When you're saying your democracy is so great it can not just ignore a democratic mandate, it can describe the participants in this mandate as categorically evil, then I'm not sure why it'd be considered to be morally defensible.
Scotland to leave the UK?
- Thread starter DarthTom
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When you're saying your democracy is so great it can not just ignore a democratic mandate, it can describe the participants in this mandate as categorically evil, then I'm not sure why it'd be considered to be morally defensible.
A State leaving the Union would be a complicated process. Assuming that a majority of residents of that State approved the measure, then either Congress would have to approve it in a manner similar to joining the Union or the Supreme Court would have to rule in their favor. Then there would have to be all kinds of treaties. The State would have to buy all federal lands and property. There would also have to be guarantees of the Rights of all US citizens who are residents of the State who did not favor secession (or their relocation), as well as guarantees or reimbursement for out-of-state property owners and investors who are US Citizens. And probably a million other legal matters, as well.
They wanted Statehood. They got it. Now they're a State. Pretty simple.
If Czechoslovakia can separate peacefully into two nations anyone else can. "It's complicated" isn't a valid reason to stand in the way.
That's what I mean. Practically speaking, the idea that Alaska would ever be on the right side in a confrontation with the United States government is hard to suspend disbelief on.
A majority rule is insufficient in such a case. The federal government has an absolute obligation to defend the rights of every citizen, and one of those rights is the right to remain a citizen. Whereas the federal government has no more obligation to a rebel than it does to an foreign belligerent.
At the same time, there are certain practical limits, I suppose--if 231 people want to stay in the Union and 710,000 do not, there's no sense in expending blood and treasure keeping all 710,231 in.
But more realistically, I doubt you'd ever find a secession event in a basically culturally homogenous state (e.g., the CSA, Scotland) where fewer than, say, 20% of the population would wish to remain with the sovereign. And that's enough of a chunk of the population to justify fighting for.
Kegg said:
Liberal democracy has never been solely about majority rule. It's also been, perhaps even moreso, about defending individuals from being deprived of their rights.
Like I said upthread, it may be that the only historical experience with secession that I've ever been close to is that of the Confederacy, whose cause was manifestly evil and whose legacy I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
It's less cut-and-dry in other contexts, I suppose. I don't think I'd ever defend the United Kingdom of 1919 as a morally defensible liberal democracy, however much the United Kingdom of 2011 has improved.
If such a hypothetical 20% has a geographic concentration, it could be enough to suggest a split within the state - West Virginia and Northern Ireland are two wildly different examples of what is in this principle the same kind of solution.
Lacking such a geographic concentration, no, it's not something worth fighting for. Worth funding relocation for, perhaps, like minorities on the wrong side of the border, but not enough to abrogate the liberty of the state's majority.
In the hypothetical scenario where a majority of Alaskans - say, 80%, given your numbers - support independence, granting that independence is a natural conclusion of democracy. It does not follow that the 20% who dissent are having their rights revoked as citizens, any more than a minority of those who desire independence in a liberal democracy (like the real Alaskan independence party) are having their rights revoked. They would just be expressing a minority opinion in a democratic state, something that's always been a reality of democratic politics.
And it is not a categorical evil for a democratic mandate to desire seperation from another democratic country.
Confederacy's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, obviously. When your democratic mandate is about you protecting your right to deny the democratic mandate to many of your country's labourers, it's kind of a circular logic... but it doesn't mean that any and all secessionism is categorically evil - West Virginia's own secession from Virgina over Virgina's secession from the United States is perhaps too convenient an example here.
Edit: Sorry about the length, dudes. It got away from me.
I understand you probably mean a voluntary relocation program, but why should a United States citizen who lives in the United States ever need to move to remain in the United States?
It strikes me that any country which would permit, of its own volition, a referendum that would carve away its territory and tax base, cannot be a country unfree enough to justifiably oppose. (Not that a country unfree enough to resist secession with military force would necessarily be worth opposing, itself.) By what metric can a Quebecois express that he or she is oppressed by Anglophone Canada?
(Although I suppose it's possible that a dual citizenship regime could be instituted, which would alleviate some of the unfairness.)
Instead, I'll focus on the evil of a state seceding from a liberal democratic regime such as the United States.
