SLF Position on Secession

There are about 5000 cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic groups in the world. There are only 189 nations. Many communities and regions would secede from their assigned nation states if given the choice. Many of these sub-groups have secessionist movements (by one name or another) and they have millions of adherents. Besides cultural/ethnic/racial movements; there are also secessionist groups based on ideas. Libertarians, survivalists, communalists, radical pacifists, devolutionists, anarchists, futurists and religious groups that are geographically concentrated may wish they could secede. These groups tend to have a commitment to liberty and believe that they should be able to enjoy self determination.

Why do you belong to a nation state? Were you born into it? Were you forced to join it? Did you voluntarily select it? Your relationship to the nation state is slave-master. If you were born into it then you were born a slave. If you were forced to join then you are a captured slave. It is impossible to enter into an agreement to become a slave, so joining a nation state (without secession rights) is invalid. All nations are oppressive, by definition, if they do not recognize secession as a human right.

The modern nation state has existed for about 500 years. What has been the result? Are we not on a course that will inevitably lead to intentional or accidental nuclear war? Are we not in a situation where nation states are used to benefit certain elites at the expense of the common people? Merely having a few democratic institutions and regular elections does not prevent rule by elites.

Social Libertarian Frontierism has an inherent flaw. It is designed to fix one particular nation state – the United States. Currently, the United States government is in deep trouble. There is a huge national debt. There are entitlement program obligations that will be impossible to fulfill because the growth of the economy is not matching the growth of the program costs. Even without any additional discretionary spending, entitlements and interest on the debt could sink the US government. Yet the government views itself as an expanding entity that can grow forever; using the income tax, capital gains tax, and corporate taxes as the fuel of the expansion. It is truly insane. All government will accomplish is the slow strangulation of the private sector. The good news is that government’s successful effort to doom itself is a de facto protection of individual rights. In simple terms, the government will lack the discretionary funds necessary to take away liberty. Social Libertarian Frontierism shows government how to gain the funds to right the ship of state, so we are inadvertently giving them the resources to enslave us. Additionally, SLF allows limited socialism (albeit in a regulated form, under control of the Socio-Economic Supreme Court). Certain activities will be government owned and government controlled, which is socialist. The socialist aspects of SLF are necessary to enable the national treasury to capture profits and replenish national public wealth. Another problem is that SLF will create segmented pockets of socialist behavior, socialist thought and a socialist management structure which hopefully will confine itself to frontierist projects. These are risks of SLF and the widened risk requires additional checks and balances.

The three major checks against tyranny follow. Note that the Constitution is not included, because determined tyrants could bypass the Constitution much like current politicians do when it suits their beliefs:

Voting. Voting can be an important check, but only if the real will of the people is represented by the majority of voters and people are not being massively manipulated by false advertising, a biased media and an elite that can spend more on media than other constituents. Without campaign finance reform, voting is a very weak check on tyranny. The two party system undermines the effectiveness of voting as a check on government. SLF requires actions to enhance the degree to which voting can protect our liberty while also adding demands for better outcomes of government activity. This may include campaign spending limits and public financing.

Guns. Each and every home in the United States should be heavily armed. This is a key guarantee of liberty. The government must fear the people. The government must realize that there are strict limits on the use of police power. The second amendment should be reformed to guarantee that the citizen is free to arm himself or herself to the same degree that an infantry soldier is armed. Automatic weapons should be legal. Grenades should be legal. Maybe there should be restrictions or a line drawn with weapons capable of shooting down commercial passenger aircraft, but citizens must have the weapons to resist oppression and should not be technologically disadvantaged.

Secession. Remember, SLF will dramatically strengthen the US as a nation state. We must ensure that this nation state does not tend toward tyranny and the ultimate check against tyranny is the legal right to orderly, non-violent secession. A secession right will create tremendous pressure to be placed on the nation state and force the nation state to treat citizens as customers. If customers are displeased then they will shop at other stores or open their own stores. Secession should probably be made slightly difficult to prevent the secession option from being used in the heat of the moment over a single dispute. Perhaps a supermajority should be required. Certainly, the correct mechanism for secession is the referendum and the referendum should pass with 67%, lets say.