But Why?

The question has been posed twice now...

If the US could be restored to a Constitutional Republic, would you still support secession?

The Southern Party's official position is no.

My position is an emphatic yes.

The people of the South have a very different idea of government than people in the Northeast, and West Coast. I first realized this when I was just begining my own historical study into the causes of the war.

As a pet project, I went and dug up voting records.... lots and lots of congressional voting records. I decided to look at three major areas... because well... it was just to much to look deeper... a man only has so much time...

So I focused on large spending bills, defense bills, and taxation. I looked up all the bills in these areas for the last 50 years. What I found was that party affiliation was a very poor predictor on how a particular congressman would vote. The single best predictor, was the region of the country his state was in.

For example... a Democrat from TN was more likely to vote against a tax bill than a Republican from NY. A Republican from Maine was less likely to vote for a defense increase than a Democrat from Alabama.

This may seem like old news to you now... but I was figurin' this stuff out back in 1998, when everyone still thought the South liked Democrats. This was a pretty radical idea back then.

The South and North see things profoundly differently. The North favors large, centralized, powerful government, and the feel-good buzz it provides. The South was settled largely by a bunch of half-wild Irishmen who just wanted the government that would leave them the hell alone.

See... Restoring the Republic is not going to fix this problem. It's just hitting reset, and waiting for the same thing to happen again.

If the people of the North want big government... why should they not have it? Indeed they should have it. It's their right to be governed as they see fit. I don't want to force limited government on them. I just want limited government for me and mine.

Jefferson said it would take a miracle to get the people of the North and the South to get along in the same country... and that was a long time before the War for Southron Independence. He knew what we all now know.

Culturally the South and North are totally different and in many ways antithetical. Our beliefs on key issues are just mutually exclusive. You cannot have low taxes, and big government at the same time. You cannot practice social engineering, and have an unabrusive government.

We are two seperate cultures. We have different priorities. We have different traditions. We have different values.

We should also have different governments.