If Alaska were to, this moment, draft a law that restricted a woman's constitutional right to abort, and attempted to enforce it, the federal government would prevent them from doing so--up to and including using force if the confrontation escalated to an insane degree.
Instead, however, Alaska secedes first. People have been convinced that self-determination is a right, and that secession should not be opposed. Alaska then immediately outlaws all abortions in cases where the life of the mother is not threatened. They are certainly within their right to do so as a sovereign nation.
I'm by no means saying this is what would happen (particularly in Alaska, which as I understand it is rather libertarian on the specific issue). I'm saying only that when you have a government which defends individual rights to the extent that the United States does (and by no means are we perfect, but we are pretty good at it! as is the UK, as is Ireland, as are most of the EU countries, even I'm-really-mad-at-them-right-now France), it seems unlikely that any state government that is opposed to it would be willing to provide greater protections, and would be far more likely to provide fewer.
And should the U.S. be willing to abandon its citizens to an unknown like a rogue state government, why should anyone be willing to pay their taxes or obey the United States' laws? They would lose their legitimacy, in my eyes, if I knew that as soon as a majority in my own state formed against the Union, I too would either be required to run for the dubious safety of new interstate border, or be abandoned to be thrown into the prison for Democrats the SC GOP built in Fort Sumter.
And as I said before, there's a right to armed resistance and a right to secede from a tyrannical government (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the British Empire). But it's at best selfish and insular, and at worst--as you note in the case of the CSA--a bid to be able to exploit one's own population without the sovereign's interference.
Not that I expect Scotland would reintroduce slavery.
Heck, I was never totally on board with our secession from the United Kingdom... it was justified, although it's really questionable whether we set up a more moral government or not. Granted, this is from a 21st century perspective, where every 18th century regime, even the contemporaneously "good" ones, looks like a steaming pile of shit.
No, although I was kidding about using nuclear weapons on Alaska.
I would be prone to looking on anyone who attempted secession from the U.S. as an actual or potential enemy, and certainly a jerk. To paraphrase Voltaire, I may die to defend someone's right to demand secession all he wanted, but that doesn't mean I'd be cool with letting them go and do it.
I understand you probably mean a voluntary relocation program, but why should a United States citizen who lives in the United States ever need to move to remain in the United States?
I guess the core of the disagreement is that I'm not sure a right to self-determination exists per se. A right to armed resistance against an oppressive regime certainly does and while the outcome is often the same, the requirements for justification are certainly different.
It strikes me that any country which would permit, of its own volition, a referendum that would carve away its territory and tax base, cannot be a country unfree enough to justifiably oppose. (Not that a country unfree enough to resist secession with military force would necessarily be worth opposing, itself.) By what metric can a Quebecois express that he or she is oppressed by Anglophone Canada?
There's a bit more to it than that. They would be forced into a rather unpleasant situation, at least: choosing to be resident aliens in the place they've lived in much or all of their lives, or or choosing to leave their homes and repatriate themselves to the newly-diminished U.S.A.
(Although I suppose it's possible that a dual citizenship regime could be instituted, which would alleviate some of the unfairness.)
I'll back off from the term categorical evil. (But I don't want you to feel like I'm shifting the goalposts--so I'll just admit I'm not prepared to argue strenuously for it, and may be wrong about it being wrong in all circumstances.)
Instead, I'll focus on the evil of a state seceding from a liberal democratic regime such as the United States.
If Alaska were to, this moment, draft a law that restricted a woman's constitutional right to abort, and attempted to enforce it, the federal government would prevent them from doing so--up to and including using force if the confrontation escalated to an insane degree.
Instead, however, Alaska secedes first. People have been convinced that self-determination is a right, and that secession should not be opposed. Alaska then immediately outlaws all abortions in cases where the life of the mother is not threatened. They are certainly within their right to do so as a sovereign nation.
I'm by no means saying this is what would happen (particularly in Alaska, which as I understand it is rather libertarian on the specific issue). I'm saying only that when you have a government which defends individual rights to the extent that the United States does (and by no means are we perfect, but we are pretty good at it! as is the UK, as is Ireland, as are most of the EU countries, even I'm-really-mad-at-them-right-now France), it seems unlikely that any state government that is opposed to it would be willing to provide greater protections, and would be far more likely to provide fewer.
