Localism is a good thing. Greater autonomy for distinct regions generally leads to more liberty. Even if specific regions trample upon human rights, their smaller geographical area makes it easier for those who feel oppressed to move to another region.
All else being equal, a smaller state is usually comprised of fewer people and less cultural diversity. Less diversity means fewer special interest groups, which, in turn, means greater liberty for the individual. Today’s America is a relatively free country despite its diversity, not because of it.
When bad things happen, as they ultimately do, an organization (whether it be a company or a nation-state) will respond by creating more laws in order to prevent the misfortune from happening again. Over time, these laws become oppressive; they threaten the very foundation of liberty itself. Having more citizens/employees increases the frequency of bad things happening. Hence, the more people in said organization, the more laws will be created to protect them from misfortune. Smaller states, with less people, will thus have fewer laws and more individual liberty.
A region has a chance of winning its autonomy only if there is a certain amount of consensus within the region. In other words, only if there is a common sense of identity within that region. Hispanics/Mexicans identify, primarily, as “Hispanic/Mexican.” This is what I’ve seen. It’s what they, themselves, tell me. Others have similarly noted that Hispanics in Texas do not tend to identify with the South or Texas. Speaking of more recent arrivals, on the forum “CityData.com, TexasReb writes:
No, what I mean is, and this is just personal experience and IMHO, that hispanic Texans (legal or not), do not, as a general rule, feel any Southern identity…and?…to take it further? A noteable percentage really don’t feel all that much “Texas” identity either. Perhaps because Texas IS essentially a Southern state and so much of the history and culture is at odds with their own ancestry and heritage…?
Not that “TexasReb”, or myself, are authorities on this matter. But the perception is that Hispanics identify as “Mexican” or “Hispanic,” and not so much as members of whatever local society they might happen to now find themselves in (with the exception of some long-established Southern Hispanic families). Absent evidence to the contrary, I’ll go with my own observations.
Rarely will 100% of a population support secession. Even during the American revolution, there was no clear consensus among Americans to secede from the British Empire. If 20% of the American colonies had been Hispanic, and receiving support and benefits from Britain, how might the War of Independence have played out?
Since secession requires a certain amount of local identity, and since today’s immigrants have their own identity, I would say that the influx of immigrants hurts secessionist movements. At best, it dilutes support for secessionist movements.
A case in point, anecdotal to be sure, was a recent hearing on the proposed state of Jefferson. According to Opposing Views:
The State of Jefferson, as it would be known, would be an amalgamation of rural counties focused on restoring limited, locally focused government at the state level that takes into account issues that effect the bucolic communities of which the state would consist.
On Tuesday, the Siskiyou County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors voted to support the county’s split from the state, in the presence of over 100 people who almost unanimously supported the secession.
Mark Baird, resident of Scott Valley, has been leading the movement to unite Northern Californian and Southern Oregonian counties as a new state, and insisted Tuesday “We have to have government that’s local, understands our issues and has empathy” for people like them…
Board Chair Ed Valenzuela was the sole vote against the declaration, arguing he was elected to solve problems within the syste, not undermine it.
”It comes down to because I took an oath. I took an oath when I ran for re-election, which I just did, and that was to uphold the Constitution, and uphold the constitution of the state of California,” he said. “And within that, and because knowing what it’s like to be a minority, I know the value of having to work from the other side without the numbers and without support. I signed on to do that, I signed on to work within the system I know. I don’t like it, I don’t agree with it all the time but at the same token, I did sign up for that and I will continue to do so.”
Thus, by diluting local identities, immigrants hurt the cause of liberty. How else do they hurt the cause of liberty?
They generally come from cultures where “Give me liberty or give me death” was not a founding principle. They often come from backward cultures that do not share our mores. For example, Human Stupidity recently wrote about a case where a British judge released a child rapist because, in his culture, such acts are not considered wrong. He writes:
18 year old Muslim immigrant Adil Rashid was convicted of statutory rape of a 13 year old girl he met on the internet.
When he went to be sentenced, he told Judge Michael Stokes that he didn’t know it was illegal. He said he attended private Muslim school in Britain and that they had not educated him on British law.
