The Growing Secession Protest

Before continuing with this discussion let's get a few things clear to ensure we understand a few of my premises.

First, no reasonable person should believe that these petitions for secession being filed at the White House's "We The People" website have any chance of action. They also will get nothing more from the President than some respectful platitudes of how we will "have to work together" (read 'you will have to sacrifice your beliefs in the name of compromise while I won the White House and will compromise by giving up very little') and that it is important that the petitioners' voices are heard (read 'you had your chance to whine now shut the f*** up'). Detractors will pass the movement off as only sour grapes, but there is some importance to these petitions. Blowing it off as sore losers is dangerous.

Second, if a state actually started action to secede then I want to be right there. At this point I believe we are skirting on the verge of "Government becom[ing] destructive" and that the Government cogs have forgotten that it they are "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Pro-expansion of government people have forgotten that the government that provides everything must take it all from others...and eventually the consent of those others, no matter how minority they are, will go away.

Finally, while I hope for a secession movement to actually move forward and do so as peacefully as practical, I am not confident that it will be peaceful. It may even result in another civil war. But freedom is never free and always costs blood to retain. A price, though, that is not too steep for the fruits of freedom itself.

As of yesterday there were seven states that had collected over 25,000 signatures on the online petition at the White House's website. That threshold is what is needed to earn a response from the President.

The petition filed by Texas residents has racked up about 100,000 signatures. Six others from Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee have collected 30,000.

It is nothing new for people to say they are leaving the country because of how an election goes. Look at the number of Hollywood geniuses who promised they would leave (and sadly never did follow through). The difference here is I believe most of these people are willing to take action as well...or demand action. With Texas amassing over 100,000 signatures already it is a likely possibility that there will be pressure on state legislatures to actually engage in action. The actions may fail to move far at first in the Texas legislature but the pressure will continue. People will dismiss the actions and demonize those engaged in it (look at how respectfully the Tea Party groups are treated even by the media, much less the opposition). There will be hateful speech (un-prosecuted hate speech, by the way) against the secessionists. But with growing and continual pressure (which will get amped up as Obamacare's and other federal impositions effects become more real to the individual) the actions will start getting close to success (close to passage in the legislature, becoming an actual campaign issue for Texas gubernatorial races, etc). And then we can look back at this warning.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The "evils" from the federal government are reaching a point of not being sufferable to a large portion of the population. Think about the percentage of Great Britain's population that the Revolutionaries represented compared to the entire United Kingdom. Compare that percentage to what you have as of right now where over 675,000 people have signed secession petitions.

These are all a protest and nothing more at this point. But when the media so dramatically covered the Occupy protests (held by people who claimed they spoke for half of a nation that didn't support them in any manner) some people actually thought the Occupy movement's size warranted attention to their complaints. At best count (which unfortunately comes from Wikipedia, so the validity of the size may be overstated) the movement peaked at 75,311. Even if adding in an extremely generous doubling of the median for the locations reported without a figure (median = 100, no figures for 263 locations) the movement's peak numbers were just over 101,000. And that collection of give-me-everything-without-working-for-it-myself was given credibility based solely on their numbers.

The secession signatories are so far easily over 600% the size of the Occupy protests at it peak. Listen to that group or risk a terrible collision course within the next 10 years.

Heed the warning of the Declaration of Independence quoted above, "...when a long train of abuses and usurpations...it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." And heed this warning from me. Dismiss the secessionists now at your huge peril later. Trample on them too much now and you will hasten the collision course for actions towards secession.

Never a conspiracy missed

Outgoing Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) is not one to miss a good conspiracy theory.

Remember, this is the same McKinney who thinks that the United States government was behind 9/11.

Remember, this is the same McKinney who believed there was a conspiracy of racial motivation against her and so she slugged a security officer.

Yesterday was primary day for her...and right off from the opening bell she began advancing a new conspiracy: voting irregularities.

Shortly after the polls opened on Tuesday, allegations of voting irregularities began appearing on U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s campaign Web site.

At 8:14 a.m., the first complaint appeared: “Less than an hour into voting, McKinney’s name is not on ballot, opponent’s is,” read an item on her blog.

Other similar allegations would follow throughout the day as 4th Congressional District voters decided whether to send McKinney back to Congress, or give the Democratic nomination to runoff opponent, Hank Johnson, a lawyer and former DeKalb County commissioner.

The McKinney Web site noted voting machines not working or mysteriously casting incorrect ballots, “insecure” voting equipment, police harassment, and poll workers refusing to hand out Democratic ballots.

