 We have realistic prospects for secession and Decentralization so you know milk toast stuff like you know middle of the road stuff now This is going to be fantastic Rhyme McMacon though Bishop Mike. My Harry and Jeff Deist so Take it away gentlemen Thank you Yes, this is the secession and decentralization portion of the program and They're both bound up with each other and we have a we have a large panel so you each have About six minutes to to make your point If I take a portion which so I'll I'll just start with some introductory remarks and we'll just go right into them into the panel now Rothbard used a phrase radical decentralization and And He meant Yeah, he meant yeah decentralization, but not that wimpy version that you often hear about usually when Republicans talk about federalism or something like that so their notion of decentralization is For example when the Republican AGs from Oklahoma and Nebraska sued the state of Colorado because they had legalized Marijuana in that state and they said well we're for federalism. Yeah other states Maybe they should be allowed to do what they want to do sometimes, but that's too much freedom So it's too much laissez-faire in our neighboring states So we're gonna sue them because because federalism demands it and that's not yeah, that sort of thing when they they act Like that's decentralization. It's not Rothbard's idea radical decentralization is basically it means The phrase he used was universal rights locally enforced so rights are universal and they're the same everywhere We all have natural rights and we all have the same rights But really the only way that they can really be enforced is if they're Polycentric centers of power and that the laws are written created enforced repealed in a variety of different places and Experience suggests that in reality that is what's most conducive to freedom and this isn't just some pure Theory somewhere. This is historical reality Historian Ralph Raco has done a lot of great work He's not the only one on this topic But showing that the reason Europe became an economic powerhouse the reason people valued freedom in Europe Unlike other places in the world was because Europe was so decentralized that there was no Europe-wide empire that Europe was a place of more than 1500 independent entities and principalities and kingdoms through its formative years and that it was through that laboratory that the ideals of liberalism and freedom came out of Europe and Nowhere else and so any movement in the opposite direction Moves us in the wrong direction and it's not a coincidence For example that in the 16th century the best place to be in the world For a regular person to achieve the highest standard of living in the most freedom Was the Dutch Republic itself formed out of a secession movement from Spain and itself one of the most Decentralized polities in the history of the world where yeah, certainly the Kingdom of Orange wanted to dominate the rest of the country But they didn't and so you had paintings coming out of the Dutch Republic in that period also known as the golden age of The Dutch where the painters were painting regular people because in a place like that of with heavy decentralization with Polycentric lawmaking it was possible for regular people to exercise some power So paintings there featured regular businessmen doing things regular merchants doing their activities and in other countries like France or Spain Or to a lesser extent England. What were the paintings of right some worthless monarch doing his thing and leading a war You know fat effeminate bureaucrats, you know eating Things like that. So there is a real difference and decentralization reflects a greater thirst for freedom and So we have examples that came out of secession the American Republic of course came out of secession This isn't just something that Exists high in in theory somewhere in the ether So we'll talk a little bit about that, but of course Decentralization radical decentralization doesn't always have to mean totally independent entities It can also mean a highly decentralized polity where all of the different areas have a high degree of Independence and a high degree of an ability to make decisions for themselves Even if they are united on some issues like say geopolitics military defense that sort of thing and you saw that to a For example, maybe historically a little bit in England Which other than the Netherlands was the other best place to live for the last three or four hundred years in the big picture? Because it even though it wasn't decentralized in the way the Dutch were nevertheless had decentralized its power along a variety of different Centers of power taking power away from that the Specifically in the Civil War from the Stuart monarchs who badly wanted to be absolutist monarchs, but failed at it and They chopped off One of the king's heads because of it and that actually paved the way for some great things there as Rothbard notes with the rise of the levelers During the English Civil War. This was the first libertarian movement This was a drive to really decentralized power at the national level. So that's very very important It's important that different groups have the ability to self-govern out of the reach of any sort of central government and that fundamentally state building That's this is a term that historians use state building building a powerful states of the Main process behind that often is in centralizing power in one place and literally bringing cities Provinces wayward nobles into one umbrella and being able to rule them from the center And so breaking down that process of state building is key to any sort of real pursuit of Freedom so we'll talk a little bit here about some practical methods of pursuing that really at the ground level and Let's go ahead and start with Jeff and let Jeff gonna set this tone I think it depends on your Definition of secession first and foremost I think they're a hard and soft versions of secession and I think soft Elements of secession are happening all around us. I think they accelerated mightily under COVID in 2020 I recall a couple of years ago Hans Herman hop on a panel said if you look at the nationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries they were mostly centralizing in other words What used to be 50? these United States Under Lincoln and then later Wilson Roosevelt truly became just glorified federal counties That was a centralist revolution if you look at the patchwork world of Europe Especially countries like Germany which consisted of many many provinces and cities The you know German nationalism, especially the nasty kind we think of