Favorite wars, favorite secessions

The Basics, War
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One way of identifying a person’s ideology is by referencing that person’s “favorite war.”

If you can get your average American to admit that both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were wars against secession, the next heady notion to contemplate is that, just perhaps, the U.S. took the wrong side on at least one of them.

I’d guess that most Americans’ favorite war is World War II. Americans fought against three obvious evil empires (Nazi, Italian fascist, and the Rising Sun), and, in the end brought them down. The worst thing most people I’ve talked to will admit of the war is that “three out of four ain’t bad” — recognizing that the U.S allied itself with the worst of the four regimes then extant, and then fought a Cold War for forty-some years because of that dangerous alliance.

But surely the Civil War has nearly as many (or more) “buffs.” And the Civil War certainly exerts a great deal of influence over our (varying) sense(s) of allegiance.

For instance, I often talk up secession, refer to it as a basic right and an obvious foundational aspect to any free federal union. It may be traumatic, but it is as necessary as divorcing an abusive spouse, or as satisfying as telling a crazy boss to “Take this job and shove it.” The usual argument against secession is a knee-jerk “but the Civil War settled that” routine. How many times have I heard this? Must be dozens.

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The New Slave Masters

Police Statism
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Welcome to the new, more egalitarian America: we are all niggers now.

Wendy McElroy has a piece about the horrifying case of a badged criminal killing two sisters by crashing into the car carrying them with his police car at high speed. The officer, who was driving 126 mph without sirens at the time of the crash, had been sending emails and talking on the telephone seconds before the crash. Despite the clear evidence of criminality, the family could not be certain of a conviction, and opted to accept a plea bargain by the officer. While convicted of a felony, the officer will not have to spend a day in jail. Instead of the lengthy prison sentence which would await any of us, the criminal in this case received 10 years of probation.

Anti-police protest banner While many people who have not concerned themselves with the police will be surprised to hear it, the simple fact is the police are a special class of person in the United States. Not since the era of slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow era have we seen second-class citizenry displayed so unashamedly. And do not think that the comparison between police and slaveholders and oppressors of the past is overstating the case. It is not overstating the case in the slightest. The family of the victims in this case had concerns over whether or not the officer would be convicted at all. The evidence in this case is even stronger than in many of the shameful murders of blacks in the past, yet being able to secure a conviction against the new massahs was a dubious matter.

Police, for all practical matters, have rights far beyond those which ordinary citizens enjoy. Police may request identification from people, detain people, beat people, and even kill innocents, with little or no fear of the negative repercussions which any of us would expect were we to do any of those things. My father described similar experiences in Birmingham in the 1950s. Welcome to the new, more egalitarian America: we are all niggers now. Just as in the past, convictions were difficult to obtain against people who were clearly guilty of assault and murder, so today is it difficult to obtain such convictions. Just as in the past, blacks had nearly no ability to exercise self-defense without severe negative repercussions, so today do people of all races have nearly no ability to defend themselves against thuggery from the elite class.

In light of the new reality, why don’t we reinvigorate some proud American traditions? Police departments already cooperate in apprehending fugitives, so the fugitive slave laws won’t fill the bill. We still have them, as anyone who has been pursued for tax evasion or any number of other phony crimes could tell you. What then? Well, how about just establishing a new 3/5th rule for those of us not in the oppressor class? It would not only be an appropriate reflection of America as it is, but it would also be a constant reminder to us field hands and house slaves of who really runs things around here.

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