Should Secession be an option?

Archaeopteryx

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Government /=/ organized society. Government is a territorial monopoly, which forces its will on others whether they like it or not. The services that governments typically provide need not be done via monopoly, nor restricted to a certain geographical area.

I didn't claim that government was equivalent to organised society, but it certainly is part of it. You dodged the question: how does one go about not receiving the benefits of living in an organised society?
 
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Nilloc

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I didn't claim that government was equivalent to organised society, but it certainly is part of it. You dodged the question: how does one go about not receiving the benefits of living in an organised society?
Perhaps I didn't communicate well enough. People have every right to not associate with whomever they want. They can live as a hermit if they like. Though that's not what I'm advocating (personally), nor is it something I recommend. Rather, I believe in voluntary association with others. Thus, no one in society should have to be assocaited with anyone else if they don't want to. So if I don't want to pay the U.S. government for its "services" I should be allowed to find another party and/or parites to pay for those services. That's secession. To use an analogy, I "secede" from a store that has crappy service and I don't want their product anymore.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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Perhaps I didn't communicate well enough. People have every right to not associate with whomever they want. They can live as a hermit if they like. Though that's not what I'm advocating (personally), nor is it something I recommend. Rather, I believe in voluntary association with others. Thus, no one in society should have to be assocaited with anyone else if they don't want to. So if I don't want to pay the U.S. government for its "services" I should be allowed to find another party and/or parites to pay for those services. That's secession. To use an analogy, I "secede" from a store that has crappy service and I don't want their product anymore.

That doesn't really address the question though. Recall that you secede from the state, not the government, and in doing so become your own state with its own government. How do you go about no longer receiving the benefits of the state that your household just seceded from? Do you stop using their roads? They aren't your roads anymore. If so, how do you conduct trade? Presumably trade would be important in a small landlocked state like yours (I'm assuming you don't have your own port). What about defence? You are no longer entitled to police protection, but if you live in a safe neighbourhood your state is still likely to benefit from the safety provided by the police (whose services you are no longer paying for). How do you go about ensuring that you no longer receive that benefit?
 
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Nilloc

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That doesn't really address the question though. Recall that you secede from the state, not the government, and in doing so become your own state with its own government. How do you go about no longer receiving the benefits of the state that your household just seceded from? Do you stop using their roads? They aren't your roads anymore. If so, how do you conduct trade? Presumably trade would be important in a small landlocked state like yours (I'm assuming you don't have your own port). What about defence? You are no longer entitled to police protection, but if you live in a safe neighbourhood your state is still likely to benefit from the safety provided by the police. How do you go about ensuring that you no longer receive that benefit?
It's not as if I'd be the only one seceding (assuiming that the government wouldn't kill me first). Plenty of others who don't want to be part of the U.S. government would secede too. And, if people came to the moral belief of voluntaryism, they would know that the U.S. government is a criminal organization that forces people to pay it. Thus, the roads and such do not belong them.

Recall that I said I don't see secession happening any time soon. That's because people still think that you have the right to kill and steal as long as you con enough people into voting for you. The voluntary society I'd like to see can't come about without a paradigm change, much like it was with seeing women and blacks as equals. Or how the Enlightenment brought an end to old superstitions when people started thinking for themselves.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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It's not as if I'd be the only one seceding (assuiming that the government wouldn't kill me first). Plenty of others who don't want to be part of the U.S. government would secede too.

They wouldn't be seceding from the government, they'd be seceding from the state, thereby forming their own state to govern how they desire.

And, if people came to the moral belief of voluntaryism, they would know that the U.S. government is a criminal organization that forces people to pay it. Thus, the roads and such do not belong them.

Once you have seceded, you no longer have a right to the roads because they are not part of your newly created state. You have to build and maintain your own roads.

Recall that I said I don't see secession happening any time soon. That's because people still think that you have the right to kill and steal as long as you con enough people into voting for you.

From context, I presume by "steal" you mean taxes. Not everyone thinks that taxes are the moral equivalent of theft.
 
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Nilloc

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They wouldn't be seceding from the government, they'd be seceding from the state, thereby forming their own state to govern how they desire.

Once you have seceded, you no longer have a right to the roads because they are not part of your newly created state. You have to build and maintain your own roads.
I have no desire to create another state (here I am defining 'state' as a territorial monopoly of violence). The governments in the U.S. have no right to things like roads, since they paid for those with stolen money. Now if they would change, using only voluntary payments (thus downsizing themselves), they could hold legitimate property.

