I don’t get it.
America suddenly has secession fever. Groups in all 50 states have filed to secede from the union, and polls tell us that 25% of Republicans actually want to secede.
Huh? What?
First, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, fought and died to preserve the union against all costs, right? Isn’t that worth something?
Second, as I recall from the tumultuous Sixties, conservatives (Is that what they were called in those days?) were telling the damn anti-war hippies in the streets–“America: Love it or leave it!” and “My country right or wrong!”
But now these same people, having lost a couple of presidential elections in the last four years, say never mind about all that patriotism stuff: they want to take their ball and go home. They don’t want to play the game anymore. They want to end the United States of America and instead form a new confederacy of red states where people all think alike. They don’t like the messy idea of democracy.
A Facebook posting from an otherwise reasonable person the other day proclaimed that sometimes Americans just have to take up arms and resist.
Huh? No seriously, huh???
If there was ever a time for Americans to take up arms and resist, it might have been during the Jim Crow era when blacks were routinely denied their rights, and nobody, including the state and federal governments, seemed to give a damn.
Or maybe, it might have been justified during the Vietnam War, when American boys were told to suit up, head to the Far East, and start killing “gooks.” Fifty-thousand Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lost their lives because our government deemed this a good and just war. Armed resistance to our government at that point might have made some sense, but it never happened. There were angry protests, but they were in the streets, without arms, and they were overwhelmingly peaceful.
Or maybe there could have been resistance to the murky and controversial end to the 2000 presidential election when one man won the popular vote, but another man, because of a conservative Supreme Court and a Republican Florida Secretary of State, managed to get himself named president.
Many Democrats claimed the election had been stolen, but I don’t believe there was anyone seriously promoting secession from the union or armed rebellion.
Just imagine if we had had the same scenario, but with the parties switched, during this last election. Fox News would still be screaming “Fraud!!” and organizing secession parties.
So again, I don’t get it. Elections are lost and won. Unpopular legislation is sometimes passed. That’s what we do in this country. As Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst political system in the world, except for all the others.”
Get used to it. Accept it. And put your guns away.