Stokes said that was good enough for him and freed the Rashid with no punishment. TopConservativeNewsJudge Stokes sentenced Rashid to nine months youth custody, suspended for two years, along with a two-year probation supervision order, instead of a more normal 5 year prison term.
Back in January, there was a profoundly disturbing case at Nottingham Crown Court. Adil Rashid, who had “raped” an underage girl, was spared a prison term after the judge heard that the naïve 18-year-old attended an Islamic faith school where he was taught that women are worthless. Rashid told psychologists he had no idea that having sex with a willing 13-year-old was against the law;
As immigrant-driven rapes increase in the Western world, we can expect ever more draconian anti-(statutory) rape laws, which will inevitably lead to innocents being prosecuted as well. Similarly, Mexicans don’t appear to consider drunk driving to be as serious a matter as do most Americans. As drunken Mexican immigrants continue to mow down Americans on our roads, ever more harsh anti-drunk driving laws will be passed in reaction. Innocents will be caught in this legal web.
In the past, immigrants were expected to give up their native cultures and assimilate. Most were eager to do so. But now they are encouraged to keep their own traditions. In the case of Hispanics, they’re even encouraged to keep their own language. All this leads to increased cultural diversity – which we are told is a good thing. To those who believe cultural diversity, in one geographical area, is a good thing, I suggest they study post-colonial sub-Saharan African history. Rwanda and Congo are good examples of what such diversity brings. Nigeria is another.
Not Hispanic, but you are very close. Don’t think mestizo, think métis. Think French and Indian.
The Quebecois were told that they wouldn’t be getting their independence, but that they’d be more likely to save their autonomy if they stuck with the Crown.
The use of the term “Hispanic” as a racial term among white separatists is a mistake. There are plenty of white Hispanics (Chileans, Argentinians, Uruguayans, and – of course, since they do actually count as Hispanic – the Spaniards) who are indistinguishable from any other white Europeans or European-derived people and who could easily be assimilated into other white societies (or vice versa). If we want to talk about Amerindians or mestizos who are Hispanic, it’s best to specify that that is what we mean. If I were I white Hispanic proud of my white European heritage, I would be seriously insulted by the way American white nationalists throw around the label “Hispanic” as something necessarily meaning a kind of non-white. The article above was pretty decent overall, though.
Point taken. But even white Hispanics, in large numbers, can hurt separatist movements.
It’s possible that they could under certain circumstances, but I don’t think they would hurt separatists anymore than having large numbers of Italians, French, Greeks, Poles, or Russians suddenly coming into a region of America (I know you might say that is unlikely to happen, but most white Hispanics tend to stay in their own countries as well). Besides, I’ve spoken to people from places like Spain and Argentina who a racially aware and they do not feel any kind of solidarity with Mexicans or other mestizo/Amerindian Hispanics; they identify with other whites/Europeans. If they lived in America, they would likely be part of a white separatist movement just as long as it accepts them. This is why I made my previous comment to begin with, I just think more people need to be more careful of how they use the term “Hispanic.” I am hoping that you and other white nationalists adopt my approach on the matter, because our message would be better off that way.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13800#.UjFGRdK-rSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEbhdNJqw4g
Go home, join the IDF and fight for YOUR country!
I’d never even heard of this guy Simmons. He doesn’t speak for me. The article you linked to is interesting though.
Why are you trying to deceive me? Why do you not know?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(band)
Apparently you ARE an Israeli in America. Just like Gene Simmons.
Go home, join the IDF and fight Syria. Of course you have a reason to – to claim the Golan Heights.
Why you want me to go to Syria and fight on your behalf – If you want the Golan Heights. then please go fight for it. But you and your country have to do that. Leave my country out of it.
Your nation and MY NATION are not really ”allies” because of YOUR COUNTRIES SPYING on me:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/09/nsa-treason.html
(the rest of this post edited out by JAY for vulgar and offensive content.
I’m not versed in pop culture, nor have I any obligation to learn it. This is not the place for insults; it’s a place for reasoned discussion.
I wonder if a state will ever be able to secede other than in the case of civil war.
Talk of secession – or, the more fantastical, rebellion – strike me as a bit silly, indeed somewhat childlike.
