Jonathan Palfrey
Posts: 535
Joined: 4/10/2004 From: Sant Pere de Ribes, Spain Status: offline
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Gentlemen (and ladies if any), There have been repeated and understandable complaints that another thread in this forum ("Did the South have any chance of victory?") was taken over by arguments about the rights and wrongs of secession. As that argument still seems to be rumbling slightly, I'll try opening a new thread for it. People who want to talk about it can do so here, and people who hate even to read about it can ignore this thread from now on. I don't believe I have any vested interest in the subject of secession. I'm British and I've hardly ever set foot in America. However, I've lived in many different parts of Europe and Africa, and I'm rootless. For me personally, secession isn't worth the trouble. If I seriously dislike the country I'm living in, I look for another country. That I can do by myself without having to persuade or fight other people. However, as a matter of principle, the right to secede seems valid to me. If most of the people in a large region want out of their country, it seems unreasonable to expect them to move out en masse (perhaps millions of people!). They have their homes and businesses in which they've invested; they have their neighbours and their neighbourhoods; they may have a sentimental attachment to their own countryside; why shouldn't they keep all this, but just elect themselves a new government that will govern them in a way more to their own liking? As for the land they're sitting on, no-one created that land, so I don't think anyone has a real moral claim to own it. Goodwin has proposed that "the nature of democracy forbids secession. In order for democracy to work, all must agree to accept majority rule. If secession were acceptable, there could be no true democracy, for the minority could always simply leave whenever the majority voted for something they did not like." This is not so. In most cases, people with minority opinions are scattered all over the country and can't feasibly secede. Secession is feasible only when the dissenting minority constitutes a substantial majority in one region; and when their disagreement with the rest of the country is so important to them that it outweighs the benefits of remaining united. I ask what is the point of democracy? Surely, it's so that people who are obliged for practical reasons to share a country with each other can resolve their differences and reach decisions on important matters. If they're not obliged to share a country with each other -- if they can feasibly separate -- then why not do so, if it enables both sides to get their own way simultaneously? Some people seem to argue that the outcome of the Civil War proves that the Unionists were right and that secession was wrong. I don't see how it proves anything of the sort. It proves that the North was stronger than the South; that's all. When Europeans discovered America, they started to settle there. People were living there already, but the new arrivals killed them and took their lands. They were wrong to do that, but they were very successful. Did their success prove that they were in the right? No, it just proved that they were stronger than the people they conquered (and also, incidentally, the bringers of diseases to which the natives had no resistance). Perhaps this topic is too serious a subject for a game forum. If so, presumably someone is in charge of this forum and can close this discussion.
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