And should the U.S. be willing to abandon its citizens to an unknown like a rogue state government, why should anyone be willing to pay their taxes or obey the United States' laws? They would lose their legitimacy, in my eyes, if I knew that as soon as a majority in my own state formed against the Union, I too would either be required to run for the dubious safety of new interstate border, or be abandoned to be thrown into the prison for Democrats the SC GOP built in Fort Sumter.
WV's secession is a special case, anyway. Seceding from seceders to stay with the sovereign? That's just weird--and in any event, creating a new political subdivision isn't the same as creating a new sovereign nation. (Federalism issues about the extremely qualified sovereignty of U.S. states aside.)
And as I said before, there's a right to armed resistance and a right to secede from a tyrannical government (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the British Empire). But it's at best selfish and insular, and at worst--as you note in the case of the CSA--a bid to be able to exploit one's own population without the sovereign's interference.
Not that I expect Scotland would reintroduce slavery.
Heck, I was never totally on board with our secession from the United Kingdom... it was justified, although it's really questionable whether we set up a more moral government or not. Granted, this is from a 21st century perspective, where every 18th century regime, even the contemporaneously "good" ones, looks like a steaming pile of shit.
GodBen said:I'm hoping that this is some sort of parody that I'm just not getting.Otherwise it is right up where with "You're either with us or against us" on the scale of blinkered nonsense.
No, although I was kidding about using nuclear weapons on Alaska.
I would be prone to looking on anyone who attempted secession from the U.S. as an actual or potential enemy, and certainly a jerk. To paraphrase Voltaire, I may die to defend someone's right to demand secession all he wanted, but that doesn't mean I'd be cool with letting them go and do it.
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Yeah, voluntary in the sense that the new government and/or the United States would be willing to pay the transit fee. Remaining in the new country as a citizen of the United States also seems a possibility. To use the Irish example just because I'm the most familiar with it, anyone born in Northern Ireland can claim Irish citizenship.
I think the issue here is the idea that democratic mandates would only want to secede from oppressive governments.
The creation of dominion status for Canada, New Zealand and Australia really didn't really come from a feeling in any of those countries that the British were oppressing them, for example.
There can be other issues in play. Nationalism can be important - the Qubecois who want a country, for example, usually do - in my understanding - because of their historically Francophone culture and history. That's fair. Geographic distances can be another one - I assume it was more conveinent for Canada, Australia and so on to operate essentially autonomously anyway.
The rather civil division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia has already been mentioned, and it's an excellent example as well. The concept of Czechoslovakia was artificial, a way of connecting the nationalism of the Czechs and the Slovaks with the logic that two Slavic minority nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were better off asking for one country than two proved, in the end, no longer relevant and a less than ideal arrangement.
None of these involve armed struggle, I might note, but it's the difference between motives for secessionism and motives for violent secessionism.
All this said, if Liberal Democracy itself was the only thing motivating democracies, why bother dividing them into seperate countries at all? The United States should merge with Canada and Europe and Australia and so on.
Random aside: Abortion's illegal here. In practice, one goes north, I believe.
Or it may not change these laws at all. Altering definitions of constitutional liberty may not be what the secessionists want. In Alaska's case - not that I know anything about Alaska - maybe they want to nationalize the oil reserves, like the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez.
But in the abstracted idea a state is damaging the liberties of its own citizens, we're back to the circular logic of the Confederacy.
Nor were those who remained loyalists to the crown, who were a decently sized number. The case of the black loyalists - runaway slaves who fought for the Crown and kept their freedom even when some Americans wanted them returned as part of the peace agreement - is probably an interesting aside here.
Kegg said:
Oh yeah. I knew that, and I forgot.
Anyway, it was the first thing that came to mind that would be a plausible curtailment of liberty in a breakaway U.S. state.
That'd be pretty great.
I've always been an integrationist. Our federal system has been a great source of annoyance to me,* and I'm one of the few Americans who would support our membership in the EU.** (A cause evidently so popular a cursory google search didn't even provide a conspiracy website propounding its possibility alongside the existence of chemtrails.)
There are some valid reasons to remain separate, such as language barriers and distance, as you said, but these reasons become far less salient as time goes by.
