It was in 1863, during the heat of the Civil War, that 50 counties in the western part of Virginia decided to secede from the commonwealth and form their own state called West Virginia. That was the last successful creation of a new state out of part of an existing one.

Over the past 150 since the establishment of West Virginia, various regions of other states have tried to separate themselves from a state to which they feel unfairly tied. Anyone who looks at a map of the United States can see the almost random delineation of state boundaries, and why parts of states would want to secede.

Now some citizens in the western part of Maryland want to follow what their forbears to the south in Virginia did a century and a half ago. A new group called the Western Maryland Initiative says that the western sovereigns are fed up with the liberal majority in Annapolis, the state capital. It should not be a surprise that a secession movement would start in Maryland. After all, the state is known as “America in Miniature.” It has seacoasts, mountains, prairies, a large city [Baltimore] and extensive suburbs around Baltimore and Washington, DC. In a word, it is diverse.

Some of the nation’s finest farmland is in Maryland, as well as some Rust Belt factories that are still producing necessary products. But the differences that have spurred the secessionist movement in western Maryland are not necessarily geographic or economic. What perturbs many citizens in the western part of the state is how they feel left out from much of Maryland on issues such as gun control, taxes, energy policy, gay marriage and immigration. All of these issues have been subjects of recent legislative efforts at state and federal levels. The notion of compromise is a non-starter with the western Marylanders. With secessionists, the term “final straw” comes up a lot.

The frustration of the ruralists from western Maryland should resonate clearly with “cosmopolitans” in non-rural areas of many states. Progressives in particularly are upset about how gun control laws cannot be expanded either at the federal or state level in most of America. They are also deeply perturbed by the loss of voting rights that has occurred over the past three years in over a dozen states. This is particularly harmful to those who are poor, members of minority groups, and senior citizens. Recent immigrants do not care for those who are trying to disenfranchise them from voting.

Maryland has company when it comes to modern movements to secede. Nearly a dozen counties in northern Colorado are the furthest along, with nonbinding referendums set for November ballots. Michigan cannot fully decide if it wants to be one state or two. After all, it’s already divided by Upper and Lower Michigan.

California is our largest state by population. Most Americans are aware of the differences between northern California and southern California. In the 1950s, Northern California tried to form the state of Shasta to protect its fresh water. This issue is still a hot one throughout the state, and separation and secession are continuous in policy discussions.

The historical consensus is that President Abraham Lincoln and the “unionists” did not want the country to fall apart. Their reasons were several: (a) they felt that there could be a “domino theory” once one or several states or other sub-sections of the union seceded; (b) they thought that Americans were homogeneous enough to remain under one federal government, and (c) they did not want slavery to further tear the country apart.

What is different now is that with the growth of new technology over the past thirty or forty years, we are much more aware of the presence of different factions within our country. The citizens in western Maryland have much in common with people living in the Ozarks of Missouri or Arkansas or those living in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho. And those in Baltimore share much in common with those from virtually any other metropolitan area, at least those above the Mason-Dixon Line.

Both the federal government and the states are ill-equipped to deal with these differences. In a hypothetical world, we would have governmental units that include rural areas but not metropolitan ones. And we would have metropolitan governments without rural ones. These would not only be geographic or economic different; they would be culturally and politically separate. It’s nice to muse about this, but it’s hard to think of a practical way to restructure the country to reflect these differences. It seems that Lincoln and his progressive contemporaries had the right idea about working to keep the country together. The alternative to unity (wholesale secession) might even be a less desirable choice for conservatives among us. If we are going to achieve unity, the kind for which Lincoln wished, liberals and conservatives must join together to reconstitute a modern unity.

The post 150 years later, would Lincoln be okay with secession? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you live in the Northeast as I do, have you looked at the projected 2012 electoral map lately?  See that blue lake of color spread across ten states? That’s our bubble. At a time when the left/right, Republican/Dem divide has never been deeper, maybe it’s time for us to declare a stalemate, surrender the dialogue, and retreat to our respective bubbles.

