Back during the Cold War, there was lots of talk of “Mutually Assured Destruction”: if you launch your nukes, we’ll launch our nukes, and we all die. It’s ironic then, that there’s lots of talk about the so-called “nuclear option” in Congress with regards to how Obama and the Democrats want to force the healthcare bill down our throats. We would like to remind Obama and Congress that “We the People” possess our own nuclear option: secession.

The United States is a Republic. We are a union of states. Without opening the can-o-worms that is the Civil War, (a.k.a. “the War of Northern Aggression”, “the War Between States”, etc), the States do indeed have the right to secede from the Union.

So let’s imagine this: All 50 States agree that on the same date, every State formally secedes from the United States of America. The very next day, all the States declare a new Union of States, based around the original Constitution and all the Amendments except Amendments 16-18 and 21. With all the States having seceded, the existing United States would consist of exactly…. nothing. (Okay, there would be some districts and territories… The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa… but that’s it. For all intents and purposes, the United States would cease to exist.) All Federal property, to include military bases and equipment, would become property of the States where they reside. And with the United States Federal Government gone, the 45 volumes and 30,210 pages of the United States Code, the 67,024+ pages of the tax code, all the entitlements, regulations, taxes, restrictions, licenses, and everything else would likewise be meaningless.

Social Security? Gone.
Welfare? Gone.
IRS and federal income taxes? Gone.
Government meddling in healthcare? Gone.
Government meddling in business? Gone.
Government meddling in our lives? Gone.

A fresh start. What a novel idea. Well, actually, not so much. Thomas Jefferson said of our War for Independence: “God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?”

Could it work? Absolutely it could work. The United States federal government cannot exist if there are no States.

Certainly, there are some issues that would have to be resolved, such as our massive debt to foreign countries. It would not be easy. It would not be painless. But if Obama and the current government continue to threaten our liberties and continue to ignore the will of We the People… if they decide to use things nicknamed “the nuclear option”… then perhaps We the People (and We the States) need to invoke our own “nuclear option”.