At one campaign stop Tuesday, McKinney said, “We also had a problem at Midway [elementary school polling place], where my name was not on the ballot,” McKinney said.

“My opponent’s name was on the ballot. … We are disappointed that the secretary of state’s office has not dealt adequately with these electronic voting machines and the deficiencties. Also, polling places have opened up and some of the machines were not zero-counted out. … And that is a problem. That is a serious problem.”

Dana Elder, the precinct manager at the school, said there was a power failure around 2:20 p.m. affecting one machine that lists registered voters in the precinct, but it posed no problem because there was another backup machine. The broken machine was fixed within 10 minutes and did not affect the actual voting machines, Elder said.

Now, c'mon, Cynthia (and Democrats who have been doing this for 6 years now). Glitches occur (and where was your outrage during "Landslide" Johnson's victory, or JFK's winning through questionable practices?). A glitch, which seems to have been fixed immediately does NOT warrant casting doubt on the entire election. Now, if the machine were not fixed immediately OR there were more than one machine with a long-lasting glitch...then you may have a case for a tainted result (but still not a conspiracy).

If there were a widespread problem then why was it only McKinney's campaign (and not even McKinney potential voters) that were complaining?

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office kept an eye on the elections, with 15 roving monitors on the ground in the 4th District, said spokeswoman Kara Sinkule.

Sinkule noted that the complaints were only coming from the McKinney campaign. “We are not having voters saying we are having equipment malfunctions,” Sinkule said.

McKinney has always held a distrust of the state’s new touch-screen voting machines. She has appeared at events promoted by activists opposed to electronic voting in Georgia. One of her congressional aides, Richard Searcy, was one of the most outspoken critics of Georgia’s electronic voting platform before taking a job in McKinney’s office.

And what I hate about politicians (and their loyalist supporters) is that a claim is only a problem if they are not benefited.

When McKinney beat out five opponents in the Democratic primary in 2004 to re-claim her congressional seat, she did not question the voting machines’ accuracy or the results. On Tuesday, she was anything but silent on the issue.

“Voters should be able to go into the precinct with the assurance that their vote is actually going to be cast, first of all, and counted,” McKinney said Tuesday. “But at this point we have had voters to tell us the voting machines took several tries before they would actually even cast the correct ballots.”

McKinney made other claims about voting problems but did not elaborate or take questions before disappearing into a truck.

Interestingly she took the typical approach by politicians: run away from tough questioning.

The DeKalb County elections office released a statement addressing complaints from the McKinney campaign.

In answer to an allegation that a voter tried to vote for McKinney, but the machine popped up a vote for Johnson, the office said:

“Upon investigation by the manager, it was determined while the one candidates’s name was touched by the ball of the finger, the fingernail hit the name,” the statement read. “We do not expect voters to cut their nails to vote, but we are cautioning everyone to make certain they are satisfied with their choices before they hit the ‘cast ballot’ button.”

Wait...so people have a chance to review their selections and they are STILL VOTING INCORRECTLY! Sorry, Charlie, you have no ground to complain on.

“We don’t have a problem addressing any claims that they have,” said Linda Lattimore, head of elections for DeKalb County, where much of the 4th Congressional District lies. “We’ll investigate and respond to each claim.”

The statement from Lattimore’s office addressed other issues raised by the McKinney campaign, claiming they were immediately rectified when brought to officials’ attention.

Some voters who wanted to vote in the runoff did not realize congressional lines were redrawn by the state Legislature in 2005, Lattimore said. So some voters accustomed to voting in the 4th District were perplexed at not being able to do so.

Which MIGHT explain why some people did not find McKinney's name on the ballot (and MAY have assumed that the remaining name was McKinney's opponent). We don't know since the article was lacking good follow-up, but it is a highly plausible scenario. Especially so since the make up of McKinney's supporters seem to be the chip-on-the-shoulder everyone-is-against-us types...whose poor attitude and disconnect leads to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Lattimore said some voters who were told to wait while a poll worker investigated a problem misinterpreted it as being turned away from the polls. “We ask a voter to wait a second and suddenly [they think] we turn them away.”

Like I said...they are chip-on-the-shoulder everyone-is-against-us types...whose poor attitude and disconnect leads to self-fulfilling prophecies.

McKinney, please do the world a favor and stay away from politics. It is people like you on both sides who cannot bring yourself to admit your own side's faults or that the opposition is made up of people (not monsters or demons) and thus think up every conspiracy possible to take down your opponent. This leads the state of discourse into a place that does not reflect people and gives politicians who are not interested in people...only Party. McKinney is an example of why this country's politics are in sad shape. She is representative of politicians...just a little more brazen about it is the only difference.