Pat Buchanan observes the growing incidence of secession movements, both in the USA and around the world:
What are the forces pulling nations apart? Ethnicity, culture, history and language – but now also economics. And separatist and secessionist movements are cropping up here in the United States.
While many red state Americans are moving away from blue state America, seeking kindred souls among whom to live, those who love where they live but not those who rule them are seeking to secede.
The five counties of western Maryland – Garrett, Allegheny, Washington, Frederick and Carroll, which have more in common with West Virginia and wish to be rid of Baltimore and free of Annapolis, are talking secession.
The issues driving secession in Maryland are gun control, high taxes, energy policy, homosexual marriage and immigration.
Scott Strzelczyk, who lives in the town of Windsor in Carroll County and leads the Western Maryland Initiative, argues: “If you have a long list of grievances, and it’s been going on for decades, and you can’t get it resolved, ultimately [secession] is what you have to do.”
And there is precedent. Four of our 50 states – Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, West Virginia – were born out of other states.
In both Catalonia and Lombardia, I have seen that the common people increasingly feel no loyalty to a central government of foreigners who treat them like milch cows while ruling them in an incompetent and self-serving manner. This growth of secessionism should not be surprising to anyone. Bob Prechter and others have long observed that political unions take place in economic booms, while disunions, both violent and non-violent, tend to take place in times of economic contraction.
And we are not even halfway through the Mother of all Contractions.