Uhhh, Guys, About That Yankee Liberal "Let's LET Texas Secede" Joke...

A lot of liberals like to say that it’s okay with them if Texas secedes. Good riddance! they declare. We can do without that hatchery of bigots and redneck authoritarians. Who needs it?

I’m going to be charitable here and assume that these liberals are saying this unthinkingly, as a “joke.” Not a very good joke, I’ll grant you – a joke kind of like what Ann Coulter says when she thinks she’s being funny -- but a joke nevertheless.

Because examining why so many Freepers and other right-wing knuckle-draggers want Texas to secede provides the very reason why so many of us should oppose it. They want Texas to secede because they want to have the “freedom” to mistreat Americans they dislike – Texas liberals, black Texans who vote Democratic, Hispanics, gays, the poor, etc. They want to live in a place where political freedom as we know it simply doesn’t exist, where their neighbors and fellow citizens are carefully vetted to only include those who hold a very specific and narrow set of opinions.

From Free Republic Threads on Texas Secession:

If Perry promises to kick all the Libs out.. it’s a done deal.. I’m there!

”If we did secede, we would have to expel all the liberals to succeed.”

A more harsh treatment might be more in order.

We have a lot of Democrat free-loaders in the cities now. I would love to see a line of buses to transport out the people who don't believe in states' rights.

Just remember this liberal media..You are any of your ilk will not be allowed in our country..no Terrorist, no Commies, no Muslims..We won't give these so called special interest groups a chance. we need to let every one know what will be ahead of them if they decide to stay on the outside....If you want to be a citizen of this state you all of you will have to pass a test..and a back ground check..

Hopefully Texas would become aggressively anti-Leftist and not beat around the 'Bush' so to speak and just flat out - outlaw any sort of LeftWingNut-ism whatsoever. Its time to just put a stop to the advance of Marxism. Anyone who didn’t like it - gets dumped on the border or put on a raft and just be glad they weren’t shot for being an enemy agent.

Why do you think Uncle Ted moved here. And Chuck Norris. And the thousands from the upper mid west in the late 70’s. And the thousands from Kalifornia in the 90’s. And the thousands from Mexico for the last 20 years. And the hundreds who left New Orleans after Katrina. Right to work state. No state income tax. Decent weather. Lots of folks like those at the tea party in San Antonio on Fox. Just don’t bring your goofy liberal ideas down here to infect our state. Austin is our liberal blight. Leave the rest of the state alone.
4th generation Texan.

I believe that if we do that no one should just be able to “move” to Texas. Too dangerous. You guys should have no problems getting citizenship but visas should be issued to people who would have the best interests of a conservative Texas and anyone coming in should be able to show ability to support themselves or have a sponsor...meaning Texans that will help the immigrant get set up...no public housing, government assistance, free health care etc. JAT What do yall think?

I can almost guarantee the social programs would stop overnight, and anyone who didn’t like it would be dropped off at the east/west borders - on the other side of the wall.

We in Texas must take care to properly indoctrinate our new arrivals and to use what ever tactics necessary to convert them to being Texans or convert them to being gone. Don’t let the same thing to Txas happen, which has happened to Florida, Arizona and Nevada, where the local culture was overrun by “Damn Yankee” “Damn Mexican” or “Damn Californian” immigrants, who are trying to convert the states to Liberal Blue.

Wonderful idea, let us Texans declare war against the rest of the US, and gradually take back our country, one state at a time, and we can let the bluest of the blue to last, while they starve.

”What are you going to do with Austin? "

Fumigate it, and what does survive, gets put on a work farm...

Gas ‘em to death or stick them in labor camps… Hmmmm… I’ve heard that somewhere before…

We need to keep up the pressure. The Libs are LIVID...and some may even be afraid of We the People who believe in the Constitution as written by our Founding Fathers...including the 9th and 10th Amendments!!! What a good warm feeling that gives me!
Keep Your Powder Dry Patriots!!!

Actual secession is, of course, highly unlikely. What’s disturbing, however, is the level of personal contumely that is driving many members of the right to advocate for it. They are buying up guns. They are talking about their dreams of a liberal-free state. They are speaking of their fellow Americans, including the president, as their enemies.

There’s a lot of room here, well short of of secession, for liberals in Texas, or even just perceived liberals, to be targeted for vandalism, threats, even actual assaults.

