I do appreciate a thoughtful response, but there is a movement in CA. that seems to be creeping along for the state to declare itself a separate nation and to seek recognition by the UN.
Everything I had read indicated they were working to become a separate STATE ala West Virginia - NOT become a separate nation.
But, as a nation we have become balkanized to the point of flying apart into thirty different provinces and nation states that would be almost in a state of perpetual war with one another... just like Europe was.
As far as 1865 answering the question I don't believe it applies. The civil war ended slavery and the union was preserved, but that doesn't mean it will be preserved forever.
Our 'betters' who have lectured us about stamping down the notion because the question of whether or not we can separate from the union - peaceably or by force - has been settled. And their answer is 'NO'.
Personally, I think that answer should be tested, because it has become self-evident that almost half of the population can no longer peaceably co-exist with the other half. Sadly, the idea of a united nation standing on a common foundation of core principles is over. I see and read it every single day. Even here on this board by a Leftist pretending to be a Conservative.
I think your point about the govt looking at us as it's property is really the key issue as well as those useful idiots who support this notion.
Again, you are talking about half the population if not moreso - the same numbers that also think our rights come from government grant and can be 'reasonably regulated' or abolished for the good of safety and security.
It really is the reason a serious discussion about dividing the nation into two countries is needed.
Might as well talk about civil war openly then, because that is exactly how such discussion is viewed and is exactly the course that will follow. Because you are dealing with a people and a government who see that what you have as THEIRS, because your privilege and skin color or your status attained what you have unfairly. Not to mention government views all money and wealth as belonging to itself. It will be said after a separation that it is NOT FAIR that maybe your state has deepwater ports and theirs is landlocked; or that your state can grow crops and their state can only grow traffic jams and government welfare. Envy, jealousy and greed are the motivating factors of human nature - regardless if they want to pretend that government can hold those in check.
Those fools who think an all powerful govt is such a good thing don't recognize the exceptionalism of the USA. Our country was founded on the principal belief that our rights are endowed to us by our creator and that govt only exists to protect those rights, not to determine what are rights are.
And again, more than half the population no longer believes in or thinks that. In fact, they consider those things to be evil and that government is the tool to grant rights and arbitrate equality and fairness.
Coexisting in a nation with that mindset will only result in liberties being surrendered to appease, or warfare to protect them from regulation and abolition.
Not a pretty picture, but an inevitability that our Founders, history and human nature warned us about.
