Secession - Why the Panic?

I am quite befuddled with the counter-secession arguments being thrown around during the past week-plus.

We have substantial subsets of the American nation that are perfectly fine with our steady move towards Western European Socialism, legislation that is prejudiced towards business, the continuing attacks on any public identification whatsoever with our Judeo-Christian roots, the enslavement of the hitherto compliant (Rightfully so) taxpayer, Courts that smugly ignore the law and seek to subvert society, and politicians who feel as is they have to pander to all sorts of bizarre interest groups, and more. What's worse, these trends appear to have done nothing but picked up speed.

Yet, instead of thinking about what we can do, Conservatives are putting tremendous amounts of energy into denigrating the arguments and intentions of those who call for exploring the possibility of saving a protected and restored American Republic. 

There seems to be what Huntington (Clash of Civilizations) refers to as "the illusion of permanency". We are surrounded by a society that has the outward appearance of a Representative Republic, our lives are (seemingly) unchanged, and we still have some political power. As a result, we are seeing a knee-jerk reaction to any movement that threatens to change things as we know them.

My take is that we are at a crossroads. While we still have the ability to secure a Republic based on American principles, one that has all the advantages of our Constitutional government, and take steps to protect it from being undermined, that ability is fast becoming threatened.

Our courts are no longer a forum to which we can appeal to seek protection but rather are tools to smooth the transition to a Progressive society utterly lacking in any vitality or virtue.

Our primary schools are breeding grounds for anti-Western and American thought.

Most colleges make the Primary schools look good by comparison.

A massive swath of our electorate seems to be locked into "self-destruct at the polls" mode.

Voter fraud by the Left is endemic.

We now have a Chief Executive that not only can choose to ignore any law, but a system of legislators and courts who will timidly refuse to raise a hand in objection.

The Media is in the business of electing Leftists/Progressives; consequently, they will ignore all of the bad and magnify the good (or not-so-bad) of their guys and do the converse for the opposition.

News outlets that try to get the story halfway straight such as Fox are painted as radicals.

The takers (Increasing in number) are willing to vote for increasing the amount of wealth that is taken from others and doled out by the Bureaucrats.

In response to calls for a reformation of the Republic, Conservatives are inexplicably employing the tired old (And plainly false) line about Secession being "settled" by the Civil War, which is kind of like saying that the question of murdering Jewish people was settled solely due to the defeat of the Nazis.

They are trotting out descriptions such as ridiculous, nonsensical, etc.

Here comes the worst of it:

They are citing Constitutional advocates such as James Madison, who in the Federalist correctly described ratification as "unconditional and forever" without thinking for just one moment that those who rightly worked for the adoption of the Constitution would never suggest that, in the event that the government had ceased to be a protector and instead became the oppressor, the States and people would be bound to a document that is not being respected in any way by those in control.

Here is the basic issue that is not being addressed. We are applying correct logic incorrectly.

Of course the Constitution is a permanent obligation for the States. The latter cannot arbitrarily walk away.
No one is saying anything to the contrary. What we are saying is that, to use the words of John Locke (Just as Jefferson did in our Declaration of Independence) we have been the victims of "a long train of abuses".

We are exactly in the same position, albeit worse in our case, that the Founders were in regards to the Crown. Nothing that Parliament dished out without our Representation could compare to the intrusions on our lives, property, and wealth with which we are faced.

None of our laws prohibit us from applying the very same principles as did they when we are faced with a government that summarily and despotically rules over the people rather than governs according to the Law.

The intention of the framers was not to create a system that would bind all generations to a government that had been undermined and turned into a despotism, even a soft one. Every one of them knew that, in the event that the Constitution was no longer being protected, it would be the right and obligation of the people to "alter or abolish it".

Like the Founders, we have tried all means possible (And without any of the barbarism of tarring and feathering) to put an end to this. We have participated in the electoral process, appealed to the Courts, written and read protests to these abuses, and we have been dismissed outright.

If an appreciable amount of the people are insistent about going in the Progressive direction, then we must not begrudge them. Let them have a fair portion of the country to administer as they please.

The need now is for the independence-minded, secessionists, and those who desire to save American principles to find a way to coalesce and form a party with a platform of a legal and safe division of the Republic.

