Walter Williams: Parting Company

Today's post at TownHall.com by Walter Williams asks a great question.

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's Time To Part Company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"

Now William's conclusion is what most of us want.

The bottom-line question for all of us is: Should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another? My preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.

I really do not know what his answer means since he is a Libertarian. The problem though is what he states throughout his article.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative.

I am curious. Since he knows that Americans have come to a place where the Constitution has been completely abandoned by the Federal Government, since he knows that the Political Left and Right will never be able to agree, what does he mean by separation?

He offers a few examples.

Some independence movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden; Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863).

So again, what does he mean. In the past independence movements, geography played a significant role. The War between the States was a war between the North and the South. Geography separated us. The war between England and the Colonies was separated by an ocean. Even the example of West Virginia is a geographic location. In today's political climate, how does one separate from his next door neighbor? Perhaps states that are generally more conservative should unite such as Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas?

Sooner or later, as Rush likes to say, there is going to be a tipping point. When gas was $3.50 per gallon, Americans were angry but not revolting. As soon as it hit $4.00, Americans had had enough. That is the question I have been pondering about the last several years. As Williams states it,

You say, "Williams, what do you mean by constitutional abrogation?" Let's look at just some of the magnitude of the violations. Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is authority for Congress to tax and spend for: prescription drugs, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do anything upon which they can muster a majority vote.

This can only goon so long before the American people revolt. But then again, what will it matter? Half of the American people like it. But then again, only 1/3 of the Colonies were for the Revolution. Many did not want to enter the Civil War.

In conclusion, the more Americans push against each other, the farther apart we become, the more I wonder about the path our nation is heading. Now I am not advocating anything, especially violence. I am just observing what little I have learned from history. Apparently, with Williams asking the question, I am not alone.