4 ms·

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but since when is seceding from a government that you don't think represents your interests un-American?

orthecreedence 10y ago
Since the Civil War, probably. The people who fly the traitor's flag would argue otherwise, but then, if they want to leave America, they are un-American, no?
- unclenoriega 10y ago
  I would tend to be more cynical and put it at right after the formation of the United States. Self-determinism seems to very much be a "Do as I say, not as I do," sort of thing. Certainly that is another way to look at it. I can imagine that modern-day secessionists, like the CSA founders before them, would argue that it's the other guy who has changed.
vonnik 10y ago
There are a lot of responses to a government that doesn't represent your interests. Secession is only one, and it's one of the most violent and the most risky. There are many ways to exercise democratic pressure in America, even when one's presidential candidate doesn't win. Anyone who cares should be putting pressure on their local and national representatives to investigate Trump's past and present business practices, block the campaigns of his bigoted cronies, and calling for an audit of the vote, which was clearly swayed by both Russia and the FBI. Secessionists just show that they don't know how democracy works. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you lose big. I find this poem by Anna Akhmatova quite powerful and topical: I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, My songs are not for them to praise. But I pity the exile's lot. Like a felon, like a man half-dead, dark is your path, wanderer; wormwood infects your foreign bread. But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know, we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you...more proud... (1922) http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/874564/poems-of-anna-akhmatova http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/874564/poems-of-anna-akhma...

orthecreedence 10y ago

Since the Civil War, probably. The people who fly the traitor's flag would argue otherwise, but then, if they want to leave America, they are un-American, no?

unclenoriega 10y ago
I would tend to be more cynical and put it at right after the formation of the United States. Self-determinism seems to very much be a "Do as I say, not as I do," sort of thing. Certainly that is another way to look at it. I can imagine that modern-day secessionists, like the CSA founders before them, would argue that it's the other guy who has changed.

vonnik 10y ago

There are a lot of responses to a government that doesn't represent your interests. Secession is only one, and it's one of the most violent and the most risky. There are many ways to exercise democratic pressure in America, even when one's presidential candidate doesn't win. Anyone who cares should be putting pressure on their local and national representatives to investigate Trump's past and present business practices, block the campaigns of his bigoted cronies, and calling for an audit of the vote, which was clearly swayed by both Russia and the FBI. Secessionists just show that they don't know how democracy works. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you lose big. I find this poem by Anna Akhmatova quite powerful and topical: I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, My songs are not for them to praise. But I pity the exile's lot. Like a felon, like a man half-dead, dark is your path, wanderer; wormwood infects your foreign bread. But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know, we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you...more proud... (1922) http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/874564/poems-of-anna-akhmatova http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/874564/poems-of-anna-akhma...