in World War two well World War one also Those are centralizing impulses, but he says in the 21st century most of the Nationalist impulses are actually secessionist or breakaway in nature in other words Trump Represented at least in theory and a breakaway sentiment from DC Brexit Represented a breakaway sentiment from the EU what's happening in? Catalonia in Spain represents a breakaway sentiment from Madrid, so I think these are all very happy circumstances and You know 2020 was the year local reasserted itself Right, we've talked about this it mattered a hell of a lot where you lived in 2020 if you lived in Australia Australia, excuse me Australia, you're basically in a penal colony Canada shut down travel between the provinces US governors Suggested doing the same they kind of tried some checkpoints between US states at the height of COVID remember that and I recall watching the the big riots after George Floyd Spread to Los Angeles and I was particularly interested because they were rioting in a part of the city Which is very near where David Gordon lives Miracle mile sort of mid-century if people know where that is and there's a very famous deli he goes to every day literally cantors deli and The rioters were at this sort of fancy mall right next door to it And they were so upset about police brutality that they availed themselves of some Apple computers and some other items They would ease their pain And I was watching this and I was looking at the police and they were these terminator Robocops They had these big military apparatus and they were dressed up as we've seen in Australia as we've seen with these riots in Paris and other places which the media won't show us by by the way over COVID that the Police are in this riot gear where they almost look like something out of your kids gi Joe or something They look like soldiers like Robocops and I was thinking wow, they're so removed from their own populace Nobody in David's neighborhood knows who any of these people are now compare and contrast that worth where I live a You call it college town in Auburn, Alabama about 75,000 people. Well when COVID hit The governor was trying to blow hot air about masks and shutdowns and distancing and they created some Website with some new rules about what businesses could do what the Mises Institute were very fortunate to own our building We're not doing any of that You know it's private property But what was interesting is whether it's that sort of fog of war early on in COVID We didn't quite know what authorities were going to do it. How everything was going to shake out There was some question about whether the local police in Auburn would be tasked with enforcing a mass requirement on stores For example public places in the cops really know God We don't want to do that and the city council is like we don't want to make them do that And then the city council cowards that they are were relieved when the state governor came out with a mass thing Because then it wasn't something that they had legislated Well, so interesting to me is we know the Auburn police. I mean, it's a small town It's about college football and sec life. And so a local cop might be someone you run into at the grocery There certainly be a lot of people in town who go to that cops church There would be a localized element if that cop started turning into one of those LA style robo cops Right, we would know that so there might be some public a problem your Republic push back on that So I thought that was a very interesting Thing to think about during COVID was that how all crises become local because all sudden it mattered very much You know, what's your grocery? God was your gas station have what is your bank have you got to have water and utilities? And you got to have medical care and you might have to have Prescription drugs or whatever you need and that stuff has to get to you on a truck or a train or however it gets So this global world that we all thought we lived in and you know, we do this all day, right? And I'm guilty of that we tend to forget about the the Corporeal world right around us, you know, who is the cop who's gonna come if you have a problem Who's the EMT? You know, who's gonna mow that grass that's on the side of the freeway ramp that's starting to make your town Look shabby, you know at some point the federal government can't do that And if it can't do that it sure as hell can't pay entitlements and remake Afghanistan Right, so I think there's some very happy trends coming. I want to talk a little bit more about those tonight But I I personally think secession at least the soft kind is not a pipe dream All right, I'm gonna start with the bad news We live under the biggest most powerful arguably government in the history of the world This is a government the federal government that tells you how much water you can have in your toilet And what kind of light bulbs you can screw into your light fixtures. That's a pretty darn powerful government Now here's the good news. There is a way to undermine that massive centralized power Now I'll talk real quick about how we can do that practically the first thing that I want you to do This is my first piece of important advice Never ever call the 202 area code. Just don't do it. Those of you who aren't area code savvy That's Washington DC Now my daughter lives in DC. I'm allowed rest of you. Don't ever call Washington DC What I'm talking about really here is a shift in mindset We tend to as Americans if we have any interest in politics at all We tend to focus our attention on the presidential race and maybe a congressional race or our congressman This is a complete waste of time if you care about liberty because these people don't care about liberty It's like changing out the driver in a broken down car, right? If I have a car It's up on blocks wheels are falling off of it. There's no motor in it I'm sitting in the driver's seat and I get out and my wife gets in the driver's seat That car still ain't going nowhere She looks a lot better than me But the car is not going to go anywhere because the car itself is broken and that's where we are when we have a Centralized government that's telling you how much water you can put in your toilet You have a very very big problem and big is an intentionally being said there And you know, I see this tendency though even in libertarian circles We get into this, you know, we think if we can just get the right President or right guys in Congress or maybe if we can get a good Supreme Court Then we can get liberty because we'll get a Supreme Court and they'll they'll impose liberty from on high Well, first off you don't impose liberty. That's