Why shouldn’t California leave the United States, if that’s what Californians want? From Clyde Wilson at lewrockwell.com:
It seems that out in California an impressively large number of people are petitioning for a referendum on secession. While I don’t think much of their motive, I say more power to them.
The motivation is, of course, fear by California leftists and foreigners that the 2016 federal election has deprived them of the excessive influence they have exercised over American domestic policies at least since a movie actor was elected President in 1980. The secession move amounts to an adolescent tantrum at not getting their way. This reflects a widespread defect of the Yankee national character—a tendency to reduce public matters to self-centered personal emotions.
However, there is a principle involved here. The basic principle of the Declaration of Independence that Americans claim to admire (though seldom exercising it): just governments must derive their being from “the consent of the governed.” If a majority of the real citizens of California want to be independent of the U.S., they should be and have every right to decide so. Frankly, I would be delighted to be rid of them—far happier, I suspect, than they would be in getting rid of me. I do not need them at all. They need me to boss around and feel superior to.
We are in a new millennium. The ruling classes in the U.S. and Europe have clearly lost their grip—they are ever more selfish, clueless, and incompetent. They cannot think of anything except to keep on doing what they have been doing, no matter how disastrous the results. The 2016 election and other signs indicate that good people everywhere are ready for a new, more democratic and more responsible way of governing.