Look, since inadvertently swallowing the red pill many years back (thanks for both ruining and enhancing my life Steve Sailer), I’ve marveled at what this country has become. Read a book or watch a movie from the 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s. It’s enough to make you cry. To see white men acting like men instead of cowering dogs, to see women embrace being a woman, to see whites kids playing in city streets, it’s mind-boggling to realize what we’ve become and what we’ve lost. (Granted, there was bad stuff as well. Jim Crow was pretty nasty; however, the older I get, the more sympathetic I get to how harsh those rules were. The hard lines may have grown not out of simple-minded racial hatred but generations of hard-earned experience.)
(By the way, Jews have lost nearly as much as gentiles. Granted, if Jewish elites had some hazy goal of creating a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society that presumably would be safer for Jews, i.e. pogroms are more likely in a white, heterogeneous country, than mission accomplished. But most Jews that I’ve ever known – non-elites, I’m afraid – are in the same boat as their gentiles friends, trying to buy their way into decent schools by moving out to overpriced, stale suburbs. Regular Jews have paid a big price for their elites somewhat overblown fears of Ward Cleaver coming at them with a pitchfork.)
Believe me, there’s nothing more that I’d like to see than Texas or some western states seceding from the Union and forming a country that overwhelming white – and proud of it. But it’s not going to happen. First off, the federal government – even with an ambivalent country – can muster some serious fire-power. Just ask Gen. Lee. Second, the idea of seceding is so on the fringe of society that it probably ranks behind the flat-earth society. Americans remain bizarrely patriotic. Yea, they may not like this politician or that policy, but to try and break free from the country. No chance. Finally, Americans are laughably lazy. Maybe some real political change could have happened before TV and radio, but not now. Much easier to watch the game or the new Duck Dynasty.
Nope. I’d be shocked if anything major happened in my lifetime. I’d lay odds that we continue to drift toward some weird amalgamation of Brazil, Mexico, Texas, New Mexico and California. They’ll be a lot more poverty, less freedom, more inequality, more crime, no sense of community outside of the elite. Frankly, a fairly crappy country, though better than many others, but not even on the same planet as what it once was.
My point applies to separatist movements worldwide. Not just in the U.S. Also, things can change.
Oh, I agree with your point. Indeed, your post reinforces my feelings.
On the idea that things change, I agree with that as well. The Soviet Union fell apart in a relatively short amount of time. I don’t think that too many average Russians in 1979 thought the whole system would collapse in a decade. So change in this country is possible as well.
However, with the Soviet Union, at least the Russian people understood that they were being kept down by an oppressive government. In the U.S., people don’t even realize what’s going on. Yea, lots of people are upset, but do they really understand the problem. “It’s the liberals!,” or “It’s the conservatives!”
No, it’s not.
We live in a quasi-theocracy that prays to the god of Equality. Either you believe in “equality” or you’re evil. Not mistaken, evil. Because who doesn’t want equality. Who doesn’t want a world where people are equal. All men are created equal! It’s in the Constitution. If you’re against equality, you’re not just evil, you’re un-American.
There’s not a politician, member of the media, bishop, rabbi, academic or any other public figure that openly challenges the premise that in a fair world there would be equal outcomes among groups.
With that off the table, it’s impossible to discuss immigration (a Mestizo Indian has just as good of a chance to be a scientist as a Jew if only we could eliminate racism, don’t you know), education, welfare and any other topic.
We’re a proposition nation that can mold anyone in the world into an American. And bringing in these people won’t hurt the current residents. The more, the merrier. After all, those new arrivals will be just like us in a generation or two.
Until I start to hear people on the ground openly challenging the god of Equality, I won’t believe that change is imminent. Right now, I hear from my liberal friends that racism holds blacks and Hispanics back and from my conservative friends that cultural holds them back. Racism and culture are fixable, so we just go round and round.
To be honest, I don’t think secession is possible, in most cases, without rebellion. It can only happen when an ethnic majority dislikes an (geographically concentrated) ethnic minority enough to not want them as fellow citizens, but is also magnanimous enough not to simply use their superior numbers to oppress the ethnic minority. In all other cases, secession requires violent revolution, or at least the threat thereof (since it might make the ethnic majority more cautious about abusing the minority, and more willing to simply sever ties with them).
