Secession Talk

The bears ate him, you know.

I'm halfway through my first metaphor post, but I got distracted by all the furor about secession. Philly talk radio host Dom Giordano was blasting it as kookery, but I'm inclined to be less sanctimonious about it. There's a lot of grieving going on. No matter what happens in 2016, our country will never be the same. Realizing that fact is like experiencing a death in the family. Drudge is even reporting an election related suicide and an attempted murder. Secession seems a milder impulse.

But it does seem naive, a tantrum with no good potential outcomes. And maybe a shade less than heroic. Heroic would be striking out on your own to find the next free frontier, like Grizzly Boy above. Less than heroic is imagining that you can somehow keep everything you're used to, town, schools, friends, etc, by pretending you're no longer a part of the country you still want to live in. And what about the 40-plus percent of your neighbors who want no part of YOUR Brave New World.  Reeducate'em? Jail'em? Kill'em?

Many of the states that went for Romney and might have a chance of passing a secession referendum are land-locked.  Even in a peaceful settlement with the Feds, you can look forward to tariffs, border controls, passport and customs messes, and monster air travel woes.

The states that aren't landlocked better hope that their economies can survive blockades by the U.S. Navy, which even under Obama retains a strangling power for enemies of the United States.

And if the Feds decide on a military solution, kiss your complacent asses goodbye. The Second Amendment, however sacred, long ago lost the arms race between private citizens and the U.S. military. From the moment they are ordered to end a threat of armed sedition, the lifespan of said sedition will be measured in hours, if not minutes.

If you're that fed up, run away. It makes more sense than secession and it's actually nobler in that you're not forcing others to pay for your grief.

Believe me, I understand that the grief is real. Here's the song they used at the end of Grizzly Man. This week I think it speaks to all of us.

Even if we're not from the southwest. We still have cowboys in New Jersey. You probably have them too, wherever you are.

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