So guys, please, don’t wish – even as a joke – for Texas to secede. You may not realize this, but saying that secession is all right with you is saying it’s all right with you that Americans be uprooted, assaulted, or otherwise abused for the “offense” of being a liberal in a predominantly conservative state.

That may seem to like an abstraction to progressives living outside Texas and the south. It may sound laughable, like something that could never happen.

But to liberals living there, especially those who remember the 1960s, it’s not an especially remote possibility.

as opposed to wishing for actual secession?

It's not. It's about people.

What point do you imagine I'm making here?

This is not about whether or not secession is an "idle" threat.

some of us get it.

Don't make jokes about something that's not going to happen, because if it did actually happen, it would make you look like an asshole.

Don't talk about liberals as though they don't exist and don't matter.

But, if they did secede, then the GOP would lose its biggest single source of Electoral votes. That would be a good thing. And, we'd end up taking them back and bailing them out within a generation, putting an end to their nonsense forever.

get finger printed, background checked, and if denied where would they go? We would have to have at least one county left vacant for the detainees, or reopen Gitmo

Wow! The issues people choose to work up a sweat over.

This liberal Texan thanks you for your thoughtful post.

Out here in rural "sweet Virginia" my neighbors fly the stars and bars and despise all that is LIBERAL.

I don't care. I may be an unabashed political liberal bordering on the socialistic pinko - but I'm no pacifist.

I realized that there would be a lot of people skimming this, then firing off a knee jerk response without indicating they understood it. But I'm pretty sure a lot of liberal southerners and Texans are going to understand EXACTLY what I'm saying.

I wonder if many of the responses from FR are actually from Texans. I know a Texas Teabagger and I know he wants segregation returned. He also wants illegals shot at the border, and the death penalty for most offenses.

We libs down here in Texas have not been feeling the DU love as of late. I do very much appreciate your thoughtful and well-timed OP. Thanks.

And I don't mean to offend any Texans here - I'm just pondering.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment - all gone. Border Patrol and National Guard - gone.

They'd have no choice but to start taxing their citizens at a pretty high rate. Assuming the liberal Texans got the hell out of dodge, there'd be a revolt and that rate would be slashed to a point where Texas just couldn't provide for its citizens or protect its borders.

Hurricane, wildfires, drought - don't count on FEMA.

They'd come crawling back, and it would end up being a huge failed experiment that costs the rest of us waaaay too much.

I see it as possible, but unlikely. My point is not whether or not it's going to happen. What's cause for concern is the hateful and violent attitudes towards fellow Americans that is driving it.

I'm just postulating what would happen if it did. I really doubt it will - most Texans don't support secession, and I'd bet most that do would reconsider if they put real thought into the machinations of actually going through with it.

remember, Texans don't have a good historical record against Mexico. no financial system, no education system, no taxation, no army, navy or air force? easy freaking pickings.

Without which, they could not have defeated Santa Anna.

Maybe you skipped that chapter, smart guy.

Seems you missed THAT chapter, "smart guy."

dg

First of all, the same idiots you cite here are the biggest wavers of the stars and stripes.

Secondly, if Texas were to secede and become independent, how would we finance all the stuff
the state/nation would need? Airports, highways, law enforcement, border enforcement, coastal
maintenance, cleanup from envorinmental catastrophes, schools, etc etc. Do you think these
nut cases who sit on their porches with guns or work at gas stations while "Freeping out"
are going to be willing to leave the USA just to find out that it costs them more than their
comfortable ignorance they now enjoy? Dear me. Taxes. Ooops, wasn't secession about avoiding them?

It's a lot of loud posturing, but it's like a lot of the supporters of the Iraq invasion:
they'll cheer it on, but run for cover at the first suggestion that they enlist to join the fight.

And I've never even been to Austin.

Do you understand that my point is NOT whether or not Secession is likely?

The dangerous ones are the Timothy McVeigh silent types, not teabaggers with shotguns in their pickups.

to my participation in ROTC and other military training/adventure organizations, I know that many MEN especially just love to "talk smack" with nothing to back it up.

Part of being an authoritarian loving right winger is bragging about how much better, stronger and more macho you are than "the other." In the 1950s it was "The Commies" and now today it's those evil "Liberal Socialists."

There's always an object for right wingers to hate and push down in order to make themselves feel superior. Albeit I don't have "liberal" stamped on my forehead, I also don't live in fear of these "paper tigers."

