Post-Election Thoughts (1)

Secession?

Isn't that a little extreme?

The White House website allows for people to petition the government even to request permission to secede. Some don't bother with the "official" way, they publish their own harangues. Like this one from Texas:

We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity.... Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?

Pretty strong feelings wouldn't you say? Some people are really upset by Obama's re-election. Probably especially since they really believed the GOP hype (and media polls) that it was going to be a nail-biter of an election. Then came the crash of the morning after.

Four more years of an enemy to the nation? That's how they felt.

And otherwise rational, red-blooded Americans begin to say,

Hey, he's not MY president.

None of this is new, of course. And I don't mean the Lincoln election of 1860. But, as I have said in different ways before this, I am one who has NOT lived under the president I voted for or supported most of my adult life. In fact, it would only be 16 years since 1968. One Carter, two Clinton and one Obama term. That's just a little over 1/3 of my adult life. The rest, well, there was Nixon and Reagan and Bush 1 and Bush 2. I have had to learn how to live as part of the "loyal opposition." That, by the way is essential, repeat ESSENTIAL, in a democracy. One party systems are not the basis of a republic or a democracy.

But secede? So I went to the White House site and saw the simple petition from Texas:

Peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

Very calm and straightforward. It's bi-partisan since some of what is opposed is from Republican administrations and some from Democrats. It makes a kind of odd logic.

Except it would begin a process that would see those freedoms and rights undermined. We would no longer be the United States. And what so many have fought and died for will be lost. Perhaps forever.

Yes, I know some believe it is being taken away by the Federal government. I have seen it happening to civil rights under both parties' administrations. The Constitution was abused by Bush and reaffirmed by Obama. Individual rights are curtailed for one reason by the conservatives and for another by the liberals.

Which is why I am glad to always be part of a loyal opposition, even to the president I helped elect.

Will I take the blame if Obama blows it big time? Of course I will have to. I voted for him and I will admit my mistake. Will he still be my president?

OF COURSE, just as Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan was. They were no less MY president than Clinton or Obama. THAT is what my dad fought in World War II to protect. Not to have people want to secede or ignore the way democracy truly works.

I am glad, no I am deeply grateful, that I live in the United States. Sure, I said crazy things back in 1973 when Watergate was falling down around the president, like

Don't blame me, I voted for McGovern.

But I stayed here, an American, and proud to be one. Let's try to do the same in the next four years.