Arizona
“If Jack Biltis has way, Arizonans may soon get to pick and choose which U.S. laws they don’t want to abide by, like a buffet of federalism.
Biltis submitted over 320,000 signatures last night to place on the November ballot a referendum that would allow Arizonans “to reject any federal action that they determine violates the United States Constitution,” as the ballot measure reads. Assuming Arizona’s Secretary of State affirms that at least 260,000 signatures are valid, voters will soon be going to polls to consider whether they should empower themselves to nullify federal laws. Given the strength of anti-Washington sentiment in the state, which has developed a reputation for whacky right-wing policy experimentation over the past few years, it seems entirely plausible that the referendum could have a decent chance of passage.”
Gabor Boritt’s anthology
Why the Confederacy Lost
Is a good read. Always study failure.
One take away is that the Confederates ought to have expelled every single black from their territory before the union onslaught. It would have been a doddle at the time.
Also reading between the lines the war ought to have been fought as a grand Chevauchee. Get mobile cavalry/dragoons up and burn northern crops and housing. Create refugees. Overload their food system. Live off their land. If a factory is unguarded burn it down. (Don’t expose your force to a battle unless dug in with trenches and artillery on high ground.) Jomini v Clauswitz actually happened. It could have been Clauswitz v Edward III redux of Martin Van Crefeld.
Forrest had it right a sort of guerilla war with citadels and burghs for defensive fighting.
I doubt that Arizona will ever deliver any painful blows to the empire, but it is always entertaining to watch them piss in Obama’s wishing well.
I read a Freeper comment that said all the feds would have to do to kill secession in Arizona is order the Treasury Department not to cut Social Security checks to the elderly. That’s a good point.
John:
Don’t forget the power grid. Transformer stations are vulnerable to squirrels, so I think that a man with a good arm and a chunk of chain could become the Prince Of Darkness.
When I visited Phoenix a few years ago, I saw a lot of mixed race black man/white woman couples. The thing was, it was not young white women, but fairly affluent-looking white women in their fifties. I didn’t talk to them or anything, but I would bet money they were not “liberal” white women, but voted Republican.
In fact, I saw a lot of this same fiftyish white women with fortyish or fiftyish middle class black men all over the West. This is totally different from everywhere else. And like I said, I don’t think it is “liberal” women.
LOL!
John you are only the second person I have ever known who knows the chain trick. Most must not realize it. The only other person I knew was who first explained it to me when I was in high school. He was a sort of shady character but a pretty good guy. He had rental property and he said that when he had a renter who wouldn’t pay and he had trouble getting out quick enough, he would go and throw a chain over the top power line where the transformer was. (When the chain drapes over the wire and its ends come together across the lower line, it shorts out of course and burns through the wires.)
which has developed a reputation for whacky right-wing policy experimentation over the past few years…
Salon must concentrate on a pop culture tone, not for thinking people. Hm… wonder why they would become so reactive.
“Arizonans may soon get to pick and choose which U.S. laws they don’t want to abide by, like a buffet of federalism.”
Oh the irony in that sentence.
“I read a Freeper comment that said all the feds would have to do to kill secession in Arizona is order the Treasury Department not to cut Social Security checks to the elderly. That’s a good point.” – absolutely, as long as the money from these programs flow, any attempt at secession,or anything else for that matter as all roads basically pass through non-discretionary spending, is doomed to failure.
Arizonans may soon get to pick and choose which U.S. laws they don’t want to abide by, like a buffet of federalism.
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Why the hell shouldn’t they. They feds do it all the time, why not the states and the individual citizens?
John,
Jackson advocated such a plan early in the war, but Lee and others vetoed him. Lee thought the South would lose the moral high ground and would drive away potential European aide
Realistically Arizona was never a Confederate territory after the battle of Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe. General Sibley and his Texas expeditionary force were defeated by Unionist Colorado militia.