If the Southeast US were to try again to secede would you fight for its right to do so?

Question

I am secretly hoping that the results of the US presidential election, whoever wins, will be so divisive along clear geographical lines that the Union will be torn apart and several smaller autonomous regions will assert themselves. I'm not joking. The situation is tense on the ground. An anarchist would naturally oppose the use of force to hold the US together, right? Would you get involved? (to be clear, I haven't lived in the US for many years and don't feel particularly concerned, but it is a challenging what-if for me.)

Comments

You make it seem rather simple, but as AF pointed out, southerners, mainly the white ones, are all about 'Murica, meth, pabst blue ribbon, white jesus, and the earth is flat and surrounded by giant ice walls or it's 5,000 years old. Chattel slavery isn't gone, they just call it chain-gangs or something else now. Southerners are pretty much over of their loss and only really bring it up when mentioned specifically. This is your average southerner. :P

warvangelicals lol. I'm going have to remember that term.

---

i don't care if the pacific northwest was seceding to form ecotopia; i would not support any state, regardless of location, origins or size.

"autonomy" and "state" are absolutely contradictory, in my world. they can only be not so when the individuals that constitute the state are melded into an abstract mass with the false unity that leftists are so desparate for.

---

I like the fact that Funkyanarchy took the discussion out of the south -- the actual region was not really the point of the what-if exercise. I find the general question challenging: fight to break up a state if the immediate result is two smaller states?

dot, lawrence and funkyanarchy would not support the creation or causes of new states -- wholly understandable. But what if to do nothing was to support the existing state? ie the Union? Wouldn't that be support of oppression by a state on people who no longer want to be a part of it?

Meanwhile I'll be thinking about Nihlist's philosophical challenge. self-government? voluntary participation in society? Maybe Nihilist is right and these are impossible. Hmmm.

---

"But what if to do nothing was to support the existing state?"

the idea that "doing anything is better than doing nothing" is severely flawed imo. voting is one thing many people "do", and i'd say that is worse than doing nothing, especially in terms of supporting a state. and then, what does one mean by "do nothing"? the impact of one's actions on the existence (and strength) of a state is usually negligible at best.

"Wouldn't that be support of oppression by a state on people who no longer want to be a part of it?"

it is up to the people who no longer want to be a part of it, to figure out how to change their lives so that they are no longer part of it, or at least minimizing their part in it. if bringing down the state is the only option they can see, i wish them luck. but we all know how successful that has ever been. meanwhile, individuals (including groups of friends/comrades/allies) can choose to live differently - in ways that minimize the impact of the state on their own lives.

i reject the activist/liberal concept of representing the "oppressed" and acting on their behalf. we are all oppressed (to varying degrees), and it is up to each of us to fight that oppression in whatever ways we choose. including gathering allies when it makes sense.

here's to unmediated life and relationships! fuck states and every other abstracted system of power and control.

---

i would support this response as an answer, f@. just sayin.

Answer 1

No, the southern tendency would be Statist as well. I don't support Statist causes, therefore, I answer with a no.