Keith Preston on: American Secession The Looming Threat Of National Breakup

by | Jul 14, 2020

From Keith Preston at Attack The System: A review of F.H Buckley’s book American Secession (available on Amazon)

51x8obbjphlAmericans have never been more divided, and we’re ripe for a breakup. The bitter partisan animosities, the legislative gridlock, the growing acceptance of violence in the name of political virtue—it all invites us to think that we’d be happier were we two different countries. In all the ways that matter, save for the naked force of law, we are already two nations.

There’s another reason why secession beckons, says F.H. Buckley: we’re too big. In population and area, the United States is one of the biggest countries in the world, and American Secession provides data showing that smaller countries are happier and less corrupt. They’re less inclined to throw their weight around militarily, and they’re freer too. There are advantages to bigness, certainly, but the costs exceed the benefits. On many counts, bigness is badness.

Across the world, large countries are staring down secession movements. Many have already split apart. Do we imagine that we, almost alone in the world, are immune? We had a civil war to prevent a secession, and we’re tempted to see that terrible precedent as proof against another effort. This book explodes that comforting belief and shows just how easy it would be for a state to exit the Union if that’s what its voters wanted.

But if that isn’t what we really want, Buckley proposes another option, a kind of Secession Lite, that could heal our divisions while allowing us to keep our identity as Americans.

Steven Woskow

Steven Woskow

Steve Woskow is an entrepreneur and was President of Agtech Products, Inc., a research and development company specializing in animal agriculture. He has a Ph.D. in Nutrition and Food Science from Iowa State University. He is retired and lives with his family in Northern Nevada.

View all posts

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Support via Amazon Smile

Our Books

15 books

Recent Articles

Recent

Time to Separate Medicine and State

The "progressive" coverage of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder has an unspoken premise: namely, that we could have had a system in which medical care was instantly superabundant and free for everyone. There is no such system. We live in a world of...

read more

No Need for DOGE

We don't need a Department (sic) of Government Efficiency. (It's a nongovernment thing.) We need a "Department" of What the Hell Should the Government Be Doing in the First Place? Efficiency implies that you know the objective of a course of action and want to avoid...

read more
Anti-War Blog – Osama Bin Laden won

Anti-War Blog – Osama Bin Laden won

Bin Laden Won He won and the US warmasters are celebrating. Imagine rejoicing after a government falls to the descendants of Al-Qaeda. We don’t have to because the Washington gang are doing just that. The Islamo-Fascist Jihadis who terrorised the minds of the West for...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This