The Folly of Secession

To hell with Texas.  There have been rumblings of secession down there in the Lone Star State for years, ever since President Obama was first elected, but now the secession noise is even louder.  There are rumblings and petitions in other states, to be sure; even here in Wisconsin a number of dweebs have signed some sort of petition calling for the “orderly” withdrawal from the U.S., but the most consistent noise has come from Texas.

The devil’s advocate in me says the rest of us – I mean the other 49 states – should encourage the Obama administration to take the Texans up on their request.  I mean, this is the state where idiotic crap like “Obamacare will force all Americans to be implanted with a microchip” is taken seriously.  The state Bill Maher said was afraid “Barack Obama’s secret Negro army was going to invade them”.  The state where a significant number of people believed President Obama would institute Sharia Law in the U.S. if elected to a second term.

So I say we call their bluff and take them up on it.

After all, what is Texas known for – The Alamo?  Nice piece of history, but it’s really a crappy little old building that you’d barely notice in San Antonio if somebody didn’t point it out to you.  Oil?  Hell, we got plenty of that stuff in other states.  Cattle? Same thing.  Texas Instruments? What has that company innovated lately?  Wool? More of it comes from Texas than any other state, but we’ll be OK without their contribution.

Three of the nation’s top ten population centers (Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio) are in Texas, and the Lone Star state is big – second only to Alaska – but it’s still only about 7.4% of the area of the U.S.

When we allow Texas to secede, we’ll need to shut down all the federal installations there.  All the Army bases, all the V-A Hospitals, all the Federal Courthouses, Federal Administration Buildings (Social Security, IRS, et.al.) shut down; all the U.S. Post Offices; shut down all the NASA stuff;  anything connected with the Federal government – gone.  Shut down.  All Federal assets – military hardware of all sorts, NASA computers, Postal vehicles, all that stuff will be removed as quickly as possible, and what’s left one year from the date of secession you can have.

We won’t take any more Federal Tax out of Texans’ paychecks, nor Social Security nor Medicare or any of that stuff.  And as for what Texans have already paid in for Social Security, et.al. – well, we’ll just consider that liquidated damages for the cost of closing all Federal institutions in Texas.  Y’all can figure out your own retirement plans and medical coverage, just as so many of you Texans have been yammering about.

We’ll take Puerto Rico as the new 50^th state.   Their flag looks like yours anyway.

And, since Texas receives more funds from the Federal government than it sends to Washington, the rest of us will enjoy the small economic boost we’ll get from that.

Good luck, and good riddance.