Even if I'm pretty sure the only Human League I'll ever see in my lifetime is the one who did that song about the waitress in the cocktail bar, Scotland leaving out of the UK, or a country centrifuging out of the EU, or--God forbid--a US state pulling out of America, would set back that goal by decades, and if it had a domino effect, centuries.
*Of course, there's always something to be said against a single point of failure. It's also possible that I don't like federalism merely because, as a lawyer, the existence of federalism makes geographical career mobility extremely cumbersome.
**I'm pretty sure nothing there is a deal-breaker. I guess we'd have to stop killing people.
When the complexities involve Human Rights, personal property and United States property, then they need to be considered-- that may or may not involve "standing in the way."
And to add further complexity, let's consider the fact that States aren't the only political subdivisions in the United States. What if the majority of the citizens of Duluth voted to secede? Or Barnstable County? Or the two acres owned by Joe Bob Clampett in the Adirondacks?
I think you'd need to read some Canadian history to understand that. I am very sympathetic to separatist Quebecois. They have been fighting for their cultural existence for a very long time. Look at the history of the Acadians and the Metis and it's no wonder they feel under siege.
RJDiogenes said:
I don't see what human rights issues would be involved in a hypothetical Alaskan secession. And property? Do me a favour...
Which part of Canadian history? The deportations and attempted ethnocide? That was in the 18th century. How can you stay mad at something that happened two hundred fifty years ago? It's no doubt a horror and a crime; but it can't reasonably inform your current opinion toward a country. Do English adjust their opinion of modern-day France based on their support of the Jacobite insurgency? Do the Dutch want Spain out of the EU based because the Duke of Alba was mean?
What's happened in the past thirty or forty, the time frame in which most Quebecois have been alive? I mean, as near as I can tell from the Quebecois I know, they've never been deported to France (well, one did move there, but no one made him) or harmed in any way by their membership in the Canadian state. One is nominally a Quebecois separatist, although I don't think he really cares (this guy doesn't care about anything, he's really French and nihilist and pretty great in that regard). Obviously, this isn't a comprehensive survey of Quebecois, just anecdotal.
As far as their culture goes, I'm not aware of any active campaign by the Canadian government to destroy it. The closest thing I've seen was Manitoba being a dick about the Official Languages Act two and a half decades ago, until the SCC told them to knock it off. I'm sure there are some other minor things. But nothing a tenth as bad as the Grand Derangement. Or does this refer to a fear of losing the Quebecois identity in the face of Anglophone Canada and globalization? Because that'd be a silly thing to be afraid of.
The funny thing is, Independent Quebec could immediately fall apart--as far as I am aware, the First Nations want to remain associated with Canada, not a Quebecois state, and the Anglophones would likely demand the right to secede from Quebec and form their own province of Canada. And they'd have to have that right, wouldn't they?
While I think it would have been appropriate to feel very sympathetic fifty years ago, I also think it's less appropriate today.
One reason why separatism has declined in popularity in Quebec is because the Canadian federation has proven flexible enough to address most if not all of Quebec's substantive grievances within the federal framework. The provincial state has proven powerful and autonomous enough to look after Quebec's interests, and safeguard its rights, without becoming independent. The process of changing Canada to accommodate Quebec's aspirations hasn't been easy or pleasant, and even now leaves everyone with a sense of unfinished-ness: but as the French say, only the temporary is permanent.
In fact--the case of Quebec has shown just what a good idea federalism can be, and how well it can work in practice. Ireland, for example, only separated from the UK after three failed attempts to obtain something like the provincial status that Quebec has always enjoyed. Who knows how the history of modern Ireland might have been different if British Conservatives and Unionists had shown even the absolute minimum of good sense on the issue of Home Rule, between 1886 and 1914?
(But then, I guess if they'd possessed even the absolute minimum of good sense, they wouldn't have been Conservatives and Unionists)
What would Scotty do?
And I wouldn't. If the people of Cork decided that they wanted to set up that People's Republic of Cork that they're always joking about, it wouldn't really bother me. So long as there's a peaceful settlement including an open border and dual-citizenship, I would bear no ill-will towards the citizens of Cork or their new government. In fact, if they decided to lower excise duty on alcohol, I'd probably visit the area more frequently than I do now!
And what would you say to someone who said that they were okay with black people going on civil rights marches and demanding their rights so long as those rights aren't granted and they continue to sit at the back of the bus?