Questions Before Secession

The thought of a split of the American Republic is not an easy pill to swallow. We have come to assume that the United States in which most of us were born, raised, learned about in school and from books, movies, patriotic holidays, etc., was began in 1776 and that it would still be around long after we are gone.

I have been torn over this since the mid-90's. Like many people, I had taken it for granted that, as a result of the collapse of the USSR and its client-states, Marxist-inspired college professors would either see the light or be so utterly discredited as to become laughing stocks of the young people who sat in the lecture halls.

What I found during the 90's was that the Western variant of Marxism had the ability to, like a bacterium that had squeaked by courses of a particular antibiotic enough times, develop resistance against what would easily kill it off in the past.

Gone (For the most part) were the calls for the people to seize the means of production. The Cultural Marxism promulgated by Georg Lukaks and Antonio Gramsci then gained ascendancy . The latter was nothing new, it was similarly a more stealthy means by which the people of the West could be softened up for the supposed inevitable onset of Marxism and the corresponding end of sovereign states.

The welfare state of LBJ's Great Society was a great leap forward in this direction. Generations of people would know nothing other than lives of subsistence earned by nothing more than the act of signing a few legal forms. As we go into fourth generations of this soft but still insidious servitude, the voting bloc that seems nothing strange about this grows ever larger.

Our schools have ceased to be places of learning. they are now reeducation camps where the youth are trained to dispense with any romantic notions about patriotism, Western Culture, respect for religious traditions (Unless that of the Muslims), heroic people of the West who stood for freedom and virtue, and above all familial loyalties.

Nations such as India and China produce engineers - we produce Sociology majors steeped in the concepts of anti-Western propaganda.

We are told that somehow States have to ability and authority to define marriage, an institution that existed long, long before any organized government existed.

People are fast losing control over their bodies, property, wealth, and freedom of speech is also in the crosshairs.


I ask that the reader consider the following:

Is the American voting public going to change its outlook anytime in the next thirty years?

Are colleges (Yes some are conservative) going to stop indoctrinating 18-26 year-old students with leftist thought?

Is the Federal government going to stop intruding on our Liberties?

Will the Federal Government stop at the $200.000+ amount of debt that every American newborn is currently allotted by having been  born? Note that that number assumes that each one of those babies will be a taxpayer. so the amount is undoubtedly larger.

Will our primary schools return to teaching (The literacy rate is appalling) and also give students  reasons to be proud to be Americans?

Will the initiative to have individual States pledge all of their electoral votes to the popular vote winner* (Thus completely eliminating any protections for non-urban states - making rural states non-issues) be ignored?
*The left is infuriated by the fact that they need to do more than simply win all urban enclaves)

Will initiatives to allow convicted felons the right to vote be dropped?

Will the brakes be put on the increasing amount of surveillance (Drones, etc.) being undertaken without warrants?

Will NYC laws controlling such trivial issues such as soft drink sizes and salt intake be restricted to similar places or will they be applied to Anytown USA?

Will the Supreme Court, even without the inevitable new Obama appointees, go back to protecting our rights?

Will the courts start throwing our frivolous lawsuits by every angry and rabid atheist for a benediction or monument that recognizes our Creator?

Will the Left break from its alliance with radical environmentalists and the Islamic world?

As much as I respect the enormous contributions and sacrifices of the Tea Party and others who strive to restore the Republic, I still must ask the following:

Will the above group(s) be able to persuade the 50+ million who voted for a man who has wrecked the economy,  put us in crushing debt, engaged in blatant demagoguery, insulted his political opponents as a daily requirement, etc., to vote for  candidate who seeks to adhere to the Constitution and put the US on the right track?

Would the Founding Fathers, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, or Abraham Lincoln accept, or even recognize, the United States as it exists today?

These are just some questions that one should consider before he dismisses the idea of reforming the nation along traditional lines.

Our society and its freedoms were bequeathed to us. To dispense with them ourselves or to allow others to dismantle them is not acceptable.

They most assuredly will not stop. Like Mariano Rivera, who for years threw only one pitch (His cut-fastball), simply because he was able to get batters out, with it, the Left will keep firing away at us. Opposing batters at least had eight innings to hit against other pitchers. We have no such luxury; the enemy is relentless and does not tire easily.

