An Interesting Comparison of the United States and the Soviet Union on Secession

"Each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the U.S.S.R." So reads Article 72 of the Soviet Constitution. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are three of the fifteen republics explicitly listed as retaining this right of secession. The Soviet constitution does not even require a Republic to seek the consent of the national Union in order to secede. Article 70 specifies that all Soviet Republics have entered the Union, "as a result of free self-determination of nations and the voluntary association of equal Soviet Socialist Republics."

Common sense tells you what would have happened if a Soviet republic had seceded from the Soviet Union. Tanks would have been rolling into the republic that seceded to put an end to any threat or embarrassment to the Soviet Union and its leaders, after all, this is the country that sent thousands of its people to their death at the hands of Stalin during the purges.

Why our great Republic likes to believe we are above the tyranny of that was the Soviet state, I am reminded at a time in our nation's history in which armies marched to put the states that seceded in their place. After all, what do you think the Civil War was about?

We are taught it had to do with slavery as the history books paint the picture of good vs. evil. That simply wasn't the the total story. The Civil War had more to do with oppressive taxation of the South and the display of states' rights through the 10th Amendment. When you start looking at the history of the actual Civil War, like Stalin, Lincoln sent over 600,000 Americans to their deaths all because Southern States challenged the federal government over the oppressive taxation. It really is something interesting to digest. Lincoln's tyranny was not any different than the tyranny of the USSR.

Of course, like Stalin, Lincoln put his political enemies in jail, robbing them of habeas corpus rights and often shutting down the vehicles they used to oppose Lincoln--like their newspapers and printing presses. Lincoln is looked upon as a national hero, but the more I read about Lincoln the easier it is to compare him to the likes of Josef Stalin.