Dakota Beacon

In 1865, the cause of the Confederacy buckled in defeat. The peace signed at Appomattox outlawed secession from the American Union of States. It has proved a crippling blow to the federal concept. In fact the war was technically fought over that point. Five hundred thousand lives and the peace and prosperity of a young nation were spent arriving at that conclusion, which for many seemed wrong and not in accord with the Constitution. Be that as it may, it has been accepted since the defeat of the Confederate States that secession is not an option.

In the last few years, however, secession has been re-introduced. Or at least secession of states from whatever federal jurisdiction or law they don’t like. Cities, too, are opting out of the Union with surprisingly little objection from the central government. It has become commonplace for municipalities and states now to defy our immigration laws and just make up their own – which in most cases is none. San Francisco has seceded. Oregon has also seceded. At some point Oregon decided that it didn’t want to participate or assist in enforcement of immigration law and simply declared its independence as a “sanctuary” state. So, how is that working out? Should Oregon be confronted by the United States Army and Navy? Because that is what happened to South Carolina et al. We seem to think that was all right. We should at least be consistent about what is and is not a part of the United States.

There are some serious questions which arise out of these tin-pot secessions. What does it mean to the average citizen when his state or his city opts out of the United States? In July of last year, an illegal alien (I intended to use that term) was charged with second-degree manslaughter, assault and reckless driving after a passenger in the car he hit was killed and the driver injured. He posted bail and was released, despite an ICE detainer. Instead of checking in with ICE to let them know of his arrest, the sheriff freed him, in accord with Oregon state law. Naturally the suspect fled to Mexico rather than stick around for an eventual close encounter with ICE.

The man who was injured finds this distressing to say the least – his wife was killed - a beloved mother and grandmother - and he was injured as well. He is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife of 57 years and it angers him and his family that the sheriff simply turned the illegal alien who had caused this, loose, to possibly commit another crime and cause more harm. It is the opinion of many that the law officer(s) responsible for freeing the man should serve time in his stead. People are looking for some kind of “justice”.

We need to call this trend what it is – secession. We need to decide all over again whether we will send troops to stop it or whether we should let these states go and declare them independent and no longer a part of the United States. In the latter case, Oregon, for instance, would need to figure out its currency, its postal services, its defense and work out its own trade agreements with the U.S. and other countries – and all the other things any other independent nation must do. Frankly, it would probably be better this way than trying to fight to keep Oregon on the Union. Is Oregon really worth a fight? It might be a better bottom-line decision to just negotiate the sale of their lumber with them and let them keep the illegals on their own. Maybe they could get together with Washington state and form an association with British Columbia, whose political climate is perhaps more like Oregon’s than like the United States.

All of this flows in the first place - from the misguided thinking that we should not have national borders – that anyone from anywhere has some kind of “right” to come into the United States. Why would anyone think that? Mexico doesn’t share that belief. Perhaps they tolerate unregulated immigration from their southern border, but we know from experience that they jail American citizens who accidentally cross their border without their permission. And then forget all about them as they languish in prison. So borders actually are a thing. We should enforce our own borders and then, if Oregon wants out, we should regulate the citizens of Oregon entering the rest of the U.S.

Since the beginning of the Medieval and Modern worlds, borders have defined countries. They have made it possible for the people of one political unit to determine their laws based on their beliefs and values and secure such rights as they cherish. It is not possible to do this without boundaries and borders. The Constitution of the United States, for example, cannot be enforced in Mexico or in India or in England or Germany. It applies only to the United States because the people of Mexico, India, England, Germany and other places did not agree to it. The United States has no right to impose our laws, or for that matter our rights, on the people of other nations. It is up to those people in those countries to determine what laws they want. In Saudi Arabia the people seem to be fine with Sharia. Saudi Arabia has no right to impose their law on Israel or on France or Oregon or the U.S. Their law exists and has effect within their borders. Just as ours does in the United States.

If we fail to enforce our borders we cannot enforce our laws. If we ignore our borders we are no different from unrestrained imperialists. If we respect our borders and other countries’ borders then we can have peace. It is just as important to peace that we respect our own borders as it is that we don’t attempt to establish our domain within the borders of other nations (the way Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon and other aggressors did). National sovereignty and security is the flip side of non-aggression.

