Continuing Jason Sorens’ article:
I would like to propose a solution based both on my dissertation research and suggestions from commentators whom I respect: secession (or at least the threat of it). Walter Williams recently wrote in WorldNetDaily:
Americans who wish to live free have two options: We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed to force America’s tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights, or we can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. That can be done by peopling several states, say Texas and Louisiana, controlling their legislatures and then issuing a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Founders did in 1776.(3)
Other well-known libertarians have been advocating similar measures. The pro-secession views of lewrockwell.com and the Ludwig von Mises Institute are well known. Jim Peron told me he advocates peopling New Zealand with libertarians and making it into a libertarian country. Unfortunately, his immigration visa was denied for political reasons. Perhaps he will come to the U.S. and help us.
What I propose is a Free State Project, in which freedom-minded people of all stripes (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, pacifists, even people who just call themselves liberals or conservatives – the only requirement is that you pledge that you will work to reducing government to the minimal functions of protecting life, liberty, and property), establish residence in a small state and take over the state government. I have been running some figures to see how plausible this strategy would be. There are about 40,000 paid Libertarian party members, and the number of dedicated freedom-minded people out there is undoubtedly at least twice that. In the last election the Libertarian Party won 3.2 million unique votes, 400,000 for President; 80 for every LP member in the former case, 10 in the latter. If even half of the LP membership moves to a particular state, we can expect 200,000 votes for the LP presidential candidate just from that state. Furthermore, LP vote percentages are higher for state offices: typically on the order of 2-3%, compared to 0.5% for President. If we multiply 200,000 by 4, we get 800,000 votes for governor and state legislature each. This figure is far in excess of that needed to take over some small states. For example, in Wyoming, the smallest state in the Union, there were 213,659 valid ballots cast in the 2000 U.S. Senate race. (Of course, it’s mathematically impossible to get 800,000 votes in a state like Wyoming, but the point is that even 20,000 hardcore libertarian activists can go a long way in a small state.)
Once we’ve taken over the state government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a sizeable proportion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day. Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them. Once we’ve accomplished these things, we can bargain with the national government over reducing the role of the national government in our state. We can use the threat of secession as leverage to do this.
But didn’t we fight a war over secession almost 150 years ago? Wouldn’t the feds just send in the troops to crush our little experiment? The answer, in short, is no. In “modern, democratic” countries the use of violence against legal secessionist movements is out of the question. For example, no one advocates using force to prevent Quebec from leaving Canada if it so decides. The assumption underlying their recent referendum on secession was that if secession achieved a majority vote, negotiations would immediately begin toward a peaceful separation. The same holds for independence movements in Scotland, Wales, Flanders, Padania, Catalonia, and elsewhere. Indeed, the U.S. has militarily attacked countries for the way in which they treated separatist insurgencies. If the fedgov tried to go Milosevic on us free-staters, how would that look? The key is that we need to pursue secession within the political system, electorally. Attempting it extra-legally is a recipe for disaster, as the Republic of Texas fiasco has demonstrated.
[Editor: For non-secession that seceded, note California emission standards.]
