The winds of secession are blowing in the Green Mountain State.

Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world, toward its own citizens and toward local democratic institutions. It has abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded Americans’ fundamental freedoms.

Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire.

Some of us therefore seek permission to leave.

Washington Post

Granted, Vermont has pretty much become a bastion of Socialist Marxism, having elected a Socialist to the United State Senate and seven members of the newly formed Progressive Party to their state legislature. Aside from that, the author actually does make a striking case for secession in his article and I get the opinion from his writing that he is not a far left guy, but a libertarian in nature.

It’s quite simple. The United States has destroyed the 10th Amendment, which says that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The present movement for secession has been gathering steam for a decade and a half. In preparation for Vermont’s bicentennial in 1991, public debates — moderated by then-Lt. Gov. Howard Dean — were held in seven towns before crowds that averaged 230 citizens. At the end of each, Dean asked all those in favor of Vermont’s seceding from the Union to stand and be counted. In town after town, solid majorities stood. The final count: 999 (62 percent) for secession and 608 opposed.

While I think secession in the near future for Vermonters is unlikely, the long term possibility is not. Vermont is not the first state in recent times to have a serious discussion about breaking away from the union and as the country overall gets more polarized politically, that movement seems to be growing. I have felt for some years now that by the time I am an old man (I am 30 years old now) that the United States will likely have a different makeup than today. I think secession of at least one state or region in our country is inevitable by the mid century.

It certainly may not be in the best interest of the United States as a whole to lose one or more states, but I fully support the right of a state to secede if that is what the residents so desire. The author rightfully points out that most states, particularly the original 13, entered into an agreement of a union under much different circumstances than what we have today. They joined into a contract, per say, in which the Federal government was virtually nonexistent and the states retained much of their sovereignty. Today the states have almost no independence left and are frequently held hostage to the demands of Washington D.C. The 10th Amendment may as well be scratched out of the Constitution altogether as even the Supreme Court does not have the will to uphold it.

Nonetheless, this will be interesting to follow and see if anything actually comes of this.

CNN Money released it’s annual “The Most Dangerous American States” for 2006.  It gives the reasons why Nevada is number one for the fourth year in a row:

“The story for Nevada remains the same as in previous years,” Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press, remarked in the report. “As a rapidly growing state, it struggles with crime and other problems. It has some of the highest murder, robbery and motor vehicle theft rates in the country.”

The study doesn’t really suggest, however, what the cause is?  Something stuck me as I took a look at the list.  Take the first twelve states.  Do you see it?  What do most of them have in common?

This is just my own speculation, of course, yet interesting nonetheless.
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/102714/The-Most-Dangerous-American-States