We can do this. We will need to unite. We can get our schools back, put a stop to insane spending,  protect taxpayers from becoming serfs of the system who labor for others*, and take back our legacy.

*I will not be taken to mean that we will let people starve, etc.

Half of a country saved is better than an entire country lost.

In Consideration of Secession - Part III

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/there-is-no-right-to-secede-see-the-letter-where-justice-scalia-shoots-down-idea-of-leaving-the-union/

I found an interesting subject for part three.

The link at top concerns secession petitions filed by a number of states and a possible comment on the subject by Justice Antonin Scalia As of today the count of petitions was 47. These petitions seem to only be online types that anyone can start, send via email, and sign with a few clicks. Therefore, they obviously cannot be taken seriously and most of them are likely done in jest or as a mild form or protest.

The text of Scalia's alleged response is interesting According to the article, a producer who wanted to make a movie on the subject wrote to the Supreme Court Justices and the only one that responded was Scalia.

Of course we have no idea whether or not the letter (copy is on the link) is real or a forgery, but the content is provided below and is perfect for this topic:

"I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible.”) Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.

I am sure that poetic license can overcome all that — but you do not need legal advice for that. Good luck with your screenplay."

For the sake of argument, let's say that the letter from Scalia is genuine.

One of the most common misconceptions from American history, and one that is unfortunately accepted without question, as that the question of Secession was settled by the outcome of the American Civil War. For the record (I fear that I will need to do this often) I am a staunch unionist, a Lincoln man to the core, and I also love the manner in which Daniel Webster treated the topic. Surprisingly to some, I also strongly approve of Andrew Jackson's actions in regards to South Carolina. In short, secession cannot occur unless the situation merits such action.

The cold hard fact is that the question of secession was not disproved nor settled by the Civil War. The Civil War proved that the overwhelmingly superior resources of industry, population, railroads, and the moral high ground of opposing the extension of slavery gave the North the advantage that it needed. Once the war became one of will and attrition verses a contest of tactics, élan, and strategy, it was only a matter of time before Lincoln would find generals who would employ the forces at his disposal rather than moving cautiously and ineptly like so many other former Union army leaders.

Wars, by their very nature, do not prove anything. One side wins, the other loses.

Scalia's statement is either a classic example of one of the most brilliant legal minds in American history either being unable to apply basic common sense, attempting to play the game of political diplomacy (He is not known for that), or gently kidding the individual to whom the letter was written.

Think about it - if we apply the logic of Scalia's statements, the following must also be true:

The Athenian Democracy would have been wrong had it been beaten by the Persians at Marathon or at the later and more crucial naval battle of Salamis.

The inhuman and criminal acts and ideology of Nazi Germany would have been right had Hitler's regime won WWII.

It would also mean that Rome was right in each and very one of her conquests of other nations and peoples, be they from the days of the Republic or the Empire (Principate).

The list could go on and on; Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and all losing peoples are wrong, and every winning nation or dynasty being right.

In fact, if this is true, the Left must immediately cease to petition for Israel to concede to every demand of the Arabs of Palestine because Israel won every conflict since her founding.

I think that I beat that point to death, so we can put the idea that secession was decided by the Civil War safely to rest.

The question, then, is what makes a revolution, rebellion, or secession justified or not.

The answer lies in the basic concept of government. The Founders of the United States were heavily influenced by writers such as John Locke, Charles-Louis de Secondat, (Refereed to by his Baronial title as Montesquieu), Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and other writers.

The first two are in my opinion the most influential to the Founders. They were of course also tremendously influenced by the history or ancient Greece, Rome, and the Glorious Revolution of England. Eran Shalev, in his work Rome Reborn on Western Shores, provides and in-depth analysis of the manner in which the founders were animated by the personalities and mindsets of those of the ancient Roman Republic. His next work, which is to be released in 2013, will present evidence of the strong influence that the Old Testament also had with these individuals. 

http://eranshalev.wordpress.com/

The starting point for the American Founding Fathers was this - that governments were created by people in order to secure liberty, property, safety, etc. Governments do not predate people or the earliest societies, therefore they cannot be held to be inherently sovereign, but are only sovereign when supported by the people they govern.

