The Brief: Top Texas News for Nov. 26, 2012
The Big Conversation:
Three weeks after the election, secession fever hasn't been quieted in Texas.
Sparked two weeks ago by an online petition, talk of Texas leaving the Union got another round of national media attention last week when U.S. Rep. Ron Paul called secession a "deeply American principle."
Now, as The New York Times reports, the issue has already penetrated the 2014 governor's race. Perennial GOP candidate Larry Scott Kilgore of Arlington has announced that he'll run for the office, but not before changing his legal name to "Larry SECEDE Kilgore" — capital letters and all ...
Comments (34)
Michelle Michon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
http://www.caller.com/news/2012/nov/18/texas-independence-wasnt-all-its-cracked-up-to/
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
nope
Alana Carpenter via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Someone needs to tell Mr Kilgore that Australia has Universal Health Care and other programs that do not fall into the Republican philosophy
Gregory S Windham via Texas Tribune on Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pieaXwUxPRY
Julia Hart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
if every state left the union every time they didn't get a president they wanted we would not be the united states. secession would leave us all vulnerable and it's just flat out DUMB. what are we going to do? north vs. south again??? didn't work out so well in the past.
Lance Lowry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They need to let the Tea Party have their own country by placing a border fence around the trailer park.... Secede while the rest of Texas Succeeds.
Eric Dana Jensen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Where are all the the once and proud, self professed Patriots now, squalling in utter tantrum? Keep scheming in torment.
William H Patterson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That issue has already been decided. You lost.
raffaele cafagna
It was time for Hutchison to go; Perry and Company should be next in line and Blessings to * Larry SECEDE Kilgore * and
Ron Paul called secession a "deeply American principle." Why Not ????
Texas is our Home our Land our Country. WE Texians are in Charge and No One Else and No One can tell us what to do : We Will Not Comply : WE are Free People in a Free State of Texas. The Law of The Land : the Bible the Constitution the Gun ; is that a Problem ?????? An armed society is a polite and respected society. Bullies beware.
The power to change the world rests with you and you alone: For too long people have believed themselves to be weak, or relied on others to change the world for them. You’ll know that you’re fully awake when you realize that you have infinite power to change the world by simply living the change you want to see. First, you have to identify the principles that you believe in and then go out and live by them. If just a small minority took steps to do this, it would shake the establishment to its core.
What kind of world do you want to live in?
~Our Own Government,is Our Own Enemy~
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Get over youselves libs and get a sense of humor. This is nothing more than a way to serve notice on the DC pols Ds and Rs that there are many of us that have had just about enough. It is a form of protest. We wouldnt leave the other 49: though we could get along fine without them and buy them up in a generation after their progressive paradice fails. (See Ca.)
ZoeBrain
Australia has a socialist government (though the liberals will probably win the next election), universal health care, strong gun control laws.... and Texas is the size of one of the smaller states. They also have a minimum wage of $15 an hour, pretty much everyone pays taxes. No private prisons, and 1/10 the number of prisoners per head of population that Texas does. No capital punishment, but a much lower murder rate.Less than 1 in 3 regularly attend church. So maybe this socialist hellhole, whose inhabitants are so brainwashed they think they're both prosperous and happy, isn't the best comparison.
Bobby Hawthorne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Paradice?
Alex Cornell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ummm, this might be funny if it made any sense. Larry Kilgore sounds like one of those little kids from the AT&T "bigger is better commercials." -- "Well numerically our economy is HUGE -- nevermind what it's actually built on or how it compares to our demographics -- so obviously we should totally SECEDE!!!"
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Paradise so I spelled it wrong need more coffee.. Mondays...
gypsy314 ne
Why should Texas stick around to bail out blue states when democrats and Obama try to bail out the bankrupt blue states. Besides Obama does not want Texas say in anything but there money from taxes.
Steven Felfe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just suppose a referendum vote got placed on the Ballot to secede. And it got a large enough amount of votes to show and reflect the will of the people here in Texas as it did the first and second time.. Would Texas Secede?
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Get it right this has nothing to do with the War Between the States back in the 1860s. After reading some of the nonsense from the Lib media and comments all around FB and other places it might be an idea whose time has come.. Much of what was predicted in the book Without Marx or Jesus has come about The breaking up of many countries around the world was part of the authors predictions. See Catalonia,Scottland. BTW for the record The Ausies have a pretty stong TEA party movement as well.
Cliff McSparran via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just when I thought it couldn't get any stupider around here....
Patrick Scroggin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Secession seems to be the logical progression from Birther.