IF a right winger "goes unbalanced" then IMO, it's fate and the law will punish them accordingly.

Do not live in fear ... usually - they're ALL BARK.

Never came to anything. No churches were firebombed. Nobody was beaten. Nobody was killed.

....right?

I sure miss her humous commentary and razor sharp wit. Molly Ivins

Also, she was "such a lady" in all the good connotations that are associated with that phrase. When Frankin and O'reilly were mixing it up on a Book-Talk C-SPAN, Molly was so classy as she figuratively "smoothed the waters" in order for the audience to participate and move along.

Two very great Texas women who were reason enough not to give up on us!

She was an eloquent voice for Texas for decades.

!

Or pay much to it. I figure another thing is it that Texas would eventually go back to being a part of Mexico. After a lot of incredible violence. Be careful what you wish for, as they say.

I agree with you, it's a horrid thing to say, and not particularly funny no matter how clever the joke.

why shouldn't bigots and hatemongers and redneck assholes have a place to call their own? I think it would be a fascinating experiment to see what would happen if they had some sort of state to call their own, where they didn't have to allow non-white people or gay people or non-evangelical Christians or anything other than hard-line conservatives. Completely wall it off from the rest of America and let them have it the way they say they want it. In fact, I think it would be fucking fantastic to watch it turn into Lord of the Flies.

It was called the American Jim Crow south, and the guinea pigs included countless black Americans and others who were lynched, beaten, tortured, disenfranchised, etc.

It was not "fucking fantastic." It was a horror.

You do understand that this would involve actual people, right? Human beings? Not sims?

You're not talking about the same thing I mean. I'm talking about a completely autonomous entity, separate from the rest of the United States (so you'd need a passport and have to pass through customs to travel between there and the United States), where the only people there are the ones who want to be there. Call it a Freeper State, if you will, for lack of a better name. Where all of those type of people who aspire to live in that kind of community can go be in paradise. Where there are no people who aren't white, straight, xenophobic evangelical Christians, no social programs for freeloaders, no taxes (and therefore no services), no gun laws, and so forth. I think it would be interesting to put all of their social theories to the test in a hermetically-sealed real-world scenario and see how they play out.

Which essentially had its own laws unto itself?

And if they didn't, we'd obviously have to put in place a refugee program to get the innocent people out.

I think that if you want to make this argument, you need to stop focusing on the Jim Crow analogy, which is different because those were people who were too poor to leave, and all of the supposedly-enlightened "northern" states were still almost as racist as the southern ones, if not in explicit law, then at least in every other way. My friend Janis' parents grew up black in New York and Ohio, and their lives weren't much better than the lives of southern blacks. To pretend that severe racism was a "southern" thing is a bad place to go--Jim Crow was awful, but his silent, invisible brother John Crow up north and out west wasn't much better.

The best argument to make against supporting the idea of a Freeper state is this: how many of US had (or have) Freeper parents? Is it fair of us to condemn generation after generation of young liberals and gay people being born into Freeper families to live in such a hellish place until they're old enough to legally escape? At least here, we can find them sometimes when they're being abused by their parents and get them out to safety. Down there, they'll be lucky if they survive their adolescence. Allowing a Freeper state will inevitably lead to the vicious abuse and torment of suspected liberal and gay children and adolescents. If nothing else, it's our duty to hang onto the Freeps, because occasionally their kids need to be rescued.

Allowing a "freeper state" will lead not just to "vicious abuse and torment of suspected liberal and gay children and adolescents" but to the vicious abuse and torment of gays and liberals in general.

And who the hell said anything about a "refugee camp?" I said a refugee program--the Democratic version of which would involve helping these people find new homes, jobs, etc. Not living in fucking tents.

in tents or out of them.

A lot of people here post as thought we're not talking about actual human beings whose lives would be wrecked by this. You guys seem to imagine them as movie characters, (or maybe just skins in some elaborate sim game). Hey, they can sleep on your sofa. right? or in your spare bedroom! They can start all new lives in different states! No biggie! Maybe even YOU will be in a couple of scenes, nobly assisting them in their new lives!

KEWEL!

And it'll so EXCITING, a film worthy of Speilberg, with rousing crowd shots and only a few Hollywood extras falling to the ground and pretending to be dead, or putting on a little makeup to make it look like they've been beaten, or watching a hastily constructed set burn down or be taken away that's not ACTUALLY the home they've lived in for years.

