Just in case you have not yet heard, this afternoon a grey and black 2010 Dodge Challenger plowed into a group of Left-wing counter protesters at the controversial “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Before reversing at high speed to flee the scene, the driver injured nineteen and killed one, and has since been apprehended.
The incident marked the climax of what has been a caustic weekend of violence in the latest flash-point of the politically engineered “Culture War” between the American far-Right and the far-Left.
After a few years of this nonsense, the mind-numbing futility should be self-evident, right? This so-called “Culture War” has reduced grown men and women into mobs of children clad in homemade riot gear, carrying baseball bats and other household implements. How is anyone supposed to take them seriously? How can anyone take American politics seriously? These individuals should be ashamed of themselves.
The escalating violence and toxic rhetoric has only served to dispel the illusory belief that 323.1 million diverse Americans can successfully coexist under one political arrangement. Why, after all of this political turmoil and chaos, do Americans fail to grasp this?
In my opinion, the violence and squabbling in what has been portrayed as the most politically divided period of American history since the Civil Rights Era is in part caused by the Federal Government’s encroachment on States’ Rights.
Don’t get me wrong, the States have propagated their own tyranny and have, in many ways, been complacent to (and have even encouraged) Federal despotism. However, the fact remains that the consolidation of Federal power and the Supreme Court’s insistence on setting universal policy for all fifty states has goaded Americans into battling over illusory control of this policy-setting authority.
First and foremost we are voluntaryists here at Liberty Weekly, but if government does exist we would prefer the smallest one possible. Under our logic, it would be hard for the atrocities committed in the name of American hegemony or Maoist China to be carried out by, say, Saint Croix County, the City of Saint Paul (they cannot even fix the roads), or the State of Montana.
Surely, if given ample resources and power, those entities may attempt to commit said atrocities, but one thing is certain: the government of Saint Croix County, Wisconsin is infinitely closer to the people who reside there than the Federal Government (or even the state government, for that matter). Why should they have to live according to the dictate of DC identity politics?
While any time is a good time to talk secession, given today’s events, it is a particularly apt solution towards reversing our ripening contempt for those who would fight for the power to dictate rules for all of us to live by. Why don’t we just pack up our toys and go home?
There is a reason why Thomas Jefferson regularly referred to the Federal Government as “our foreign government”: Washington DC does not represent us in any meaningful way. Yet, despite this fact, we continue to live under its mandates.
Instead of taking to the streets to 1) beg our benevolent overlords to please, just this once, do something in our best interests, and 2) condemn others for doing the same, let us shed our faulty belief in the necessity of a universal political arrangement.
In doing so, we need to focus on building voluntary connections between individuals in which the State is not a part. Let’s focus on the community-building tactics of our Agorist friends with an emphasis on civil dialogue and virtuous outreach without (open) contempt for “statists” (as the old saying goes, you attract more bees with honey than vinegar) or dissenters within our own ranks.
Let’s be better than those who would propagate the so-called “Culture War.” Let’s shed our aggressive predisposition (I am as guilty as any of this). Let us be paragons. Let’s lead by example and show normal Americans that there is an alternative to the dog-and-pony show of the “Culture War” and identity politics.
As the nation (hopefully) pauses to reflect on the toxic violence permeating from events like Charlottesville, perhaps we may humbly, and respectfully press secession as a viable alternative? By some crazy chance, we might get a proverbial foot in the door.
Of course, this all may be hopelessly naive, but nevertheless I will humbly assert secession as an effective solution, coupled with a modest change in approachability. Ultimately, open hearts and mutual respect will go farther than motorcycle helmets, household melee weapons, and shitposting on comment threads across the internet.
