Secession Fever Spreading To States Across America‏ – OpEd

By

Citizens in more and more U.S. states are petitioning the federal government to allow them to secede from the United States, according to news stories aired on Fox News Channel on Thursday. By the time President Barack Obama celebrates Inauguration Day, citizens in all 50 states will be in the process of compiling their petitions and submitting them to the Obama White House with an ultimate goal of being allowed to peacefully secede from the union.

While liberal-left pundits are ridiculing these petitions calling them attempts by the “far-right” to create disharmony between conservatives and liberals, the mainstream news media are beginning to cover this quiet rebellion by Americans who believe in states’ rights.

For example, according to Drew Zahn of Christianity Today, Louisiana’s secession petition has more than 14,000 signatures, more than halfway to the threshold needed after which the White House has pledged to respond. Texas, is another state to join the secessionists with about 25,000 signatures.

According to political experts such as strategist Mike Baker, Americans are becoming disenchanted with the federal government’s lack of perspective on issues of great concern — illegal aliens, crime, economic turmoil — while intruding into the private lives of citizens with gun-control laws and other intrusions.

“Many [citizens] are angry at federal government intrusion into their lives and into matters that were intended by our Founding Fathers to be relegated to the individual states,” said Baker.

“Take, for instance, the police power. Since the beginning of our republic, police and law enforcement was considered a function of each state in the union. Now we have federal law enforcement agencies who are taking away police powers from states. Why does an agency [ATF] created to oversee issues related to alcohol, tobacco and firearms need to have SWAT teams?” asks the conservative political strategist.

“I believe that because the federal government refuses to perform their duty of protecting U.S. sovereignty that more and more state legislatures find it necessary to protect their own individual sovereignty. The feds are careful not to mistreat illegal alien criminals, for example, but they see no problem with wiping out an entire compound of American citizens as happened in [the Branch Davidian compound] Waco, Texas,” warns former NYPD detective Sid Franes.

“Look at California: they are preparing to release almost 50,000 convicts because of overcrowding. Why isn’t the federal government providing funds to keep those criminals locked up? Instead, they provide billions of dollars for abortions overseas,” he added.

Not only does the U.S. Constitution provide sovereignty, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states.

So far, only a few states have declared sovereignty or are petitioning to secede from the union, but several states are considering legislation to do so. Some legislation addresses all aspects of states’ rights, while other legislation addresses certain actions such as abortion control and gun owners’ rights.

Jim Kouri

Jim Kouri, CPP, formerly Fifth Vice-President, is currently a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, and he's a columnist for Examiner.com. In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (www.kgab.com). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *