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~ Thoughts on Red States and "Deplorables."

Ruby Red Republic

Monthly Archives: February 2017

Jeff Sessions and the Stool of Everlasting Southern Repentance

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, American History, Conservatism, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Attorney General, Clarence Thomas, Hugo Black, Jeff Sessions, Jim Langcuster, Southerners, Supreme Court, The Left

jeff-sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

I’ve said before that as a proud Southerner, I struggle sometimes with being an American – and the brouhaha over Attorney General Jeff Sessions is one of many reasons why.

I really wonder how much of the Senate and Establishment media opposition to Sessions occurred simply because he was a conservative Alabamian and a Southerner. For as long as the left reigns culturally in this country, white Southerners with conservative leanings, which, frankly, represent the vast majority of these Southerners, will be expected to remain on their stools of everlasting repentance, it seems.

And as I have argued before, this really is a disgrace, especially considering the disproportionate role Southerners, particularly working-class Southerners, serve in protecting this country’s national security interests all over the world.

I think that it’s also worth pointing out that with the exception of Justice Thomas, who spent most of his life outside the South, no other Southerner sits on the Supreme Court and hasn’t for generations. Throughout most of the history of the United States, there was an attempt to maintain at least the semblance of geographical diversity on the Supreme Court.  But since 2014, the Court is composed of a majority from the Northeastern United States, with seven justices coming from states to the north and east of Washington, D.C.

The last white Southerner to serve in the U.S. Supreme Court was Justice Hugo Black of Alabama.

Shortly after Black’s passing, President Richard Nixon opens a cultural hornet’s nest when he attempted to nominate two Southerners to the Court, Clement Haynesworth of South Carolina, and G. Harrold Carswell of Georgia.

The Elite Media’s Qualified View of Secession

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Devolution, U.S. Politics

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Calexit, California Independence, Catalan Independence, Catalan Separatism, Jim Langcuster, secession, Separatism, Texas Nationalist Movement

catalonian-independence

Photo: Courtesy of Dzlinker

Once again, I’m fascinated with The New York Times’ growing emphasis on federalism, regionalism, and – perish the thought, secession!

Carme Forcadell, president of the Catalan Parliament, writes a about judicial efforts by the Spanish government to impede the the open discussion of debate of Catalan independence within Parliament.

Forcadell relates that the Spanish government’s special prosecutor filed a complaint charging her with contempt of court and neglect of duty for allowing separatist debate to occur. It is one of many judicial methods the Madrid government has employed to stifle debate over independence.  Some 400 municipal officials have also been charged with involvement in discussions advancing Catalan independence.

Forcadell extols the open and unimpeded discussion and debate about Scottish independence that has ensued for years in Holyrood, the Scottish Parliament as well as the acquiescence  of the British government, which even acceded to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum – a sharp contrast to Spain’s obstructionist attitude vis-a-vis the Catalans.

Despite the referendum’s unsuccessful outcome, “democracy was the winner,” Focadell affirms.

But Forcadell draws a sharp distinction between Catalan and Scottish independence struggles and others unfolding in Europe. She apparently regards sovereignty and independence movements as acceptable only if they are progressive in nature. Brexit and other Eurosceptic and “right-wing populist” movements don’t count as legitimate independence movements.

And, of course, this explains the Establishment media’s fascination with California’s growing separatist sentiment. California has legitimate grievances because these are pro-statist and progressive in nature.

And, conversely, this accounts for why the Texas Independence Movement has barely rated as a blip on the Establishment media’s news radar, except, of course, when the intention is to underscore the specter of right-wing extremism in America.

If Hillary were the 45th president instead of Trump and Texas were the state making the most noise about independence, I am virtually certain that federalism, sovereignty and secession would receive little, if any, positive mention in the hallowed pages of the New York Times or any Establishment agit/prop organ.

No, secession gets favorable mention only if it takes on a progressive hue.

But all of us red state hoi polloi  should take heart that Trump’s upset victory has galvanized “respectable” secessionist discourse in at least one blue state. That, at least, will ensure that the wider topic of secession will become a more frequent and mainstream topic of discourse over the next few years.

The Unpalatable American Truth about Secession

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American History, Uncategorized

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Articles of Confederation, Calexit, Constitutional Ratification, Devolution, Jim Langcuster, secession, U.S. Constitution

washington-first-inauguration

Washington’s First Inauguration in 1789.  He initially presided over 11 states, as North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet acceded to the new Union.

It’s one of the great and, for many left-leaning Americans, unpalatable facts associated with American history.

And this great and unpalatable fact was raised, however unwittingly, by Georgetown University School of Law Professor David Super in a recent discussion of the Convention of States effort.  As Super stresses, the Founders broke the law during the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by abandoning the Articles of Confederation to form a new national compact under a new Constitution. How? By ignoring the provision in the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union that required not only the approval of the Congress of the United States but also the unanimous consent of all of the states before any revision of the Articles could occur.

The Delegates’ Commission under the Articles of Confederation

Bear in mind that delegates commissioned to represent their states at the convention in Philadelphia were “solely and expressly” charged with the task of revising the Articles of Confederation, not with drafting an entirely new framework of government.

Over the course of discussing the intractable limitations associated with the Articles, though, the delegates concluded that simple revision was an impractical goal.  Redressing their acute limitations would require a whole new written charter, one that likely would not be accepted by all the states.

So the delegates resolved to draft an entirely new Constitution, though one that would require the formal assent  of only three-fourths of the states for it to go into effect. Eleven States eventually ratified the new constitution in the intervening twenty months between the convention delegates’ signing of the new charter and the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States.

The U.S. Constitution: Born of Secession

Think about that: Eleven states, in effect, seceded from the Confederation to form the new American compact we know today as the American Union. Yet, two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had not  ratified the Constitution and, consequently, were out of the Union when Washington took the his first presidential oath of office in

North Carolina finally came into the Union in November of 1789.  However, Rhode Island dragged its feet and grudgingly ratified the Constitution after the new federal government threatened to sever commercial relations.  And even then, ratification squeaked by with only two votes.

James Madison’s “Delicate Truth”

The 11 acts of secession that culminated in the new American Union poses what in 21st century parlance would be known as an “inconvenient truth.”

James Madison described it as “the delicate truth” beyond the American Union.

Writing in The Federalist Papers, he described the 11 states’ secession from the Articles of the Confederation to form a new compact as a simple matter of “self-preservation.” He justified this self-preservation on the basis of what he characterized as “the transcendent law of nature; and of nature’s God, which declares that the safety of and happiness of society are the subjects at which political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.”

California Secession: Not Treasonous at All

Simply put, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were no longer capable of securing a lasting,sustainable union and had to be scrapped out of necessity and replaced with something entirely new. And this could be achieved only by a super majority of states seceding from the old constitutional system and creating a newer, more sustainable one.

So, viewed within the wide context of American constitutional history, California’s current secessionist sentiment isn’t treasonous at all but is merely the latest expression of a very well-established American tradition.

Twice Born of Secession

The United States was twice born of secession: first in 1776, when thirteen former colonies issued a joint declaration declaring their intent to withdraw from the British Empire, and later in 1789, when the majority of the states withdrew from the Articles to form a new and improved confederation (Washington’s term for the new union).

And, incidentally, speaking of unpalatable facts, the great nationalist Founding Father Alexander Hamilton repeatedly described the new American  government as a “Confederate Republic” and as a “Confederation” and described the new constitution as a “compact” throughout the Federalist Papers.

But that is another remarkable and rather unpalatable constitutional fact that I’ll save for discussion at a later date.

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