I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.  — Douglas MacArthur

My Take – When our civilization falls, and it will fall eventually in the manner that all such things crumble, I doubt that the root cause of the collapse will be natural disaster or foreign invaders.  We are strong and flexible enough to deal with those things.  What will weaken us and make us brittle is the degradation of our core values and attachment to the idea of our union.  No invader can stand to our strength so long as we don’t weaken ourselves.  When we stop looking at each other as fellow Americans, we begin that long process that other great civilizations have taken to oblivion.

 

Since last week’s election, several petitions have come up on the White House website asking that various states be allowed to leave the Union.  I find this as detestable as I do those who want to rip down our society in order to plunder its carcass.  We are the United States of America.  We settled the question of secession a century and a half ago.  Want to hold a revolution?  Wait four years and do it the way our Constitution allows, in an election.  And don’t cry to me about fixed elections.  If the other party has an unfair advantage, then get a candidate and a platform that will win by margins greater than the other party can cheat.  Still want to break off and go your own way?  Then do the brave thing and get the Constitution amended to emphatically say that the states have that right and the federal government has the power to acquiesce.    Yes, the 10th Amendment says that the states have all the powers that aren’t stated in the Constitution, but if the founders wanted states to come and go as they pleased, why didn’t they put a mechanism in the Constitution for leaving the Union to mirror the one they put in for joining it?   

 

Yes, the next few years are going to be hard, maybe the hardest we’ve seen in generations.  I oppose the president and his policies.  I question his motivations, and I expect the worst from him.  But my family has not defended this nation for generations in order for me to be in the generation that saw it fall apart.  We need to pull together with those with whom we agree, resist those who want to tear the country apart, physically, economically, and spiritually, and reach out to those with whom we disagree but with whom we can find common cause in other matters.  We do not need to accelerate the balkanization of our nation by wishing for its dissolution.