America

The McLean House - the site of Lee's surrender
to General Grant, which ended the Civil War

I have been bothered recently by this whole idea of secessionists and secessionism. First of all, the issue was settled back in the Civil War. States may not leave the United States. Counties may not leave states. Cities and towns cannot create their own state or country. That's out. The issue was settled in 1865 with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

So, what's this stuff about secessionism?

In America, we have our differences but we have always pulled together as a country. Until recently. And the only difference is all about scoring political points—but in reality, it is causing a very real danger to the country.

Here's a recent discussion I had concerning Detroit's bankruptcy that I had on Bloomberg's website:

Detroit skyline

Detroit is one of the signature cities in the United States. As Americans, we all hold the responsibility for this failure. We are also able to assist in the regeneration of Detroit. And we should. Just as all Americans pitched in to buy War Bonds, we should all consider how we can each contribute to a new, modern, efficient and well-run Detroit.

Where are the Motown artists? I would love to attend a concert to raise money. Where are the people who will stand up for Detroit? We're great at describing this failure in detail. How about we put our heads together and create success?

I was stunned by the following reply:

You've got to be kidding. Do you really think someone in Hicksville, NC or Podunk, Wyoming cares or even should care about Detroit? Should anyone, even Detroit residents, contribute further to the corruption and graft that has bankrupt that city?

I do like your reference to war bonds. Detroit is, after all, a war zone.

Snide comment about Detroit being a war zone aside, the poster obviously didn't understand why anyone in Hicksville, North Carolina or some town in Wyoming ought to care. People in all 50 states should care and need to care. Because they're Americans.

I replied:

Searching for survivors in New Orleans after Katrina

Detroit's issues are a disaster that is man-made. And so was the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans. There were warnings in the case of New Orleans and there were warnings in the case of Detroit.

I recall that Republicans didn't want to rebuild New Orleans. "We can't afford it," was their reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth. New Orleans largely rebuilt itself, with a little help from the state and very little from Washington. As a result, New Orleans population is approximately 56% of the pre-Katrina population. That means less revenue to the state, less revenue to the city and less revenue to the federal government, as displaced people don't make what they made before. The case for rebuilding New Orleans was made and then ignored. And that was, perhaps, the most un-American thing anyone could have done. Rebuild after Katrina and you get 100% of your tax base back. Don't rebuild and you wind up with a deficit.

This is the same with Detroit. Detroit's population in 1950 was 1,849,568. In 1980, there were 1.2 million people. Today, the population of Detroit is 701,475. That's just a little over half the 1980 figure and one third of the city at it's height. Cities are geared to expand, not contract.

Gutted Apartment Buildings, NYC

I lived in New York in the 1980s and watched as Reganomics destroyed whole sections of the city, many of which looked like the result of the bombings in Germany during WW II. New York grew because its principal source of income, Wall Street, didn't move away to another country, like Detroit's. But NYC also received a great deal of rebuilding money from Washington and Albany. And New York diversified into high-tech, media and other areas besides Wall Street.

In Detroit's case, there has never been the kinds of sums to help rebuild the city and make it prosper or diversify its tax base. If you, personally, were hit by a similar disaster, man-made or otherwise, I'd instruct my Representative and my Senators to make you whole because we are both Americans. Because Americans stand with Americans and don't let one another sink. Because, if we don't, our children will be learning Mandarin in order to get a job in any kind of business. Now, I have nothing against China or the Chinese and I was very proud that we sent rescue workers to that country to help in the wake of their natural disasters (namely earthquakes), because that's what we do here in America. That's what makes us unique in the world.

I would prefer to see our country strong. And our strength comes from Americans helping Americans. If you look at the states in the center of this country, you'll see states that, per capita, send less money into our federal treasury than they get back. These are the truly red states. I grew up in one of them, Kansas. And we prospered because our system was one for all Americans, not just those living in the states that pay the most to the federal coffers. If that were the case, we'd be three or four very different countries—one or two of which would not be in the G-20 (the 20 nations with the largest economies). But that's not the case, because we're all Americans, in it together, pulling for each other.You can go into all the wrongs that Detroit's government has done and sit there on the sidelines and snipe at them. That will get you nothing and Detroit nothing. Me, I like America. I want to see the entire nation succeed and don't want to sacrifice one square inch of our soil.

Senators Coburn and Inhofe, who say
American ought not be for Americans and
Americans ought not support one another in crisis.

Of course, there is this real tide from the right talking about how "we can't afford disaster relief." Two senators, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn held up needed aid to three eastern states after a hurricane hit them. Inhofe and Coburn are both from Oklahoma, a state with very few—if any—hurricanes to its credit.

But then there was this tornado. And then another. And the first one really did a lot of damage in Moore, OK, which is a suburb of Oklahoma City. I was raised in Kansas and, for the most part, a tornado is all about a warning. When they do touch down, they're liable to knock down a barbed wire fence or two, kill cattle, take down a barn.

But we've been spreading out, recently, as a species and what used to be farmland is now suburb. And those areas may get hit by tornadoes.

I live in Connecticut, a state that rarely sees tornadoes and never sees the kind of F4 and F5 types that hit near Oklahoma City. I suppose I could have urged my senators to give tit for tat.

But that's not American.

There’s a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that is probably rightly attributed to  Richard Penn in “Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years” (published in 1811) that applies here:

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Of course this was written around the time of the Revolutionary War and "hanging separately" was something the British wanted to do to many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, served in the Continental Army and the states militias then and served as delegates to the Continental Congress. The last phrase in the Declaration of Independence is as follows:

…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Where is the mutuality in Coburn and Inhofe's rhetoric where they say "we need to offset any disaster aid in savings in the budget?" Where is the pledge to each other in saying "we cannot afford to rebuild New Orleans?" There is nothing mutual and there is no "sacred Honor" in letting Detroit rot.

We are not fifty states. We are America. And I say it's time to start acting like it.