Trying to achieve secession through democratic means is absurd. By definition, a minority would have to seek political efficacy through a coalition government. But this very coalition would have an incentive to keep the ethnic minority in their political union, otherwise they would lose power. This is why ethnic nationalist parties so often turn into organizations that lobby for government handouts and favors for their ethnic group. Their allies will gladly make them dependents who will vote for their coalition every election, but they won’t allow them independence.
I bet on a racial/cultural revolution. It won’t be pleasant.
”By the way, Jews have lost nearly as much as gentiles. Granted, if Jewish elites had some hazy goal of creating a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society that presumably would be safer for Jews, i.e. pogroms are more likely in a white, heterogeneous country, than mission accomplished.”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q
Teach the world ”to sing in perfect harmony” in Israel first OK?
“if Jewish elites had some hazy goal of creating a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society that presumably would be safer for Jews,”
If European-Americans go, Jews will be collateral damage. Their lives will be just as hellish living in a multi-cultural sociiety. They are disliked by minorities as much as Europeans. Hope the elite Jewish wake up, soon, like tomorrow.
I used to think that the likely scenario was going to eventually be self-segregation or a “soft partitioning,” with Hispanics gravitating to the southwest, whites the upper Midwest, blacks to the south, and so on. The country would muddle along somehow, with Washington DC extracting money from the whites and Asians to keep the blacks and Hispanics bought off, and therefore less likely to cause trouble. Eventually, the whole thing would collapse when, let’s say, a war came along and large numbers refused to fight for a government that was an enemy of a large percentage of its own people.
Now I’m not so sure. Obama’s DOJ has recently made some noises about forcing diversity on neighborhoods they deem too non-diverse. Obviously they will use a financial stick to make this happen, but when large numbers of people refuse to go along, what then? Semi-forced settlement of people in neighborhoods through public subsidies? The use of eminent domain to seize private property for the purpose of building high density, low income housing in the middle of neighborhoods where there’s nothing but single family homes? Striking down zoning laws as discriminatory and a violation of the civil rights of protected minorities? Issuance of internal passports, with the government telling you where you may and may not travel, live, and work?
Maybe none of this will happen. But I would not bet against the do-gooders trying.
“Striking down zoning laws as discriminatory and a violation of the civil rights”
It’s being done all over the country, right now for mosques.
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It’s not just the Southwest. I live in the Kansas City area and there are neighborhoods you could walk through here that would have you thinking you were in Mexico with all the Hispanics and Spanish signage on the streets. Last week I actually saw a guy in a straw sombrero riding a horse down the sidewalk along a busy business street, Central Avenue, in Kansas City, Kansas. There are areas where a church or a business is just as likely to fly the Mexican flag as the American. A car dealership near where I live has rows of interspersed Mexican and American flags flying over its fence, which strikes me as symbolic of what’s happening to the country, with Mexico and the U.S. gradually dissolving into each other. My town even has a Consulate of Mexico, like fifty or so other cities in America; and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if these outposts of the Reconquista eventually begin to perform governmental functions here and Mexican officials start qualifying for American pensions, their soldiers benefiting from the GI bill, etc.
Jewamongyou
Why did you stop posting on Robert lindsay’s blog?
There is a better one started by Dota and BAG but you don’t seem to comment on that one either?
I still post there occasionally; I’ve got nothing against Robert. I’ve been working long hours recently. That’s why even my posts here have been sparse.
I read the post and skipped most of the comments. Apologies if others have said this. Back a few years ago, a former Canadian prime minister (can’t remember which one) gave a speech admitting he flooded Canada with immigrants to prevent Quebec from seceding. The strategy was to continue allowing enough immigration to keep secession out of reach. I believe the EU member states are doing the same with immigration. The Eurocrats want a United States of Europe so bad they’re willing to destroy their own countries to do it. This is particularly attractive to those who would like to consolidate power at a higher level and rule by decree. Big business likes this for obvious reasons. I consider it treason. Unsurprisingly, the Blair government who’s pushed both immigration and EU harder than anyone repealed the laws against treason.