"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Sons of the Pioneers theme for TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon artist's musings melding metaphors and journalism, for readers in more than 150 countries.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Secession Senility, or if Texas secedes

I'm a Southerner and a Texan and believe in secession. The Constitution doesn't prohibit it. Texas may have a right to secede.
But.
Grant's armies were the answer to secession in the 1800s.
Today, these narrow-minded knee-jerk sore election losers in several states petitioning for secession should be granted their wish...one that they'd immediately regret. Oklahoma and others would benefit.
Suppose Texas--or any other state--were to secede and we let them go?
Take Texas, for instance. The effects there would dwarf the damage to those petty states that don't have its resources.
All US military bases in Texas would be moved to Oklahoma and elsewhere...San Antonio would be one-fourth its size. El Paso would be a suburb of Juarez. The list goes on.
It would also save Social Security and Medicare, because Texans would no longer be citizens of the US, and they'd forfeit their benefits which the rest of us would inherit. It would  streamline the US government by requiring fewer politicians in the House and Senate and the serving bureaucrats.
"There's no telling what would be in that tamale."
 Texas, now without a state income tax, would have to institute an income tax to finance a military and road repairs, schools and subsidies to its farmers, if nothing else.
Texas would no longer be protected by the US military, which means Mexico would invade, beginning at the Juarez suburb of El Paso, and control at least half of the country before the remainder could raise an Army. Texas would be flooded with more drugs than now, because the US Coast Guard would not be in the Gulf.
The airports (DFW, Houston, etc)would have to shut down until Texas developed its own FAA and trained air traffic controllers. Thousands of teachers and hundreds of schools and universities would have to be cut because of the loss of federal aid. The population would shrink because thousands of federal workers would flee the state to keep their jobs.
Sure, Texas has enough oil to finance a government, but before it got the structure in place, roads would crumble, no aircraft could land. Prescription drugs would not be protected until Texas initiated its own FDA. Without the agriculture department, meat and vegetables and other food would not be regulated, so there's no telling what would be in that tamale. And all those bank deposits wouldn't be insured by the FDIC.
And if Texans did figure all this out, what would happen when part of the state decided to secede itself...the right of partition being a part of the current Texas Constitution?
Texans couldn't travel to what remained of the USA until its government issued passports, and the US recognized it as a separate country. If the US didn't recognize it, we'd build a border fence around it, and blow all the bridges across the Red River, setting up security checkpoints, guarded by the US Army.
Without recognition, all college and pro teams would spend the entire seasons playing each other. How many games could Houston and Dallas play each other each year and still keep an audience? Talk about income loss. OU would never lose to Texas again, or the Thunder to the Mavs.
Say, this is starting to sound pretty good.



2 comments:

  1. It's like the behavior of a spolied brat who wants to run away from home...let em go and learn a hard lesson. I doubt that Texas is going to carry this through. It's just a bunch of tantroms over an issue that has come on gone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting topic for a blog. I have been searching the Internet for fun and came upon your website. Fabulous post. Thanks a ton for sharing your knowledge! It is great to see that some people still put in an effort into managing their websites. I'll be sure to check back again real soon. teach to one

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.