From context, I presume by "steal" you mean taxes. Not everyone thinks that taxes are the moral equivalent of theft.
Not everyone thought that having women and blacks as property was immoral. Not everyone thought that killing heretics and people of different religions was immoral. To this day there are people who deny that Selective Service is slavery, that collateral damage is murder, that eminent domain is theft, etc. Thankfully, most recognize my first two examples for what they are. I'm confident that one day, probably long after I'm gone, people will see the state for what it is too.
 
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usexpat97

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IMO, the point at which taxes become stolen money is when the money taken from the people, meant for the people, is used for something other than the people. Roads IMO don't usually fit that category. Now--if you hand that money over to a private company to build those roads, who then turn around and charge toll to the people who just paid for them--now THAT'S theft.
 
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praying

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Secession will never be more than a fantasy for a handful of true believers. It's a fringe position that appeals only to small minority. Rightly or wrongly, modern life for the vast majority of Americans is dependent on a functioning federal government. People who have worked their entire lives paying into SS, and Medicare, will not voluntarily relinquish these for some neo-antifederalist pipe dream. And there is no way in hell that seceding states could take over these obligations on their own.

Let's get real. We're stuck with each other, and we have to make the best of it.

the bottom line. ^^
 
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usexpat97

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And there is no way in (hockey sticks) that seceding states could take over these obligations on their own.

You mean the same states that are ALREADY underwriting unemployment, workers' comp, their own health insurance, and medicaid could not also underwrite Medicare and SS if their citizens did not also have to pay 35% of their income to out of the state? What about Texas, who has already repeatedly wanted to do just that, but keeps getting denied because the Feds won't release funds? Or Alaska, who annually pays $1000 to all of their residents--just because they are residents? I'm calling baloney on that one. No only could the states take it over--they would actually be competent at it. Which is more than the Feds can say.
 
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SoldierOfTheKing

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The way the federal governments fiscal policy is going SS and Medicare are going to go bust eventually. I'm never going receive those benefits, because by the time I'm 65, the money won't be there. Many of my generation understand this. This day and age, only fools rely on the government to support them after retirement.
 
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Gxg (G²)

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What states can seceede from the UNION, can local towns within the state secede from the State as well? What about local communities secedding from rule by a certain area?
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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Nobody thought the Soviet Union would fall apart - until it happened. None of things you predict happened then.

Actually that's not true. There has been a large number of people in the Intelligence community that realized the Soviet model was unsustainable and was likely to come crashing down at some point. That was in the 70s.
 
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Redac

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Actually that's not true. There has been a large number of people in the Intelligence community that realized the Soviet model was unsustainable and was likely to come crashing down at some point. That was in the 70s.

Heck, I could have told you it'd fall at some point. Socialism In One Country isn't a model that most on the left even think can work.
 
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Gxg (G²)

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Heck, I could have told you it'd fall at some point. Socialism In One Country isn't a model that most on the left even think can work.

Some of the best models for countries to work are barter and trade systems...
 
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MachZer0

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Heck, I could have told you it'd fall at some point. Socialism In One Country isn't a model that most on the left even think can work.
You being born in 1992 and the Soviet Union having collapsed in 1991, I somehow doubt you could have told us it would fall at some point
 
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Gxg (G²)

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Actually that's not true. There has been a large number of people in the Intelligence community that realized the Soviet model was unsustainable and was likely to come crashing down at some point. That was in the 70s.


Interesting..
 
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SoldierOfTheKing

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SoldierOfTheKing said:
Actually that's not true. There has been a large number of people in the Intelligence community that realized the Soviet model was unsustainable and was likely to come crashing down at some point. That was in the 70s.

How many people expected it to fall when it did, though?

How sustainable is a model that has involves the government borrowing almost half the money it spends? This what is so ridiculous about these arguments that succession would never work because the states need federal money. First, there's no such thing as federal money, because Washington gets its money from sources that lie inside the states. Second, because the way things are going, Washington is not going to have all that money at some point, it can't keep borrowing forever. So the very reasons given why succession is impossible, are in fact why it's inevitable. It's not imminent, but give it another twenty or thirty years and it won't seem farfetched at all.
 
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Redac

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You being born in 1992 and the Soviet Union having collapsed in 1991, I somehow doubt you could have told us it would fall at some point

I can't tell if you're making a point about theory or if you're just unfamiliar with the English language.
 
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