Right?

I didn't know that there were ANY states in America that didn't have bigots and hatemongers and redneck assholes.

Nice try though.

However, this talk of secession is just bullshit bluster and Texas showmanship. There are a lot of people with big mouths down here. There are a lot MORE quiet people (both Republican and Democrat) who work hard, are sensible, and just sort of roll their eyes when this kind of crap comes up.

My concern is the damage these "blusterers" can do. Violent blustering often leads to violent action.

Secondly, I have yet to hear one person supporting secession. All this talk from libs about "Oh we can send all the repubs down there" to "we can kick all the libs out" is just stupid people talking on the internet. It's never going to happen.

Are you familiar with the history of mob violence? It's relation to "bluster?"

Let me get this straight - as a liberal, you want to live in a place where you perceive this to be a legitimate fear? Really?

Either you're knowingly being melodramatic or you've laid out exhibit A for having Texas secede - to provide cover and reason for good liberals to get out of harm's way.

I could very well want to live in the south again -- close to my liberal parents, and my liberal siblings.

I love the south, in spite of its politics. I love the food, the weather, the landscape, the people, the music, the culture, etc. Faulkner, Capote, Welty, O'Connor, Hellman, Jarrell, Chapell, all of them. All of it.

Do you consider all those black Americans who remained in the south during the Jim Crow era "stupid" for not moving away?

Again, this is predicated on the OP saying that it's a legitimate fear to be killed, hurt, or forcibly uprooted. If that's really the climate you truly believe you live in, and you don't need to live there (ie, there are no legal or immigration issues forcing you to stay there), yeah, you're dumb to risk your own life and livelihood. What the fuck is the point of having great culture or weather if you're going to be brutalized?

Would you live in Darfur? I mean, that place might be nirvana to some people, but you have to risk being raped and killed to live there. Same principle applies, if to an albeit diminished degree, if you honestly believe, as your OP suggests, that things are really that bad in Texas.

Yes or no?

If you risked life, livelihood, and limb to live in a place you genuinely thought was extremely hostile to you and you had the option to live somewhere else, then yes, you were dumb. Not all black southerners believed it was "that bad" and some thought it would be the same anywhere else. That's not dumb - that's making a calculated decision. Some undoubtedly were dumb, but all people do have a penchant for acting stupidly.

You, on the other hand, state that you believe things really are that bad. That means if you were living in Texas, amid all that believed hostility and you didn't have to do so, yes, you would be a moron.

Once again, this is all predicated upon believing the conditions to truly be that bad. I don't think Texas is really that bad and I think you're taking the ramblings of a few morons to paint an overtly bleak picture. Or you're being intentionally melodramatic. Either way, if YOU believe it's that bad, you shouldn't be living there.

how dangerous it was for them. The lynching epidemic made that quite plain. Why do you think most black Southerners did not even attempt to vote during the Jim Crow era?

So that leaves a few reasons why those people didn't leave:

1) Couldn't for various reasons.
2) Didn't think it'd be any different anywhere else.
3) Unknown perfectly legitimate reason. I'm sure I'm not thinking of one or two.
4) Dumb. If you're going to try to argue that people are never dumb, that's a very losing argument, I assure you.

For your OP, it sure sounds like you can, and it also sure sounds like you do think it's different elsewhere.

I said the reasons listed besides "dumb" are calculated decisions.

In other words, you're blaming the victims.

Just because someone's an idiot, it doesn't absolve anyone else of guilt, nor does it make one "guilty" - it just makes you dumb.

Likewise, having a crime committed against you doesn't absolve you of being a moron. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. And just because you have the right to do something, that doesn't make it the smart thing to do.

is rotten.

You either have a reading comprehension problem, or you are very quick to see hostility where it doesn't exist. Given that you started this asinine thread, I'm guessing it might be both.

The same as in the Jim Crow South, many people simply do not have the option of moving somewhere else. They just do not have the resources financially or emotionally to leave everything they have ever known and move to another part of the country.

There was a huge movement of Southern African Americans out of the South to the North and Midwest for jobs in the first half of the twentieth century. But in many cases, they found the same racism and discrimination in their new locations as they had in the South - and they had left family behind. Remember, in the '60s, there were riots up North and in the West - just as there were demonstrations in the South.

