Patriotism, Seccession and Srpska

When Al Qaeda first impressed its murderous intent upon our national consciousness on 9/11, there was much hubbub on the right wing urging moderates in the Islamic world to speak up and condemn the radical nihilists among them. Fair enough. Good people should not stand by when evil arises in their midst.

Today, however, where are so-called "moderate" mainstream Republicans in condemning the likes of Rick "The Traitor" Perry, Governor of Texas, the closet racist secessionists in Vermont, the neo-Confederates of South Carolina, the white libertarian Alaskan split-off movements, and the Sandpoint, Idaho, gold-hoarding, conspiracy theorists? 

Why don't Collins and Snowe of Maine; Oregon's Gordon Smith; Minnesota's Norm Coleman; and Voinovich and Warner respectively of Ohio and West Virginia step forward? Are they really on the side of the American Talibans?

I doubt that. But they are so in thrall to their own extremist right wing element that they stand weak-kneed and, in the end, anti-patriotic themselves. 

What they condone is talk that harks back to the secessionist prattle of the Yankee Federalist Party during the War of 1812, the Civil War, and more embarrassingly brings to mind movements in Third World regions today. For instance:

• Srpska in Herzogovina, itself born of secession.
• Moldova has been confronted for almost two decades with the secession of Transdniestria.
• Karelia, a small corner of Russia, wants to secede and join Finland.
• Abkhazia-South Ossetia in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
• Southern Sudan.

 But let us get back to our own country. The opportunistic separatists lurking among us do not want good things for our country. They want to make money by inventing organizations and creating websites populated by hysterically-toned, poorly-informed legalistic arguments based on the 10th Amendment. They are mercenaries in the truest sense of the word. Many, chief among them Sarah Palin, have enriched themselves in a time of national and international crisis.

More insultingly, they have costumed themselves in the clothing of the patriots of the American Revolutionary period. 

In his concise masterwork, "The Crisis," Thomas Paine wrote "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country..." 

Paine referred, of course, to people who will remain loyal to an ideal as long as it is easy. Once the going gets tough, only the real patriots, the "Winter Soldiers," will stick by their country.

In the go-go '90s and the acceptable economy of the first decade of the 2000's, these sunshine soldiers were fattening up at the trough of the American bounty. Now that times have gotten a bit tough, and we have a liberal, African-American President, these fair weather friends of our country act like cowardly little mice. So, step up, Republican "moderates." Tell it like it is.

The Showboat Comes To Vermont

So now we can add Vermont to the long, illustrious list of states that have seceded, or have wanted to secede. Welcome, Showboaters, to the Green Mountain State! (Article from Time Magazine)

Some people in the state, who call their group Second Vermont Republic, hope VT joins not just the former Confederacy but Rick Perry and the Fightin' and Snortin' Texans of today in pulling our country apart. Bravo. More shallow thinking from the fringe, which apparently is an equal opportunity magnet for nuts and bolters from both right and left. 

And apparently, the left far-outs are just as capable of indulging themselves in fuzzy economics, fuzzy history and silly crystal ball gazing. 

You have to appreciate a bunch of guys, however, with flannel shirts, fancy cars, jobs with mega computer companies and a twisted sense of humor. At least I find them funny - I mean funny like a clown.

It's really just more media circus showboating and it's depressing to see it coming from Vermont, of all places, which gave us founding uber-patriots Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, Abe Lincoln's highest margin of victory in any state, and a 15% mortality rate in the Civil War, a rate higher than any other state.

Maybe they don't remember Abe. You know, that President who said at Gettysburg: The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. Yep, that Abe. The one who separatists assassinated with a bullet from behind.

What's even sadder is that the Vermont-firsters, like one of their leaders Thomas Naylor, are living in some sort of Disneyland of the North. Naylor says, for instance:"Not only would an independent Vermont survive. It would thrive, because it would free up entrepreneurial forces heretofore held in abeyance." 

And where would those mystical forces come from? Nova Scotia? You can be sure it won't be coming from the remaining United States, because the hostility and reluctance to invest for 100 years, if the experience of the Confederates is any indication, will be suffocating.

By the way, showboaters on both ends of the extreme fringe exhibit a reflexive compulsion to use high-fallutin' language to validate wobbly positions, their blah blah blahing obscuring the lack of deep analysis. Contrast Naylor's leaden prose with Lincoln's simple, powerful words. ("Heretofore held in abeyance..." Have they been consulting the Foghorn Leghorn Manual of Style?) 

Some economic facts of life... Vermont ranks a fair-to-middling 34th in per capita income in the United States ($35,493). You could count on that dropping by 20% even before secession became reality, as companies began moving their operations across the borders to NH, NY and MA, or QUE. So you'll be down to about $28,000 per capita before you can say "Freedom and Unity," the state's motto. That will put you down with states like Arkansas.

And making things difficult for "out-of-state" corporations, as another leader of the showboat movement hopes to do, will surely not help that Deep South level of performance. 

Moreover, there would be costs associated with a breakaway - for instance, all those nice federally-funded schools, roads, and so forth. Train tracks? Guess what? Airports - uh-oh. Any power plant, whether traditional or alternative, that took any kind of fed money? We'll be wanting them back, or at least will want you to pay for them. Plus a premium for causing the rest of us annoyance. You sure don't think the rest of us, who appreciate the Union even with all its difficulties and frustrating aspects - are going to actually let you keep infrastructure we all paid for, do you? Showboaters.

Now, I know that Vermont was a "republic" for about 14 years. And the Second Vermont Republic is somehow seeking linkage with that 220 year old "republic."

But, for much of that time there was no other country, as we understand the term, in North America. Indeed, all the colonies were mini-nations - states in waiting. None of them were forced to ratify the Constitution. Anyone of them might have stayed independent. Nevertheless, Rhode Island ratified in May of 1790 and the country was born in its current form. Vermont joined the Union less than a year later in March of 1791. So, you were kinda, sorta, almost unique for about 10 months. 

Get off the high horse. Get off the showboat. Join the real battle.