Locke, in his Treatises on Government, was far and away the most clear on this issue; if a government ceases to protect the people and instead becomes the oppressor, it is the right and obligation of the people (Who are born free by the very nature of mankind) to detach from or depose the oppressive body and create a new government.

We must also recall that, technically, all revolutionary movements, including the American War of Independence, are considered to be illegal by the government from which they are breaking. It is only when a people or a nascent nation can cite what Locke refers to as a 'Long train of abuses" (Words used specifically in the Declaration of Independence), the steps taken to reconcile, and the results of those failed attempts that a people can declare themselves to be free and independent and take steps to govern themselves.

As I noted in Part 1 two days ago, the States of the Confederacy did not have these arguments. That is why they were wrong, not because they lost the war.

Also noted in Part 1 is one of the realities of what has happened to our freedoms. Three Supreme Court cases were cited as evidence that our final bulwark against oppression has been negated and is now effectively a rubber stamp for the Left.

In the US, the State now has the authority to control anything and everything, from your property to your body and what you purchase. Our electorate has definitely changed significantly; almost half of the voters will vote for strongly Progressive candidates. That number will soon reach the 51% point. Once that occurs, those who want no part of the new program will be backed into a corner.

I personally have no problem with people who want to live in a Leftist-driven society. My problem is that these same people most certainly have a problem with me being able to live in a society that is not Leftist-driven.

I will try to put Part 4 together tomorrow.

In Consideration of Secession Part II

The refrain from the Left can be heard at work, among friends, or from the Media.- "The problem is that people are too radical" (Or any synonym of that).

The idea of this statement is not to admit that both sides have gone too far, it is solely employed to make conservatives the radical ones. As I wrote on a previous post, the Left has grabbed the reigns of the word "center" and artificially shifted it sharply towards the Left. By doing so, the uber-Liberal can now present himself as "Left of Center". What the Liberal/Progressive intends to convey is that his outlook is really pretty close to the Center and that Conservatives are radicals. If you hear the statements come up in conversation, the next thing that will come up is a reference to "people Like Sean Hannity or Fox News" (Both of which are barely right of the actual Center themselves) who are held up as examples as radicals.

I tried a number of Internet searches on secession using key words such as Blue State and Red State*. The funny part was that I found more results from Liberals advocating either their own (Blue State) secession or encouraging in a tongue-in-check manner Red Staters to secede than I did for Red Staters who desired any secession.

* I never really liked the color-coding. States that voted Republican used to be shaded Blue and Democratic-voting States Red. The Media, in an apparent effort to remove the Communist stigma of "red" from Liberals, changed the assignments of colors. The first time that I am aware of this occurring was in the 1980 election,when one network did the switch to Red Republican-voting states. By the 2000 election  the change was a done deal.

Even simply going State-by State is not easy. The following photo is from the link below:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/images/rcp%20electoral/2004_results_by_county..gif




As the reader can plainly see, the counties that voted Progressive/Liberal/Democrat in 2004 were very much restricted to densely populated areas such as major cities and their immediate suburbs.

My point in bring this up is that Liberal/Progressives simply cannot stand Conservatives. Voice mails left of Sean Hannity's radio show line are replete with the most hateful language and intentions imaginable. The way I see it, we would be doing them a favor by removing ourselves outright from their political processes. The American expression that conveys a "Hey, you guys do whatever you want" attitude would work perfectly in this case - "Knock yourself out".

In my secession scenario, fighting to separate counties from States should be avoided at all costs. Despite the goading from Liberals noted above, reforming the Republic into two distinct system of government would

provide enough work. People of my outlook who live in States that always go Liberal in national elections, such as my born-and-raised State of New Jersey**, will have the option of seeking a home and employment in the nation created from (Generally) most of the South, the Midwest, and Western States (Barring those on the Pacific coast). The logistical problem of having a nation with a Liberal/Progressive Constitution existing in separated regions will of course have to be considered and dealt with, but states with non-contiguous domains have existed in the past and there is no reason why they cannot exists today. The advantages of modern technology  air, rail, and road travel and above all electronic communications would negate the vast amount of perceived difficulties.

 In short, if the late Medieval states of Burgundy and the early modern Palatinate in Germany could manage their affairs before even the telegraph, there is no reason to assume that it can't be done today.

