A new movement is emerging on the left. This movement sells guilt and self-flagellation and calls it antiracism. Its leaders present themselves as the absolute authority on race relations and claim that being a good white person means following their instructions.
As the State of the Union address and subsequent pronouncements have made clear, American politics is in the firm grip of fiscal illusion.
The debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists in the late eighteenth century was fundamentally a debate over whether or not Americans wanted or needed a large national state. Thus, in their effort to push ratification of the new constitution, the Federalists employed a wide variety of arguments designed primarily to convince the public that the United States, as it stood in 1787, was not politically centralized enough.
12. When It Comes to National Defense, It’s More than Size that Matters
In the debate over whether or not China will soon rise to challenge the United States as the world’s hegemon, it is often assumed that states with large aggregate economies are necessarily more militarily powerful ones. This assumption is then used to argue that the West, and the United States in particular, must support the status quo of a large state—in this case the United States—that can act to balance the power of the Chinese state.
11. How Small Is Too Small?
Only hours after the final results came in for a British exit from the EU, political leaders in Scotland were talking about renewing their drive to secede from the United Kingdom.1 Pointing to the fact that a large majority of Scots voted to remain in the EU during the Brexit vote, Scottish advocates for independence are now claimin
10. If California Secedes, What Happens to Locals Who Opposed Secession?
In recent years, left-wing groups have often been the driving force behind secession movements. This has been the case in Scotland, in Catalonia, and in California.
In each case, the secession movements have been initiated in part to forward left-wing goals, such as the creation of a larger welfare state or to escape limitations imposed by political interest groups and institutions deemed to be too right-wing.
9. From Taxes to Trade, More Secession Means More Freedom
W hen we hear of political movements in favor of decentralization and secession, the word “nationalist” is often used to describe them. We have seen the word used in both the Scottish and Catalonian secession movements, and in the case of Brexit. Often the term is intended to be pejorative.
8. Why the US Supports Secession for Africans, but Not for Americans
The twentieth century was a century of secession. Since the end of the Second World War, the number of independent states in the world has nearly tripled as new states, through acts of secession, have come into existence. This was driven largely by the wave of decolonization that occurred following the Second World War.1
7. A Brief History of Secession Plebiscites in Europe
In the United States, the idea of a region of the country separating through secession is generally regarded as an outrageously radical and impractical move. Secession, it is often assumed, is obviously beyond the pale of serious political discussion.
Yet, in spite of the US’s (rather unwarranted) reputation for expansive decentralization and local autonomy, we can find many cases in which European regimes were far more willing to compromise on local assertions of autonomy and independence than is the case in the United States.