Perhaps the best tactic up here in the blue zone would be to revisit the demands of the New England Federalists in 1814. It was then, in Hartford, Connecticut, in the midst of the punishing War of 1812, that seafaring New Englanders proposed secession in a desperate protest against the devastating economic blowback from the conflict with the British.

Those angry New Englanders were following a well-worn path. History is littered with ethnic and linguistic groups, political purists, or downright angry, xenophobic mobs who, fed up with negotiating the jostle and political compromises of diversity, preferred to retreat into the warm embrace of similarity.  It’s called secession.

If you’re having a problem imagining what the secessionist impulse is all about, think the Confederacy, Texans, the Tea Party, the Basques, the Quebecois, the Kurds of northern Iraq, the Palestinians.

You might be surprised to learn where in the world a new tribe is proposing to break away. This time it’s northern Italians shouting “basta!”   Extremist members of the Lega Nord, a confederation of eight regions in northern Italy, are expressing the frustration of many of their compatriots—the Milanese and the Venetians among them—who live and work in the most industrialized and prosperous areas of Italy. They’re saying in no uncertain terms that they’re fed up with shouldering the financial burden for the more impoverished southern regions. What the most vocal amongst them want is the whole cheese: secession and creation of an autonomous state to be named Padania.

The Italians may be choosing the right path. If they’re frustrated enough to talk about ripping apart the boot, why not us? We northeasterners could just pick up where the New England Federalists left off in 1814.

So what say you, New York, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and D.C.?  Beep your Prius horns if you want to have a go at it. Let’s stop beating our heads against the ideological divide and stop duking out the culture wars.  Let’s go it alone. Let’s abandon the industrial ruins of the Midwest and midwesterners’ indecisive shuffling from blue to red and back again, leave the gun-crazy Southwest to conceal-carry till their pants fall down, and simply pretend that we’ll never again fly south for the winter and bask in snoozy sunlight below the Mason-Dixon.

(Note to the “live free or die” state: Folks, you’re going to have to get your act together and stop waffling between blue and red if you want to play in our game.)

And for those who walk the red line but live in the blue, we’ll respectfully acknowledge that you live somewhat peacefully among us.  Many of you are our neighbors.   Still, when our new blue union is created, why not take Mitt Romney’s advice and self-deport to more congenial climes? You’ll find a lot of folks in the red  who will welcome you with open arms.

Once we’ve seceded, we’ll even negotiate treaties with those of you whom we’ve left behind . First, we’ll start by agreeing to disagree.  Then, we’ll promise to stop trying to push our views on you, if you’ll promise to stop trying to push yours on us.  How great would it be to not have to negotiate with us teary-eyed knee-jerkers with our annoying talk of economic fairness, concern for the middle class and impoverished, and the clouded future of the planet? What a sense of liberation you’ll have when you can pursue, with no pushback, your own fun and fanciful reddish ways.

So go ahead and teach your teen-agers abstinence only, and outlaw birth control and abortion. Go all the way and mandate that doctors medically probe into pregnant women’s vaginas without their consent. Throw away that stuffy, useless scientific method and teach your children that the world’s three thousand years old.  While you’re at it, drag your kids out of college.

Build your stockpiles of new nukes. Gobble up your super-sized, unlabeled GMO foodstuffs. Bust your unions and fire your teachers, cops, and firefighters. Let loose and let your impoverished live on the streets. Criminalize the Mexican farm workers, housekeepers, gardeners, and sitters you depend on. (And why stop there? For a bit of Saturday afternoon fun, why not get together after the game and fill out the forms to deport their American-born children and finally kill their dreams once and for all?)

Let your sick get sicker for lack of insurance and access to doctors’ care. Shout “drill, baby, drill” till your voices crack.  Pollute your air, water, and land.  Frack to your heart’s content.

But, please, just leave us alone in our bright blue bubble. All we want here is the chance to at last say to you (as the Padanians hope someday to say to their southern neighbors), “Arrivederci!”

The post Blue-state secessionist appeared first on Occasional Planet.