** Taking a look at New Jersey, one would see very large regions/ blocs of counties that do not vote for Liberal in national elections (Like mine), but slicing and dicing individual States could turn ugly.

One subsection of the people desires to take their schools back from the Departmental of Education and bring back teaching as opposed to indoctrination, handle their own environmental affairs, create a working energy program, take a reasonable stand on cultural/morality issues, put a stop to viciously anti-religious court actions***, create a business-friendly atmosphere (Especially for small and middle-scale employers), make working for a living a better bet than living for free, and generally return to a traditional American society.

The other subsection desires the contrary to all of the above.

***I personally prefer a secular government but hold that the excising of all Christian and Jewish symbolism and public professions has gone entirely too far.

If we develop an energy program that takes advantage of our resources while strongly promoting by generous tax incentives the building or alternative energy sources, we would take a huge step in walking away from the Middle East. Given that the Islamic governments that are now emerging don't want any Christians hanging around, the first pro-immigration move by the traditional American Nation+ could be to grant permanent visas to those who suffer from persecution and violent crime in their current home countries. 

+ I have no ideas for a name of the proposed nation at this time. I will accept suggestions.

Europe is long past needing our military presence, so that can be ended or whittled down substantially.

We could put an end to antagonizing Russia and form business partnerships with her.

The pro-business climate would make us competitive with China and India, both of which are well on the way to passing us to become larger economies.

What I think that people should ask themselves in this - Do you see the current sharp divisions in political and cultural outlooks changing anytime in the next 20 or 30 years?

If the answer is no, the second question must be how divided we will then be, and how marginalized and shut out Conservative and Traditional Americans will have become once that 20-30 years have elapsed.

These are the groups that will have to come to the table, all being willing to yield on some of their positions:

Basic, non-religious Conservative Americans

Those engaged in business, especially of the small and middle-sized types

Evangelical Christians 

Catholic, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestants

Those of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) Church

Family-oriented people

Educators who loathe the current educational system and desire that train wrecks such as sight-words be dropped and phonics be reinstated. (Our illiteracy rates have skyrocketed since phonics was dropped)

Farmers who want to get out from under oppressive EPA and Dept of Labor regulations

Anyone who desires to protect the right of people to own weapons for protection, sporting purposes, or hunting

People who are weary of being enslaved by generations worth of welfare 

People involved in energy development, such as oil, gas and coal industries

Those who desire to live in a free and sovereign nation that does not take orders from the UN

Those who have a nagging feeling that the Federal Reserve may not be serving the best interests of the nation or the people

The person that simply wants to to be left alone 

I am sure that I can come up with more, but I have to turn in for the night. I hope to do Part III tomorrow.

In Consideration of Secession Part I

Revision 11/18/12 - I know that my stated position on the Confederacy is as brief as can be and that there are a ton of factors involved, but I needed to describe my position in a tiny nutshell in order to contrast the position of the Southern States with what we face today. The beginning of this post threatens to create a firestorm, but I ask that the reader sit tight for a few very short paragraphs to see that I only include these in order to lead up to the main point - what lies before us right now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have long held, and continue to do so, that the States that seceded and formed the Confederacy had no real arguments to support their position. If we apply the same concepts of self-determination that the American Founders did, it is clear that the South jumped the gun. Those who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence were able to list a "long train of abuses" that had been committed by the Crown against the erstwhile Colonies. Whether these abuses were real or perceived is not the issue - the Colonies simply were able to cite several examples of what the Crown had done, or failed to do. They were also able to list their own attempts to reconcile the differences with the Crown and the results of those actions.

The South had no such argument. Lincoln was elected President, but he still had to wait quite some time before her could assume the Office. The election was November 6th and the inauguration was not until the following March at the time. Just over a month had passed before South Carolina started the ball rolling.

Lincoln was an astute and prudent man. He knew fully well that he could not target slavery in current slave states and therefore he gave his word that he would not interfere with the horrific institution. Nothing was going to change the way that the South did things.

Despite these facts, the Confederacy was illegally created, US government property was seized, and a vicious war ensued.

This is the shortest explanation that I can give in order to assert why I am a Lincoln man and vociferously opposed to those who defend the actions of those who formed the Confederacy.

