Should Vermont secede from the U.S.?
Yes, says Thomas H. Naylor, professor emeritus in economics at Duke and co-author of Affluenza. More here, here, here.
This can't help but remind me of the occasional half-serious proposals for the upper peninsula of Michigan (along with, perhaps, parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota) to secede from the lower half and form the "State of Superior".
Voting with their feet
Meanwhile, the libertarian folks at the Free State Project seem to have set their sights on New Hampshire, and some of the inhabitants of Killington, Vermont, seem inclined to join them.
I wouldn't mind trying it out, personally, although libraries might not be the highest item on a libertarian government's list of budget priorities. I suspect that neither the Green Mountain State nor the Granite State has winters much worse than the U.P. Any libraries in Vermont or New Hampshire looking for a slightly cranky reference librarian?
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1 comment:
Fiend @ 3:09AM | 2004-02-09| permalink
"Naylor also muses about Vermont's initiating a European Union-like trade federation with nearby Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island (especially if Quebec were to secede from Canada, cutting these provinces off geographically from the rest of the country)..."
"His book, "The Vermont Manifesto," calls for Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine to join with the four coastal provinces of Canada to form a country about the size and population of Denmark..."
Hey, now, don't take Canada down with y'all!
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S. @ 10:14AM | 2004-02-09| permalink
You know, I tried to talk Yam into joining the FSP with me a couple of years ago, but no luck. At the time I thought he was just worried about the possibility of Wyoming being chosen, but he doesn't seem any more interested in NH. If only there were enough people to take on TX...
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Anon @ 10:18AM | 2004-02-09| permalink
What do you think about for-profit libraries? The start-up costs could potentially be enormous, but I think it could work in the right community.
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Pablo @ 2:25PM | 2004-02-09| permalink
Anon,
Isn't that basicaly what Blockbuster Video is?
I think that I've also seen a Books on Tape store which similarly had rentals.
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Anon @ 4:34PM | 2004-02-09| permalink
That's exactly what Blockbuster is. As for Earful of Books, I thought it was a wonderful idea when it first opened, but I don't think it has worked very well - I'm not sure that they are still in business. I said earlier that I thought that a private library could work in the right community, but now that I consider Half-Price and Amazon, along with the declining literacy of the population, I'm not so sure.
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Felix @ 8:18PM | 2004-02-09| permalink
Actually, at one time there were private lending libraries -- just look up the phrase in Google or in any good history of libraries. I used to occasionally see their bookplates in books donated to the public library from someone's attic. Some of them, like the St. Louis Mercantile Library, were quite intellectually impressive; others carried mainly current bestsellers. Whether they would have survived economically absent the competition from public libraries, who knows?
The relatively cheap availability of popular videos through outlets like Blockbuster is one of the reasons I would steer library acquisitions funds away from duplicating that availability, and towards other formats or less-popular documentaries and/or indy or foreign films, if I had any say in such matters. Why spend taxpayer money to provide something that's already available at an affordable price? Netflix seems to be making the indy and foreign flicks available to the web-savvy among us, and if someone somewhere were able to make documentaries available in a similar fashion, perhaps there would be less need for libraries to acquire them.
The lack of a stable archive might be a problem, since a for-profit lending library would be subject to pressure from MBA types to stock nothing but current bestsellers, or even to deliberately delete items that didn't serve the "corporate vision" of the parent conglomerate.
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Felix @ 8:32PM | 2004-02-09| permalink
Fiend, why do you think that joining up with Vermont, et al, would be a "downward" move for the Eastern Provinces? At least they wouldn't have to put up with the snotty Quebecois and that unpronouncable French language anymore! (grin)
Personally, I think the "small is beautiful" idea has some things to recommend it as applied to nations. The Principality of St. Lawrence (or whatever it decided to call itself) would presumably have little inclination or means to invade countries on the other side of the world just for the fun of it. And in a world made up of more and smaller nations, the RIAA lobbyists would at least have to divide their efforts, rather than having one-stop shopping in Washington DC. On the other hand, the good parts of the 228-year-old US experiment -- the Bill of Rights insofaras it is observed, etc. -- are worth keeping, and some localities or regions might not keep them once released from the existing national standard.
Somehow I doubt that my musings will make much difference, though.
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Felix @ 8:36PM | 2004-02-09| permalink
S., would Yam even notice if he woke up in NH one day, as long as the computers and the projection-screen and his workplace looked the same?
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Pablo @ 12:24AM | 2004-02-10| permalink
Please, Felix. What part of the NATIONAL DEBT ought this PSL acquire considering that most of them were VOTING AMERICANS who kept reelecting the same political leaders who gave this debt to the WHOLE COUNTRY?
What part of the SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND (snicker, snicker) ought they get to take with them? (Or contribute more to?)
Whenever I hear of notions like this, it always sounds like the offshore system - enjoy all the military and economic protection of another country and not have to pay for any of it.
By the way, Nunavat has access to TWO oceans, is larger than Western Europe, and currently only has a population around 26,000. Why don't ya'll just move up there?
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Felix @ 10:08PM | 2004-02-10| permalink
I would guess that the response from Mr. Naylor and his compatriots would be something like, "Because this is MY home and MY state, not yours or Washington DC's." Sort of like those notorious rabblerousers Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, et al. (And besides, Canada has various legal restrictions against Americans emigrating even if they wanted to.)
I would expect that Dr. Naylor, with his background in economics, addresses the economic and political aspects of his proposal in his book. Unfortunately, no local libraries own a copy, so I can't verify that just yet. There is, however, a bit more detail in this interview with Middlebury College:
http://www.middleburycampus.com/news/2003/10/23/LocalNews/Life-Liberty.And.The.Persuit.Of.An.Independent.Vermont-536477.shtml
The interview seems to indicate that Vermont actually receives slightly more from the federal government than it puts in.
You bring up an interesting point about the federal deficit. Of course, there are all kinds of complications. Suppose, for example, that New Hampshire's representatives have consistently over the years voted against federal spending, only to be outvoted by spendthrift politicians from other states. Should hypothetical seceding NH'ers be held responsible for things that their representatives, in fact, voted against? What about states that have historically paid more into the federal budget than they received back, or vice versa? Should those accounts be "settled"? And by whose version of the accounting?
It could get quite murky, and in reality it may be a moot point unless some state actually does seriously propose to secede. I would argue on principle, though, that the population of any commonly recognized and well-defined political body do have the right to choose their own government, and that includes ultimately the right to reject the existing government, whether or not it's wise or profitable to do so.
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Felix @ 10:11PM | 2004-02-10| permalink
Oh, and in case your last comment referred to the Free State Project rather than Vermont: I don't think the FSP'ers are outright planning to secede (at least not as a first step!) Their plan, as I understand it, was to find a state which was already sympathetic to their ideals, and then move there in order to reinforce and preserve those ideals through geographically concentrated voting strength. (And the comment about emigration restrictions still applies.)
Am I right, S.?
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Pablo @ 2:09PM | 2004-02-11| permalink
There have been some positive example of colonies gaining democratic autonomy from a colonial power peacefully, but I don't recall any peaceful examples of sucession - namely splitting a country in two. Maybe you know some?
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Felix @ 11:12AM | 2004-02-12| permalink
How about the various components of the former Soviet Union?
Other separations have taken place, such as Bangladesh from Pakistan, but according to Wikipedia it wasn't exactly peaceful.
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Fiend @ 11:18AM | 2004-02-12| permalink
The separation of Norway from Sweden in the early 1900s?
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