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Nothing but saber rattling by Republicans... If Texas was to ever secede - Texas would become a nightmare hostile place for Latinos. GOP knows and understands wholeheartedly that the Latino population growth will soon kick them out off office. So, in a last ditch attempt they've tried to hang onto power just a little longer by blatantly diluting the Latino vote in the redistricting process. Just imagine what the GOP would do to Latinos & other minorities in the state if we didn't have the federal government to keep them in check... Think about it... If Texas was to ever secede, it would soon be followed by a civil war between the GOP & Latinos (and other minorities). It would be an UGLY site... And in the end, after the civil war was lost by Republicans, we would rejoin the united states or the new country would henceforth be known as Tejas... Go ahead and secede, my prediction will not be far off, believe me - civil war would quickly follow...
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Stupider? More stupid than who? Time will tell. Love reading the comments on the Tiny Times of Texas.
Cliff Avery
I think the rest of the country should tell the Texas secessionists that, fine, they can leave. But before they go, they have to pony up their pro rata share of the national debt. Rough estimate: $1.2 trillion. That ought to shut 'em up.
Chuck Bloom via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Schmuck!
Alexander Addison via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Australia also has worker, civil, and environmental protections which boost their economy and social welfare in ways that would be unthinkable in Texas.
Jerry Andrews
The amount of misinformation and total lack of understanding of major issues consistently demonstrated by the secede folks is a cross between laughable and terrifying. When will folks learn to quit comparing Texas to Australia? Our government, tax system, and health system are extremely different and the mindset of Australians is much more akin to that of Europeans than Americans. Whenever you folks decide to stop pouting and recognize the waive of change that is coming and will not be stopped driven by demographics, we will welcome you back. In the mean time, go whine somewhere else, there is much work to be done and very few states face the types of challenges wrought by the do nothing government of the last few years.
Steven Kite
Every time the US elects a sane President, Texas Republicans do their 2yearold imitation, kicking and screaming and banging their heads on the floor - and then comes the "We're Running Away from Home!" bit.
Interesting thing - quick glance at the "Secede" petition on the WH website says probably 3 out of 4 signatures come from OTHER states. Maybe there's a message there?
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
CA is just fine. It is in fact--paradice [sic].
The secession movement is just a bunch of ignorant rednecks, that can't read. The Supreme Court has already ruled--there is no right to secede. If it is only a threat then STFU.
Australia is everything that the knuckle draggers hate and more.
Scott Lewis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The online petition is quite impressive, but I'd very much like to see an actual plan of operation for Texas as a sovereign nation. It doesn't take much resolve or planning to create or sign an online petition, but it takes a lot of resolve and planning to work through issues such as who would provide the services currently provided by the U.S. federal government and who would collect the taxes necessary to pay for those services.
Before this movement receives any more press, its leaders should be required to answer the following questions about their plans for secession:
1. Who would issue passports so that Texans could travel to foreign lands like Oklahoma and New Mexico?
2. Who would provide Texans with state services in foreign countries (e.g. consulates, embassies, etc)?
3. Would Texas seek recognition by the United Nations?
4. How would imports and exports between Texas and the U.S. be regulated?
5. Who would deliver the mail if Texas no longer had the U.S. Postal Service?
6. What kind of postage would Texas use?
7. What type of currency would Texas use if it no longer had the U.S. dollar?
8. What would happen to the thousands of Texans who currently work for the U.S. federal government?
9. What would happen to the 18 U.S. military bases in Texas?
10. Who would provide for the common defense if the U.S. military and the National Guard (after being nationalized by the U.S. president) pulled out of Texas and left the Lone Star State with only the state police and the 2,000 unarmed members of the Texas State Guard for protection?
11. How would Texas respond if the U.S. federal government, in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court's position that a state cannot unilaterally withdraw from the Union, resisted attempts at secession?
12. Are the secessionists ready to see Dallas and Houston turned into 1980s Beirut or 1990s Sarajevo by a bloody war against the most well-funded, technologically advanced military in the world?
13. Are the secessionists ready to sacrifice Texas's economy, their personal safety, and their families' safety--possibly enduring supply shortages and urban warfare--if that's what it takes to effect a successful separation from the United States?
14. Do the secessionists honestly believe that their friends and neighbors are just as eager to make these sacrifices?
15. Do the secessionists believe that the Texas Legislature and the Texas governor are likely to support such action, since legislative and gubernatorial support (not an online petition) are what it would actually take to start the long, painful process of (attempted) secession from the United States?
Lauro Garza via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Non sense! Texas, no pun intended, is not an island and its success is integral to the fact that Texas is a vibrant component of the American economy. To say these things is like saying a spoke in the wheel of a bicycle is able to go 30 mph by itself.
Sam Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Secession is for sissies.
Samdavis
Maybe the secessionists can have a new plate for their pickemups: "Texas - The Edukayshun State"
Christina Cantu via Texas Tribune on Facebook
In that case, I do hope the world ends next month. So tired of hearing about states wanting to secede. Move on!
Frank Krupa via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Rick Perry, President of Texas. Scary!
Rene Sandel Patterson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Very good points, Scott Lewis!