Atlanta Suburbs Know How To Secede

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – This is as basic a fundamental — when you talk about privileges and immunities clauses in constitutions, when privileges and immunities came up during the debates over ratification, this is exactly what was being talked about, the old vote with your feet.  If you happen to vote with your feet and a bunch of people that look like you vote with your feet and you wind up owning property in the same area, so what?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  What was the year?  This was a huge story.  School board members in Atlanta had participated in fixing test scores.  Do you remember this?  This was about 2005, maybe 2006.  It really outraged and animated many of those who were sending their kids to Cobb County schools because no one knew, until there was a complete investigation, just how deep the test fraud was.  While this was going on, there were all manner of controversies percolating beneath the surface in Atlanta.  This is all because of the size and scale of the city government.  Even in a city, when you get beyond a certain point, you get out of scale and it becomes impossible to manage these things.  John T. Bennett writing at WorldNetDaily writes:

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As Detroit – beset by violence, debt and social woes – prepares to undergo a historic takeover by the Michigan state government, the city of Atlanta could be sliding toward a similar fate.

Some are quietly wondering whether Atlanta is in danger of becoming “the Detroit of the South.”

The city has experienced an ongoing succession of government scandals, ranging from a massive cheating racket to corruption, bribery, school-board incompetence and now the potential loss of accreditation for the local DeKalb County school system.

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Mike:  Once you make something public, the end result of it is almost guaranteed and set in stone.  Once something becomes public, once it leaves the guidance and the checks and balances of the free market and the private sector, the end result of it — this ought to be a nice thesis study for one of your tikes or tikettes out there doing some college-level papers on government.  Once something becomes public, its demise is almost certainly guaranteed.  Despite what we like to call our checks and balances, there really isn’t any force on Earth other than refreshing trees of liberty with blood of patriots and tyrants — I don’t mean that in the practical sense of the word.  You almost have to physically go in and abolish entire agencies and bureaus and start over again.  You’re going to run into the same problem even after you start over again, but for a while you will be less corrupt than you currently are.

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For several years, problems of this sort have fueled political reforms, including the creation of new cities in northern Atlanta suburbs. Due to the intensification of corruption scandals in DeKalb, some state-level reform proposals could become national news very soon.

As a result of the unsavory politics in urban Atlanta, northern suburban communities acted to distance themselves. Beginning in 2005, many communities began the process of incorporating into cities.

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Mike:  In other words, they have done what I tell you needs to be done on a statewide basis.  They have left the tyrannical, corrupt government that is out of scale and they have seceded, basically, and formed their own sovereignties.  This is exactly what needs to happen and exactly what the remedy for many of our ills is.  I know many of you refuse to accept that.  All you have to do is elect who the Heritage Foundation says you need to elect, or elect whoever the Cato Foundation or whoever is out there ginning up support for PACs and super PACs and what have you.  Just go back to the ballot box and elect our kids and all will be right with the world.  Say it ain’t so, Cosgrove.  Listen to this:

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Thus far, Milton, Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Dunwoody, Chattahoochee…

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Mike:  Is there a country song with the word Chattahoochee in its title?

AG:  Way down yonder, I think Alan Jackson.

Mike:  [singing] “Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee.

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…Chattahoochee Hills and Johns Creek have done so.

These cities, after breaking away politically from urban Atlanta, have become so successful that a libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation, has featured Sandy Springs as a model of effective government. The Economist has also applauded the northern Atlanta cities for solving the problem of unfunded government pension liability and avoiding the bankruptcy that looms over some urban areas.  The new cities may soon be able to create their own school districts, which would free them even further from the issues besetting Atlanta.

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Mike:  The way I understand it, and if I’m reading this correctly, if my meager amount of research on this is correct, the State of Georgia would basically have to allow these cities to form their own school districts.  They have to at some level be sanctioned by or recognized, if you will, as credible by the State of Georgia.  There still remains some work to be done.

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While incorporation has been popular with residents of the new cities, not all of Atlanta is as satisfied. The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit in 2011 to dissolve the new cities…

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Mike:  Can you imagine this?  You decide to practice republicanism and self-government and a bunch of yahoos that don’t live where you live decide to sue you because you’re no longer willing to subsidize their way of life.  Really?  Seriously?  This is exactly what the Yankees did in 1861 when the Southern states said buh-bye.  [mocking] “No, no one is leaving this four-alarm family emergency.  We’re all in this together, buddy.  You’re not leaving.  You’re not taking your tariffs and revenues.  You’re not taking your cotton.  You’re not taking your agribusiness.  No, that’s ours.”  This is always the issue here.  It always comes down to some form of transfer of wealth, doesn’t it?

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The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit in 2011 to dissolve the new cities, claiming they were a “super-white majority” and diluting the voting power of minorities.

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Mike:  I have to take grave issue with this.  What difference does it make?  I can take you to places in New Orleans right now.  Come get in the car with me.  I’ll drive you to a super-black majority area.  As a matter of fact, I can drive you to a very large super-black majority area.  I don’t have any problem with it.  Those people have chosen to live together.  They’ve chosen to, in some ineffective form, govern themselves together.  If they are congregated together by color, that’s their business.  They’re not harming me.  I don’t want to live there.  I have no desire to.  This is as basic a fundamental — when you talk about privileges and immunities clauses in constitutions, when privileges and immunities came up during the debates over ratification, this is exactly what was being talked about, the old vote with your feet.  If you happen to vote with your feet and a bunch of people that look like you vote with your feet and you wind up owning property in the same area, so what?  We’re going to have legislatures come in and say: No, we went down Smith Street.  We went down Oak Lane.  We counted.  You don’t have the requisite number of minorities on your street, bucko.  What are they going to do?  Are they going to force people to sell homes?  Are they going to bus people into your neighborhood?  This is just preposterous.

End Mike Church Show Transcript