Secession, Debt, and Responsibility

As tempting as it is to scoff, there is a valid point to be made behind these petitions to secede from the union.

As a response to the 2012 elections and Obama’s victory, people in several states have created petitions asking the government to allow their state to secede from the union. Several have quickly gotten the 25000 signatures in 30 days required for an actual review of their request.

The first response – my first response – was to see this as a childishly immature “cry-baby” response to losing an election. However, when I read some of the comments behind these petitions, I found a valid moral point – a legitimate reason for anger and frustration where “leaving” is a perfectly legitimate response.

Let us imagine a situation with two people.

Person A, we may assume, has put some effort into remaining fiscally responsible. His debt (as a percentage of income) is relatively low, and he works to keep it that way. To do this, he gives up a lot of things – things that it would be nice to have.

However, in this example, Person A has been made responsible for the debts of Person B. If Person B spends more than he can pay back, creditors are being told they can collect from Person A.

Of course, the very reason Person A has money that the creditors can collect is precisely because he has been financially responsible – giving up some of the things he would like to have in order to live within his means.

In this type of situation, it follows that Person B has a moral obligation not to become a financial burden to Person A. If he runs up a huge debt on his own, than his actions are imprudent but not immoral. (Well, breaking a promise to pay back the money would still be immoral.) However, when he runs up a debt under conditions that bring real harm to Person A, in this example, his actions harm another person. In this case, what was imprudent becomes immoral. It is something that a virtuous person would seek to avoid.

However, we have created a situation where immorality is heavily rewarded, while virtue is punished. Person B, in this case, can run up huge bills buying everything in sight – obtaining personal benefit from all of the things that he acquires on credit. Of course, people are great rationalizers, so we can expect Person B to convince himself that he absolutely needs these things and cannot possibly get by without them. Still, he cannot afford them.

As Person A observes Person B’s financial recklessness, he sees his own financial well-being under threat. What good does it do to give up the things that one wants in order to remain financially responsible if somebody else’s reckless behavior ruins one’s efforts anyway?

Person A has two options.

He could decide to become just as financially irresponsible himself. If he runs up his own debt, at least he gets the value of the things the buys on credit – rather than having Person B have all the fun.

The other option – the only option for Person A if he actually values living a finically responsible lifestyle and not ruin his own life with excessive debt – would be to sever his ties with Person B. “Let Person B cover their own debts – or suffer the consequences.”

The most financially irresponsible state governments are blue states. They include California, New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Whereas the financially most responsible states are red states. They include Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, and Indiana.

Yet, no matter how well these financially responsible state governments do at maintaining their own budgets, they are tied to states who do not seem to be able to act responsibly – blue states. Currently, this blue-state mentality is also in control of the federal government, which already has a severe debt problem.

It is perfectly rational to respond to this by saying, “You may drown in debt, but we will not allow you to drag us down with you.”

Unfortunately, this story has a twist.

As a point of fact, the “red states” are substantially responsible for much of the federal debt. They are the ones who put into office the incompetent George Bush and crew. Through a system of tax cuts for the rich, two unfunded wars, a unfunded prescription drug program, and engineering a financial collapse requiring trillions of dollars to recapitalize the banks, they created a substantial part of the federal debt.

It may be tempting to blame this on Obama. However, they threw the country down this financial well. Obama has only had the opportunity to try to climb out again after the nation hit bottom.

So, in effect, this is still a case in which the “red states” created a huge financial mess and, instead of accepting responsibility for their mistakes and offering to help clean it up, they seek to blame somebody else and run away, leaving others suffer through the financial disaster they voted for.

Consequently, there is still a legitimate objection to be raised against these cry-baby conservatives who (seek to) go running away in a tantrum because they did not get their way. It is still legitimate to say to them, “You created this mess by putting that incompetent in office for 8 years, you will stay around and help clean it up.”

However, this does not change the fact that “blue states” also have a moral obligation – an obligation grounded on a principle not to cause harm to others – to get their own financial houses in order.