Former professor argues it’s time [for
Vermont] to leave the Union
November 16, 2003
By ROBIN PALMER Staff Writer
CHARLOTTE [Vermont]— Nothing about
Thomas Naylor seems radical — except, of course, his politics.
Naylor is soft-spoken and polite. A former university professor, he
exhibits obvious intelligence. He’s also kind, a proud father and,
well, rather likable.
But Naylor insists he’s serious when he says Vermont should secede
from the United States and become a republic. He’s founded a political
movement, the Second Vermont Republic, to do just that, and now he’s
published his book on the subject: “The Vermont Manifesto.”
In it, Naylor lays out the state’s attributes — its beauty, lack
of commercialization, independence. And he proposes Vermont not only
retain those characteristics through secession, but that the tiny
northern state be an example to the rest of a nation caught up in money,
power, greed and fears of terrorism.
“The United States needs a different metaphor,” he says, “and
we’re offering ourselves as that metaphor.”
While Naylor in his book also fantasizes about joining New Hampshire
and Maine as a nation, the Second Vermont Republic’s primary agenda is
splitting with the United States.
Naylor argues Vermont should rise up, albeit peacefully, “reclaim
its soul” and return to the independent republic it was between 1777
and 1791.
Becoming a republic again could be the state’s salvation —
literally, he believes.
“The U.S. is not a sustainable economy. … Do you want to go down
with the Titanic? No empire has survived the test of time.”
The United States’ “death spiral” began with the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, and got a push from President Bush when he ordered a
preemptive strike on Iraq, Naylor says. Eventually, as happened with the
Soviet Union, he says, states will break away.
“The United States is not going to survive as an empire. It’s
just fundamentally unmanageable. It’s just totally out of control.”
And it will get worse before it gets better, he says. Naylor predicts
Bush will order a nuclear bomb dropped on North Korea, Iran, Syria or
all three by November 2004 to position himself for re-election — a
campaign that Naylor expects Bush to win.
Naylor knows most will dismiss his predictions and his drive for
secession as ridiculous. But the 67-year-old does have some credentials
to back up his positions.
After making trips to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, he says, he
publicly predicted the changes ahead there. He’s written books on
“The Cold War Legacy” and “The Gorbachev Strategy,” and he
certainly understands economies.
Naylor — make that Dr. Naylor, since he has a doctorate in the
field — was an economics professor at Duke University for 30 years. In
Vermont, the Mississippi native taught economics for a year at
Middlebury College and a few courses at the University of Vermont’s
business school.
He’s also written or co-written 30 books over the past 40 years,
focusing first on computers.
A reprinting of one of Naylor’s textbooks in Russian led to an
invitation to visit the country and eventually to a new specialty:
political and social analysis. In the 1980s, Naylor left behind
mathematics and corporate planning models, not to mention a 50-person
computer firm that sold software at $70,000 a pop to Fortune 500
companies, to write “The Search for Meaning,” “Affluenza,”
“Downsizing the U.S.A.” and others.
The chapters are written out on yellow legal pads. Naylor says he
hasn’t touched a computer since he sold his software company to German
investors in 1980.
He came to Vermont, specifically Charlotte, in 1993 with his wife,
Magdalena Naylor, and their son, Alexander, now 16, in search of
community after the couple wrote about the topic in “The Search for
Meaning. She is a psychologist at Fletcher Allen Health Care and
associate professor at the University of Vermont.
As Naylor started drafting “The Vermont Manifesto” two years ago
and formed the Second Vermont Republic, “Some people laughed at me.
Most just ignored it.”
While he certainly still has his critics, he says his ideas are
gaining attention.
“Every time Bush opens his mouth, it gets a little easier.”
Naylor also hopes the national media will take note and contrast the
Second Vermont Republic’s efforts to leave the nation with Vermonter
Howard Dean’s efforts to run it.
So far, about 30 “Vermonters or sympathetic flatlanders” have
paid the $25 dues (students are $10; organizations are $100) to join the
Second Vermont Republic, and an additional 70 have expressed interest,
says Naylor. Besides his book, a 112-page paperback with green covers,
he is selling T-shirts and giving away bumper stickers.
In June, the group, with the aid of Bread and Puppet Theater of
Glover, will issue a declaration of independence on the State House
steps in Montpelier. Naylor’s already been speaking on the topic of
secession at public lectures on college campuses.
He’s begun stepping up the public relations efforts, sending out
press releases on his book and the Second Vermont Republic’s stance
and getting opinion pieces published in regional newspapers, such as The
Providence (R.I.) Journal. A daylong “independence workshop” was
held last month in Glover, and other meetings are planned to get the
word out. Even a man who has turned away from computers needs a Web site
for his movement (www.vermontsovereignty.com), and the Second Vermont
Republic is investigating creating a Vermont currency.
Naylor is also armed with answers to arguments he commonly hears,
including that the state would be unable to sustain itself financially
and militarily.
For every dollar Vermonters send “the feds,” he says, the state
gets $1.12 back. Secession would cost Vermont “a few hundred million
dollars.”
“It’s for sure not a big loss,” he says. Naylor also envisions
Vermont continuing to trade with other countries.
He does not believe leaving the United States would make the state
vulnerable to military attack.
“Why would anyone in their right mind want to attack Vermont?” he
asked from his relaxed position in an overstuffed chair, views of farm
fields and mountains stretching out behind his home.
“It’s laughable,” he says. “Kill black and white Holsteins?
Burn off the sugar maples?”
With that in mind, Naylor tells Vermonters to “rebel.”
It’s the title of his next book. One of the book’s heroes? None
other than Jesus Christ.
Rebelling, says Naylor, is “ultimately the only way to live.”
Contact Robin Palmer at robin.palmer@timesargus.com or 479-0191, ext.
1171.
Copyright
© 2003 Rutland Herald and
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