One final comment on my post below: the leaders of the USSR was tired of the oppression of the Soviet Socialist System--of its' economic failure and the resulting poverty. The result: 16 or so free and independent nations were born, freed from the shackles of centralized soviet control. In contrast, OUR utopian progressives are not only not tired of socialism and centralized control--they're just getting started inflicting their Hellish utopia on us. God save us from do-gooders like BHO who use other people's money and labor to do the "good" they envision.

Here's why the Feds will not allow secession: Socialism is an exclusive system of centralized control-a clear manifestation of Hobbs' Leviathan. Socialism cannot bear competition and uses state power to destroy it--competition being Hobbs' "worm in the commonwealth." Socialists won't permit secession because they need slaves (productive members of the society) to fund their system. We can do liberty without them. But they can't do their slave system without us.

You're absolutely right, Dr. Williams. Not ONE state would have signed the compact of 1789 if they thought they were all signing a sovereignty suicide pact. Also, the war settled nothing, it only deferred the issue to another time. Next, secession was not declared illegal until the kangaroo Supreme Court of 1869 in White vs Texas. Finally, unlke dligon, who clearly has no idea what he's talking about, I've actually studied the issue, and the lame things those who justify the unnecessary slaughter and the over a century and a half of malice that followed is mind bending. Secession, as you say, Dr. Williams, is the honorable and best way out. The USSR allowed it.

BS.

Well intention, well thought out, but, sadly feckless. The Gimmee Knownothings and Gimme Stuffmanns the welfare pimps buy votes from don't care a fiddler's damn about policy---they're Gimmees for God's sake! The Democrats have the ideal policy formula for our dystopian society: 1. Advocate libertine and outrageous morals to satisfy those old enough to vote but too young to begin to remorsefully reflect upon the evil they have done, repent and become decent human beings instead of self-centered narcissists and hedonists. 2. Use class and race warfare as your flagship vote-getting tactic and promise those who go for the lie anything and everything you think they want. My take: no fix is possible. Let it burn.

The have not been mislead. This is their choice, a choice that has lead them down the path of partisanship to the degree that they were and are willing to defending a confidence man by hiding the fact that the administration sacrificed the lives of good men to protect BHOs political future. What do you call the accomplice of a confidence man? A confidence man! THIS is treason and betrayal, straight up.

You know,Dr. Sowell, I didn't know those terms, but "confidence man" is the term I've used for Benghazi and almost everything this administration has brought forth. This is, without a doubt, the most secretive administration in our history, when even the origins and father of the President is strongly in doubt. What other person could get away with running for office while having ALL his records and papers from school and otherwise sequestered and hidden from the public. What is going on is evil--some of us who know the confidence man in 1997 easily recognized what was happening in 2007. Are the rest of America that slow? How stupid. Americans STILL can't recognize a southern film flammer. But BHO is so brazen.

Brilliant, Dr. Sowell. You're always on point, astute and insightful, but this is exceptional. Good debate points for Romney tonight--which he didn't deliver. If I were he I'd fire my whole damned advisory staff and hire people with an IQ above 90.

A quality may be both a virtue or a vice, depending upon how it is applied. Diversity of skills, for instance, is essential for a nation. But diversity of purpose weakens a nation. Take Japan. Japan has a diversity of skills and unity of purpose, buttressed by racial homogeneity. America, sadly, has less and less of any kinds of skills, & suffers from a metaphysical & moral vertigo that has all but annihilated the possibility of unity of purpose. But the American left sees diversity as yet another tool of social revolution and "change"–– yet another pretext for the enforcement of political correctness--a political correctness ironically meant to eliminate all diversity so that all that remains are the ideas & opinions of the left.

It is true there was some elements of entitlement in American slavery, but not entirely. A scientific study of slavery in a book called "Time on the Cross" states that slaves were compensated about 90%--the compensation coming in the form of food, clothing, shelter, medical care (till death), as well as many other things. Compare that to the slaves of today: the American middle class. They must work for their own food, clothing and shelter and then pay for others, whom we may define as those using the force of Government as their proxy slave master. Q: how do today's welfare "masters" compensate their slaves? A: the politicians who proxy for them: with votes. The actual slave labor in the middle class: not at all.