not a thing and And the second thing is again these politically connected lawyers. They don't care about liberty They're part of this centralized machine. You're asking part of the federal government to rein in the federal government It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't work and we've seen it not work Now you may get a victory But if some guy on a court says that you can have an AR-15 you've lost You might have won the battle but you've lost the war because that same guy you've given him the power to make that decision for you So what we're talking about here is as Ryan said a radical Decentralization and I would be remiss being an amesis thing if I didn't read a little bit of Rothbard He said in in the US it becomes important in moving towards such radical Decentralization for libertarians and classical liberals indeed for many other minority or dissident groups to begin to lay the greatest stress on the forgotten 10th amendment and to try to decompose the role and power of the centralizing Supreme Court Rather than trying to get people of one's own ideological persuasion on the Supreme Court Its power should be rolled back and minimized as far as possible and its power Decomposed into state or even local judicial bodies So we're talking about this in the judicial sense, but I would say this applies to the executive it applies to Congress We need to focus our attention not on Washington DC Stop calling the 202 area code and focus on state and local government Well, you're saying what's the state government gonna do to the biggest most powerful government in the history of the world? Well, I'm glad you asked because this is the key nullification You've heard this word mentioned a few times over the last yesterday and today Basically, it's just saying no it's using local jurisdictions to undermine federal power James Madison gave us this blueprint in federalist 46 even before the Constitution was ratified He said if the federal government commits an unwarrantable act Unconstitutional or even a warrantable act that just happens to be unpopular He said the means of opposition are powerful and at hand and he listed out some things he could do and the most Significant is a refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union Just say no to the feds when they come along and say we're gonna enforce gun control the state can say now We're not doing that. We've seen this work marijuana is the prime example. I have in my wallet a little card I can go to a store here in Florida and I can get weed Whoa, the federal government says this is illegal But this has moved to such a level at the state and local level that there is no way that the federal government can do anything about it And here's the dirty little secret the federal government depends on state and local actors to do virtually everything that they do Without that state and local support. They can't do squat. They can't enforce COVID rules They can't enforce gun control. They can't impose a medical system. They can't have the war on drugs Heck, they can't even have the the military industrial around the world Empire building without the National Guard So we have a powerful thing here that we can use nullification to learn more Go to 10th Amendment Center all spelled out comm and you will see how we're putting this strategy into practical effect Hello everyone, you know I have the great pleasure of Offering perhaps my most controversial opinion in circles like this the last five years I've become radicalized into becoming a Democrat. That's a lowercase d Democrat You know, I've become more necessity in this age and it's because in the last five years, you know, we've seen Kind of two areas really where I think we've seen the greatest movements against the regime You know one is technological innovation, right Bitcoin encryption 3d printing all these are great I have nothing to contribute to these fields outside of holding Bitcoin and this sort of stuff, but you know, I'm glad there's innovation on the entrepreneurship strategies that we've heard earlier But on the democratic side, you know, we've seen obviously brexit, you know, one of the most radical You have political movements in Europe having success in quite a while and then we've seen the trumpening here And I think the trump moment in particular is something that libertarians must recognize is the greatest opportunity we've ever had Because of trump and the way that he exited the white house Earlier this year you had 50 plus million americans that knew That the federal government is illegitimate You they they recognize that joe biden is a president imposed upon them And it's within this environment that we've seen the breakdown of legitimacy of the federal institutions of this country Because of trump you have former rick santorum voters that want to abolish the fbi Because of trump you have people losing faith in the conservative stacked supreme court because they wouldn't take up election concern supreme court cases Because of the woke aspects of the military you have patriotic Decades long service members that recognize that the leadership of the federal military hates them You know, this is an opportunity for us to take advantage of And when we look throughout history, you know in america Populist movements, which are you know, democracy at its most finest have been the greatest advantages that we've seen Rolling back the federal state patrick newman last night talked about how the jacksonians Or some of the heroes and you're turning back some not all but some of the cronious aspects of early america Well, I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned there because one of the jacksonian movement You had the great icon the great man Andrew jackson, but more importantly you had martin van buren who was a great strategist behind the scenes the master of camony hall And you also had intellectuals arming the jacksonians with the arguments against the central bank You had people like william gouge You had people Like william legged And what these are these are all early american economic thinkers in the laze fair tradition proto austrians if you will and so That I think is the model that if you know, we as libertarians The the mission of trying to create as many libertarians as possible is something that you know the mises institute You know, that's one of the things we're trying to do spreading the ideas But in terms of political success, we don't need to make an america full of libertarians to pursue a strategy of decentralization What instead we need libertarians and positions of influence within the current political system And if we look at the history