Classical Liberalism vs. Beltwaytarians on Secession

In his book Liberalism (pp. 109-110)Ludwig von Mises wrote of how classical liberalism only embraced democracy if it included a right of secession. “Liberalism,” he wrote, “forces no one against his will into the structure of the state. Whoever wants to emigrate is not held back. When a part of the people of a state wants to drop out of the union, liberalism does not hinder it from doing so.”

In Omnipotent Government (p. 286) Mises wrote that “It is a very significant fact that the adversaries of the trend toward more government control describe their opposition as a fight against Washington and against Berne, i.e., against centralization. It is conceived as a contest of states’ rights versus the central power.”

The Beltway “libertarian” centralizers, who champion the Quixotic cause of giving even greater powers to the federal judiciary and oppose decentralization, are often violently opposed to this idea, repeating the statist lie that only “racists” would support secession as a means of devolving power away from the central state. Yeah, that’s why dozens of African countries today have active secession movements.

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3:15 pm on August 28, 2008