A Free, Sovereign and Independent South Carolina
To become a free people, we must first see ourselves as a free people. In a few articles I wrote, I began to lead us down that road in an economic sense. The first looks at the South in sheer GDP terms. The second article compared GDP per capita of Southern states to other nations of the world. As you can see from the second article South Carolina\’s GDP per capita was $35,717, which if it were it\’s own independent country would put it at 36th worldwide, roughly comparable to France.
A 2010 poll says that 80% of people think Washington is broke. This Politco article from July says the governors agree. Secession petitions have been filed on the White House Website, since Barack Obama\’s re-election. This is not just a movement against the Democrat Party. This is a movement for the future of South Carolina. Although this move is mostly symbolic, the media has none the less picked up on the stories, and has brought talk of secession into mainstream conversation.
South Carolina\’s Land and People
South Carolina has approximately 4.7 million citizens, which would put it between Ireland and Norway in total population. We have a land area of about 32,000 square miles, which is roughly the same size as Austria and larger than the Czech Republic.
Size and scale matters when you consider a Republican form of government. Democracy has failed. We can see it all around us. When the majority can simply vote itself whatever it wants from the minority, then your life, liberty and property cannot be protected.
What about protecting our people? A recent Rasmussen poll said that 58% of Americans believe the government encourages illegal immigration, and 67% agree that legal immigration is too high. A free South Carolina would protect our borders, and the heritage and culture of our citizens. Instead of sending our young men and women to far off lands to fight an enemy that does not threaten the United States, we would only protect our homes, and not fight to \”spread democracy to the world.\”
South Carolina Economics
First, South Carolina is a right to work state, which means employees themselves can decide if they want to join or financially support a union. The entire South is solid in this stance except for Kentucky, and West Virginia, depending on how you classify them.
How fast would Boeing move more of their operations to the Palmetto State? We can only assume businesses would flock to South Carolina because of it\’s pro business stance and far less burdensome regulations than in Washington D.C. South Carolina is currently home to one fortune 500 company in Domtar.
South Carolina fields, forests and waterways produce tobacco, soybeans, cotton, peaches, forest products, broilers, turkeys, beef cattle and shrimp. In our factories we produce textiles, automobiles, chemicals and heavy machinery. Our mines produce kaolin, limestone, granite and we are the only state that mines gold east of the Mississippi River. Honest money and free markets would make South Carolina a world leader in economics nearly overnight!
South Carolina Infrastructure
The Port of Charleston is ranked 10th in the nation in total container traffic. This vibrant port could easily handle the vast amount of trade a free people would require. The Palmetto state has 14 freight railways and nearly 2,300 miles of rail. South Carolina also has almost 850 miles of interstate highways. There are seven significant airports in South Carolina, with Charleston International being the largest, serving over 2.5 million passengers in 2011.
South Carolina Education
How would you like your local community to have a greater say in your child\’s education? Wouldn\’t all students be better off without federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind? How about private schools or school choice? Would you like to see schools compete with each other for your dollar and your children?
In higher education, institutions such as South Carolina, Clemson, Furman, Wofford or The Citadel, would continue to educate many of our children once they matriculate to college. Wouldn\’t it be nice to be able to rid our college of Anti-South professors? How about teaching our children the real history of our land and people? How about an economics education that doesn\’t follow the Keynesian model, which has proven over and over again it simply does not work?
Conclusion
If you are worried about South Carolina holding it\’s own as it\’s own nation, you have to ask yourself. What has being a part of this union done for South Carolina? The United States continues to slide towards bankruptcy. Check the prices the next time you go to the grocery store. Why is everything increasing in price? It\’s time we break our chains and chart our own course.
…..Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness……
…..But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Thomas Jefferson
The people of the reunited States – South and North – are the heaviest taxed civilized People in the world; and their Government, one of the most despotic and corrupt, staining its annals. Does not hypocrisy and contempt, usually go together? And will the echoes of Revolution throughout the land ever die away, until the South is independent; or the South is free? – Robert Barnwell Rhett
