A case for Butte County seceding

There is growing recognition that arguing over political issues will never yield unity. What it has yielded is divide-and-conquer tactics. I wonder who benefits.

I don’t take kindly to people with questionable motives telling me how to live. I was taught to think for myself—an educational requirement at my house. My parents were in charge of the curriculum. That required me to get a grip on the principles of self-government and its outcome: self-determination.

Here are my personal observations about the abuses of power that have to end for us to get a life that is not planned by Sacramento’s political elite: The goal of mandatory public (government) schooling is actually mind control. Children are taught what to think, not how to think, and parental involvement is discouraged. Short of a strong family base—which you will personally have to create, enforce and defend—your kids will be programmed to be good little soldiers for The Man.

Sound familiar? As a free-range kid, my friends and I lived on horseback—liberty at its finest. We rode to the river eating peaches to swim our horses in the dredger ponds. Boundaries were established by our parents, whom we were persuaded to obey. When I joyously but mistakenly ran my horse through an orchard, the call from a neighbor got home before I did. Today some ignoramus would call CPS on my parents, and my family would be forced to defend their authority in court.

My father had the cajones to throw government inspectors off our land when they came to inspect his melons. Today, he would be shot or locked up for standing his ground.

Our daily lives are run by people whose priority is staying in office. They ignore the simplicity that Thomas Paine called for: “That government is best which governs least.” Meanwhile, young people leave the state for climes friendlier to their dreams.

As it turns out, the personal is political, and directs my reasoning to support the withdrawal of North State counties—through the Jefferson Declaration—from California’s power base in Sacramento.

Mark Baird and friends of Siskiyou County wrote the Jefferson Declaration for that county. Their Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of it. On Sept. 24, Modoc County voted similarly: 4-0. They are hearing from their constituents. The Jefferson Declaration Butte County Committee is working on our own plan. Visit www.jeffersondeclaration.net for more info.