The Case for Secession

Until now my posting has been at best sporadic and lax, but this has been for good reason: I have had nothing much to say. Now though, I realize that this blog can be a venue for me to give voice to the great ideological struggle of our time-- the assumption of the West Coast, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle it; that is to say, the secession of the West Coast of North America from Canada, the United States, and Mexico to finally establish that most perfect union: The Republic of Pacifica.

While later I will, in more detail, make the case for the existence of a such a nation, now I will simply outline a few basic precedents and justifications for the action of secession.

While the United States' own declaration of independence clearly sets forth some of the most compelling philosophical and legal justifications for the dissolution of political bonds, I would like to point to work of another great patriot, Woodrow Wilson our most educated president, for support of the cause.

In the wake of the First World War President Wilson gave a famous speech known henceforth as the Fourteen Points Speech. It was in this speech that he most publicly and directly called for the principal of self-determination to become the basis for a lasting peace. The failures of his particular vision (and the largest failure, WWII, is a significant one) aside, the principal that a people, however that may be defined, should have the right to establish in their territory a government and nation according to their own design and freely chosen by their own will, has become a fundamental part of modern ideology and international law. In fact, much of the blame for our current global predicament might be assigned to our government's inability to heed the words of one of its own great internationalists.

That this principal should be extended to territories coming out from under the yoke of colonialism is something that no one can call to doubt, and it is just as assuredly true that the rights of people the world over are denied when their governments are not of them, for them, and by them. But when such arguments are brought to bear within our own territory they are denounced as inane. This cannot stand any longer.

I proclaim the right of West Coasters (Pacificans, or maybe Pacificanos) to self-determination; to be free of the dictates of a faraway government who neither understands us nor represents our interests. Why should an Iowan, a New Yorker, a Texan, or any Easterner, be able to dictate what occurs in lands that he can scarcely comprehend. Why should we the good people of Pacifica be subject to the whims of congressmen and presidents who have never known what it is like to see the sunset over the ocean? We the people of the Pacific coast of North America have a culture and ideology that is distinct from our landlocked and frozen cousins to the east, and from our overpopulated brethren of the east coast. We should not have to compromise our values and way of life because of the whims those people residing opposite the Sierra Nevada, who grow every day more foreign to us. We become every day more a country unto ourselves, everyday stronger and more prosperous, while the rest of the continent whithers in a coming dark age. We cannot allow this dying country to drag us down with it as it descends into the junkyard of history.

We must declare our Independence, and form a new nation stretching from the Aleutians to the tip of Baja California, from the tundra to the desert, from McKinley to Whitney, from the Sea of Cortes to the Arctic Circle, from Portland to San Diego and from Fairbanks to La Paz. Let our creed be this simple thought: freedom for all people, from sea to the same shining sea.