Right now the United States as well as most of the countries of Europe and Africa, are under attack. It is a guerrilla kind of asymmetrical attack, a sort of one-at-a-time attack. Each invader for himself. This is destroying our country – destroying it without replacing it with anything but chaos. If we continue to tolerate this we will be finished as a nation very soon, and our Constitution and our philosophy of government and values along with it.

I am and have always been an advocate for states’ responsibilities and rights. The farther we stray from this concept of federalism the more of our rights and our national heritage we lose, and the less effective our country becomes. Smaller is definitely better and the genius of our founding fathers was that they understood this, that as the state grows larger, the power of the people is diminished by that measure. However, our nation was established so as to have set certain powers aside for the federal (central, interstate) level of our government. These powers are in the areas of a common currency (which has been abdicated to the private Federal Reserve Bank – an extra-Constitutional entity), international trade and foreign policy, a postal system (again, quasi-private now), immigration policy and an army and navy (national defense). It is in precisely the area of national defense and immigration - both well within the powers reserved to the federal (central) government – where these so-called “sanctuary” districts are in violation of our law.

It will be interesting to see how far this “sanctuary” status will be tolerated. There is now a trend developing toward sanctuary political units which have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” for the purpose of enforcing the Second Amendment. It is difficult to see how this translates effectively, but time and experience will tell. “Sanctuary” is usually a protection for the fugitive from law. A place to “hole up” and be out of reach of the power of law or justice. It doesn’t seem that it would work nearly so well to enforce a right of the general population. I guess we’ll see. At least the “gun sanctuaries” might put an end to other sanctuary declarations for the benefit of alien law-breakers. And it would maybe give us a choice – freedom to break the law, as in Oregon, or freedom to exercise our natural right in Kansas or Alaska. (I know where I would prefer to seek sanctuary.)

All of this comes about because we have not been enforcing our own laws within our own borders. We have sanctuary cities, states and counties because we are allowing these political units to break our immigration laws. We have Second Amendment sanctuaries because we are countenancing rogue “red flag” and other gun-grabbing laws in defiance of the Constitution and not enforcing our Second Amendment universally. As one of the enumerated rights in our Bill of Rights, this is a national – a federal – law which has protected gun ownership and the natural right of self-defense from our beginning as a nation.

Either live by and within our laws or opt out of the Union. It might be that New York will not want to remain in a Union which honors our Constitution. Perhaps Oregon will want to opt out of any Union which has borders. In which case let them. Let Oregon learn the usefulness of borders as an independent nation. I always thought it was wrong to force any state to remain in the Union if its people no longer wished to be a part of it. It’s like a shotgun wedding. I always thought that the Confederate States need never have formed if we had just said, “go for it”. They would probably have decided to stay and work things out so as to comport with human rights guarantees in the Constitution. We’ll never know, of course, but I have always thought that Lincoln was one of our greatest presidential failures in not averting such a disaster. I still feel that way – let’s just let Oregon go. And California and Washington, if they like. Smaller is better. Then, if the immigration problem is 100% Oregon’s they might look at it differently. The prospect of independence might bring things into focus for the people in Oregon who make these feckless decisions and elect these idiots to office. Washington, D.C., however, will likely not confront Oregon or any other “sanctuary” for illegal aliens because Washington is complicit in this evasion of our own immigration law. It is a good question whether we should bother keeping ICE or any immigration laws on the books if we are not going to allow them to be effective. In this case, we can no longer claim to be a sovereign nation with our own laws and borders but a free territory for anyone to lay claim to.

Of course what we should do is demand that all of our laws be followed to the letter, repeal those we find are wrong and punish those who commit treason in non feasance of their duty to uphold the law of the land. Utah, as a territory dominated by Mormons, did not outlaw polygamy. However, when it applied for statehood, the requirement was that they comport themselves with our law – which does outlaw polygamy. The people of Utah made a free decision to become a part of the United States and abandoned polygamy. Back in those days at least we believed we had a country and a Constitution and laws. Today we find we are less a nation than we were in 1896, when Utah joined the Union. It is up to us to insist that our Congressmen and Senators (218-224-3121) insist upon upholding our law – that we support both our Second Amendment and our ICE officers and immigration law. Congress had no business being a part of secession.

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