[PEDANT]Technically, following the adoption of the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 2004, they must also have a parent that is eligible to be an Irish citizen at the time of their birth. But the principle remains intact.[/PEDANT]
[PEDANT]Actually, abortion is also illegal in Northern Ireland as the law legalising it in the UK didn't apply there and the NI Assembly has no desire to legalise it. So one would have to go east, across the sea.[/PEDANT]Kegg said:
I wouldn't. Not because I think America is evil or not a true democracy, but because I profoundly disagree with how Americans exercise their democracy, particularly when it comes to economic practice. Should the USA ever join the EU it would be the biggest and most influential nation by far, and I don't want Americans telling us what to do.
My point is that people with different cultures aren't always going to agree, and sometimes it just makes sense for them to go their own ways. Like it or not, the culture of Alaska is reasonably different from the culture of California or Texas or New York or Florida and should there come a time when they decide that they'd be happier deciding things for themselves without mandates being imposed by people thousands of kilometres away, or if they just want to represent themselves on the world stage, then I would support their cause. Not because I support their goals, but because I support their right to set their own goals, just like I would hope others support ours.
The UK is okay, I guess, we're like 4th most powerful armed forces in the world but 25th most powerful when it comes to man power, we're out numbered but smart.
We have something like 20 different military operations all going on dotted around the world... We're small, it's 2011, the UK isn't the country it once was; So what delusions does Scotland have? - The UK is great, but even then we get too big for our own boots.
We have something like 20 different military operations all going on dotted around the world... We're small, it's 2011, the UK isn't the country it once was; So what delusions does Scotland have? - The UK is great, but even then we get too big for our own boots.
Yeah, but I didn't like that amendment, I liked the pre-2004 laws better... so I reflexively go to them in my mind. My bad.
What, really? Huh. This certainly shows how much thought I've given to that matter (and domestic politics generally). I remembered reading that abortion was one of the few bipartisan issues in Northern Ireland, but that's as far as I got.
Generally should not try to talk politics when sleep deprived, clearly.
That they were a racist and I didn't want to hang out with them any more?
Well, in fairness, this is one of the reasons I'd support membership, because we outnumber even the largest current EU component state by a factor of four, and so we would be unlikely to lose on anything but marginal issues such as capital punishment (as I understand it, there's nothing fundamentally incompatible with the rights granted by the US Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty or other documents).
The practical solution here is that the U.S. could only join a multinational union of the same type once the EU had integrated into its own polity. Then you'd outnumber us, although we'd still probably be better organized (cultural homogeneity and all).
Problem: Canada and the other Anglopshere nations get left out of this paradigm, unfortunately, because they're all so comparatively tiny.
When does it end? Part of the reason that Europe has so far fought at least one devastating war against itself in every century that ends with "y" is its political division. Nation states develop a life of their own--they exist in a Hobbesian state of nature with each other, bound only loosely by international law and treaties, and really, those are fictions in the absence of any overarching authority.
Europe will not war again in the foreseeable future, but that is the triumph of integrationist ideals. But if every petty county becomes a sovereign state and the Union were to dissolve, interstate violence hardly seems out of the question, especially in the long term.
I also like being a member of a powerful, unified country that can stand against any in the world in a violent confrontation. This is preferable to being a member of one of the West's smallest, poorest nations, that doesn't even have ballistic missiles, which is what I would get if my state seceded. And no one state, except maybe California, could ever exercise considerable global influence.
And lastly, I sort of feel like I have an ownership right in California or Texas or New York or Florida, though I am not a resident of those states. I would certainly have a right to go there, if I so chose, and to participate in their democratic processes and economies and to expect the treatment of a citizen. It's my country, and I would not easily recognize the right of forty million Californian to take that away from me (or for four million South Carolinians to take that away from them, although God knows why they'd want to move here).
Is that particularly strange?
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The thing is, Europe in 2011 has way more countries than Europe in say, 1914. Off the top of my head, those would include Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Estonia, Lativa, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland, Hungary.
And while we can credit integrationism, it'd be worth noting that recent European wars, such as they are, are either from internal strife within a country - like Yugoslavia - or the actions of stateless organizations (Basque, Irish). Aside from the Soviet Union, there's never been any serious threat of military strife between European nations.