of revolutions often the revolutions start with massive opposition to the regime Recognizing that the standing regime no longer represents them does not have their interest at heart And again, I think we're seeing this play out with every single let's go brandon chant at every college football stadium Out there People are waking up Now I myself in pursuing a strategy. I have gotten involved in my local republican party Um, you know partly because it's a plus 43 trump district Which means that trump beat biden by 43 points and what's incredible is if you start talking to your normal average boomer republican They sound a lot like us and they sound a lot more radical than your average capital l libertarian You know, they recognize again that the government hates they they are actively talking about secession nullification And in particularly again, I did this issue with the election integrity aspect You know, I was at an arpoff meeting a republican party of state of florida And the entire conversation was hijacked by a hour-long conversation about the necessity of secession or nullification If democrats and congress patched hr1, which is kind of a nationalization of election law And so I think what you know, my suggestion has been to to libertarians out there if you're interested in pursuing an approach of You know working within your environment to create these forts against the regime uh working within a republican party if you're in a Bright red area provides you an institution which you can talk about ideas Which you're desperately looking for Particularly this environment with the education battles that are going on right if you one of the things that we did at our local parties We bought a bunch of total twins books We do things with our local family with local people in the community dealing with students We're doing outreach in the high schools on this sort of stuff And of course if you want to see an example of you know state power pushing back against this federal regime I don't think there's a better example out there than governor desantis here in the state of florida Oh And again, this is one of the things that has radicalized me because I you know I remember back in the day thinking that there was no, you know, great victories to be had in politics Particularly after the disappointments of 2012 But it's difficult to say that when you appreciate when I've come to appreciate the fact that I've been freer than most people in this world the last two years Because a teen red republican a trump and dorske guy Beat a democrat by 33 000 votes And so we need to be identifying Leaders on the right that are willing to stand by that and the great things you've had that's rushed to its liberty Everyone wants to be ronda santas out there in republican politics right now I don't care if that's blatant opportunitism, which is for most of these people As long as their interests aligns with our interests that i'm okay with working as many people as we can Um, I think the opportunity we've had right now has that have been better for our ideas And again the more that we can identify areas within our counties and our communities To focus on building these institutions up to push back against the regime as it stands The better off we're gonna be in any sort of strategy for decentralization Thank you, though And that's actually a perfect segue to my last two minutes worth of comments Which is it's really those people who you're talking about who are Attempting to crack the nut of one of the most important issues of decentralization And I think that's really approaching the issue of military and geopolitics I think there's there's far too little discussion about what are the effects On geopolitics and military power in terms of decentralization And secession and I think his name is pat McGeehan in west virginia And some of these state legislatures and it's all state legislators of kind of the trump variety Right who are pushing legislation to finally regain some control at the state level For us army forces and for the national guard Because the way the u.s. Was designed is it was supposed to be a decentralized country And the english had understood this in the civil war as well Was oh my goodness somebody's calling me Sorry Yeah, I'll just be a second the And so the english understood if you want to maintain some freedom You have to keep the king or the executive from controlling directly the military power So the u.s. Was designed for the governors to have a final say on the deployment of their troops and the use of state troops And that the standing army didn't really exist that it was composed almost entirely Of state militias that had been nationalized and called up and so some state legislators are finally trying to return that power To the states which had been gradually eroded after the civil war and basically abolished in 1903 with the nox act I believe and then during the cold war was finally completely destroyed when a bunch of anti-communist conservatives decided we can't let any state governors Now impede the ability to send troops to vietnam or some other foreign country to fight the executive wars Executives wars forever So that the power that states have on vetoing Total federal control of all military powers essentially been destroyed over the last hundred years And it's only by really returning to some of that that you can start to do a a functional return To limiting the central states of power to really just simply Invade if necessary and really exert And turn the screws On local populations american cities if it ever comes to that sort of crisis situation And so that's going to be a key factor in obtaining any sort of real functional Decentralization now we do have time for a couple of questions. Maybe because you guys were so efficient If I can go to that one part I think this is something that's going to continue to escalate. You've already saw Descendants for example recall Florida Guard troops during the inauguration Over this and I think this in particular is going to be important because we're we're seeing right now At least politically obviously we have plenty of bases out there. We're still meddling far much than we knew But we're seeing a post war on terror Moment now become a war on domestic terror And then those guns and those all those weapons created and forged You know thanks to our friends in the bush administration are all being wielded It's no longer out the middle east is about middle america and in that dynamic as well I I think you're seeing that conflict with a lot of service members. This is not what they signed up for Okay. All right. Well, then thank you very much