Crazy Glenn Beck's Anti-American Secession Talk

It's always entertaining when the "patriotic" ones start talking up the notion of splitting up the United States again. Take, for example, Glenn Beck, yesterday.

"Does the state have any right anymore? And I know, because I've heard it from all of the conservative, uh, you know, uh, the historians and scholars and everything else, but you can't convince me that the founding fathers wouldn't allow you to secede. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. And if a state says, 'I don't want to go there because that's suicide,' they have a right to back out. They have a right. People have a right to not commit economic suicide.

"I believe it was Davy Crockett, that as he was standing there in the well of the Senate and they were all yelling and screaming at him, he said -- he looked them right square in the eye and said, 'Hey, you know what? You can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas.' About time somebody says that again.

"You're telling me that states can't say 'Washington, we're not going to commit suicide with you'"?

Now, the part about Davy Crockett is completely wrong. When he said, "You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas," it was because he'd been rejected by his constituents in Tennessee after one term in the U.S. House, not because he was outraged by federal policies he disagreed with. He went to Texas to fight for secession -- not from the U.S., but from Mexico.

But more importantly, why on earth would anyone in the American mainstream desire a second civil war? Because a 39.6% marginal top rate is that much more offensive than a 36% top rate? Beck talked a great deal about "suicide," but he was a little vague about which policies he considered "suicidal."