last quote I mentioned, we are somewhere between "apathy to dependency" and "dependency back into bondage," this is the end of the road folks, are we just going to be content to sit in the passenger seat while the driver heads for the cliff? There is no correcting course with a system as corrupt as this one. I say we jump out for our own sake. In the various times this cycle has occurred throughout history, generations of the past didn't have the experience to know when to jump ship, but we do, and it would be a shame to simply accept the condition and go along with it until the bitter end which is the destruction of the nation.

Quote from: valjean on November 17, 2012, 09:03:19 AM
Exactly! The South went about it for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. Overtime secessionist movements have increasingly become non-violent.  In this country, I think the only way to save the dream of the founders is to secede, get in the metaphorical lifeboat to escape from this sinking ship. I think first and foremost the idea needs to be popularized and pushed into the mainstream, that is the only way it will get enough attention and consideration. I don't want to give up on the dream of the founders, I don't want to stand by with idle hands as a deluded populace gets deceived into thinking they are unequivocally entitled to the property and labor of the productive members of the country. This attitude will destroy the country.

As Benjamin Franklin said: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

As 18th century Scottish Lawyer and History Alexander Tytler said: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

and then the fatal sequence first presented by Henning Webb Prentis Jr.: "The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."

Look at these quotes and look at our country right now, we are going down this path at an alarming rate. The people have now realized they can essentially vote themselves money through entitlements. Politicians are so derelict in their duty that they say yes to any demand just so they can get re-elected without regard for the long term economic, political, or social effects. In regards to the last quote I mentioned, we are somewhere between "apathy to dependency" and "dependency back into bondage," this is the end of the road folks, are we just going to be content to sit in the passenger seat while the driver heads for the cliff? There is no correcting course with a system as corrupt as this one. I say we jump out for our own sake. In the various times this cycle has occurred throughout history, generations of the past didn't have the experience to know when to jump ship, but we do, and it would be a shame to simply accept the condition and go along with it until the bitter end which is the destruction of the nation.

I think the interesting thing is, that only part of the country has reached the dependence stage. The part of the nation that hasn't reached that stage, sees whats coming, and wants out. Many of them want to do it now before the takers wake up and realize, that they may well starve if the makers leave. I think that's one of the reason that the usual suspects are attempting to hand wave the idea away. The majority of the takers consist of an outstretched hand and little else - like a brain - attached. But many of the leeches realize that the basis of their "good life" is the very same people they are always badmouthing. Those people will attempt to use their control of executive, legislative and judicial process to keep the makers from walking out. I would guess that one of their prerequisites for getting out, would be more than the makers share of the debt for example. The same way a team initiating the trade agrees to pick up part of a bloated contract simply to get the player off their roster. 

Red this in Forbes about Urban versus the rest of us. Put it on the secession thread because it seemed to fit best there>
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/11/15/what-explains-the-partisan-divide-between-urban-and-non-urban-areas/