This is also why I can say that things are immeasurably different today, and that secession must be considered.

Our nation was designed as a representative republic. Governments of this type tend to work quite well for smaller nations, and the fact that ours (In a very large country)  functioned for so long is a credit to the minds of those who crafted our Constitution.

For Part 1, I will deal only with the Supreme Court. I think that this is an appropriate starting point as the Court is not supposed to make or execute, laws, but (When it comes to laws specifically) be the final barrier to laws that infringe upon our rights. In the Federalist Papers, pro-Constitution essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in the days when the Constitution was being debated, the Supreme Court is presented as a final check and a proof that the new Government would not be free to legislate away the freedoms of the people.

Although the  Constitution did not specify the concept of judicial review, Marbury v. Madison, a landmark decision by the court, was the principle means by which the Court defined its own authority. From that point on, the Supreme Court would have the final say on cases brought before it and have the power to declare a law Constitutional or not.

This worked well most of the time, but in the 20th century, the system began to fall apart.

The first was Wickard v. Fillburn, in which the Court upheld a draconian FDR-era law that resulted in a man being fined for growing more than the allowed amount of grain on his own farm. Threatened with Justice-packing by the Mussolini and Stalin-admiring FDR (The President threatened to change the number from nine Justices and add more who would follow his lead), the Court ruled that, because the farmer may be able to grow enough grain to enable him to feed his own livestock without buying grain, the farmer's actions could be regulated under the Commerce Clause.

The next nail in the coffin was Kelo V. New London. Here the concept of eminent domain morphed from the state forcing the sale of private property in order to serve a public need (Roads, Schools, etc.) to a governing body being able to condemn a person's home in order to sell it to a private developer. There would not even be a need to prove that the municipality was in dire need of funds - all it had to say was that it could make more money from selling the property and maybe receive more tax revenue from the newly-developed seized properties.

The most recent and egregious case was on Obamacare. Here the Federal government could not only compel a person to purchase something (Insurance is merely the foot in the door for far more), the Court is now effectively able to assign new meanings to the law. The compulsion to purchase can, with no legislation or tax code to cite, be considered to be a tax.

I find no reason to believe that things will improve in time to arrest the collapse of what is left of our freedoms. The Court will see at least one more (Possibly three) new appointments in Obama's second term.

With this in mind, I assert that it is time to consider putting my beloved Republic to rest. The nation is divided into two diametrically opposed camps.

One is a coalition of takers, people-controllers, haters of our history, rabid atheists, and those who promulgate not all sorts of sexual license but the codifying of these into law (No governing body ever had the authority to define what marriage is - the institution existed long before governments). Regulating abuse of marriage is the only power that the State can have.

The other are those who work and pay taxes, are weary of a system that berates all the accomplishments of Western Civilization, either attend Church/Synagogue or at least have no problem with some public recognition of our spiritual foundations, are concerned with the piling-up of governmental regulations and surveillance, and are generally guilty of the high crime of desiring that the US hold to its traditional outlook and method of government.

If States that traditionally vote for Conservative candidates take steps towards secession, the outcome in no way has to be bad. Those who live in "Red States" but prefer the Progressive )Read -Leftist) outlook can move to "Blue States" if they so desire . Blue-Staters would similarly have the right to relocate to a Red State.

This is not an impossible feat - The USSR, which was a far larger nation, did the same things a mere twenty years ago. It took a while for things to get back on track but it worked. The back and forth migration of people to also has an historical background. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Catholics left the United Provinces) Modern Netherlands) and moved to what today is Belgium. Protestants left the latter to live in the Netherlands. The exact same thing happened in Germany; Protestants often moved from Catholic German States to Lutheran ones and vice-versa.

The hateful and thuggish behavior can also go away. Elections signs and bumper stickers would no longer be cause for vandalism or assaults. Both sides get the manage their governments in the manner that they please.

The National debt could be evenly divided, and both sides can service their debt shares.All revenues, including income taxes, will remain within their respective nations.

We must allow that their can be, like the European Union (Not that I am a fan of that group), a measure of cooperation between the two bodies. This would include the possibility of jointly-administered armed forces.

This would entail the stepping down of the US as a world leader, but we cannot keep that role going anyway. We don't have the money, and the world will survive without us.