Some of the same families who could not leave the South back then are still here and are important parts of our communities. They have worked steadily over the last hundred years to change the part of the country where their ancestors have lived since slavery and make it theirs. I met many of them during the campaign last year. Many of those families were essential to our local campaign in registering new voters and mobilizing people to vote - they knew who was not registered because they never thought their votes would be counted.

I also met African Americans who had left the South during the 50s and 60s and have returned - one man kept himself apart from the campaign and was thrilled when we won here in Florida. He never thought Florida would go for an African American candidate in his lifetime. Obama would not have won Florida or as much of the South as he did without all those people.

In the case of Texas, what about the Hispanics whose families have been there before the Americans ever arrived? Should they leave the land that they have lived on since the Spanish took it from the Indians? What about the Indians - what few there are left in Texas - they have survived many efforts to remove them and they should leave their land?

The idea of Texas seceding is idiotic. So is all the rhetoric that the right wingers are throwing around. The best we can do is to marginalize them more than they already have done to themselves and keep a close eye on them in case they do act out on their rhetoric. Giving them more legitimacy just encourages their rants. They are a fringe that is diminishing - that is why they are getting shriller.

excessively timid or excessively arrogant. Talk about blaming the victim.

Have you ever BEEN to Texas? I've faced more homophobic violence in NY than Texas. I'd rather live in a major city in Texas than in a small town in the Northeast.

People live where they can afford to live, where they grew up, where their families are, where their jobs are. They don't skip town because a gang of freepers live in their neighborhood. New Jersey has quite a collection of hate groups and growing up I regularly saw swastikas spray painted on buildings. Were we "stupid" for not moving to New York City or San Francisco? Or were we just a working class family who moved where we could afford.

Over 40% of Texas voted for Obama. Are 40% of the state supposed to leave? Including Mexican-American Democrats whose families were here BEFORE the Freepers?

Saying people should leave Austin because some dumbass freepers in Texarkana or Amarillo are planning reactionary violence is about as dumb as saying that people should leave Greenwich Village because Michael Savage's radio program is gaining popularity in Queens.

Perhaps you should read the whole thread.

...You know, you can read books by all those authors without being in the South, you can get Southern food and listen to Southern music outside the South?

I've lived in Alabama all my life and I fucking hate it. I don't like the people I meet, the music that's available, the landscape, the oppressive weather, the fear-based culture, etc. I'm sick of it. However, I can't leave without sacrificing my marriage.

Now firmly in middle age, I won't go to a general practitioner for regular check-ups because I just plain don't give a damn how long I live if this is where I have to do it.

Tell you what, I'll trade places with you. You can have my nowhere life in a hotbed of conservatism and xenophobia and I'll take yours in a town considered one of the most beautiful and livable in the Western Hemisphere.

M: ...You know, you can read books by all those authors without being in the South, you can get Southern food and listen to Southern music outside the South?

Not the same.

M: I've lived in Alabama all my life and I fucking hate it. I don't like the people I meet, the music that's available, the landscape, the oppressive weather, the fear-based culture, etc. I'm sick of it. However, I can't leave without sacrificing my marriage.

Your point being...?

M: Now firmly in middle age, I won't go to a general practitioner for regular check-ups because I just plain don't give a damn how long I live if this is where I have to do it.

Why do you hate your wife so much that you're willing to risk putting her through the unspeakable hell of watching to slowly die from an illness that could have been caught early and prevented?

M: Tell you what, I'll trade places with you. You can have my nowhere life in a hotbed of conservatism and xenophobia and I'll take yours in a town considered one of the most beautiful and livable in the Western Hemisphere.

I suspect you'd be just as miserable here in San Francisco.

M: ...You know, you can read books by all those authors without being in the South, you can get Southern food and listen to Southern music outside the South?

Not the same. -How? How is it not the same? The words, the notes, the flavors are all the same. The sweet tea I had in New Mexico was as good as much that I've tasted in Dixie.

M: I've lived in Alabama all my life and I fucking hate it. I don't like the people I meet, the music that's available, the landscape, the oppressive weather, the fear-based culture, etc. I'm sick of it. However, I can't leave without sacrificing my marriage.

Your point being...? -That not everyone here likes it. Some of use are "trapped" for various reasons. It alludes to your argument with the other poster about how and why people can't escape.

M: Now firmly in middle age, I won't go to a general practitioner for regular check-ups because I just plain don't give a damn how long I live if this is where I have to do it.

Why do you hate your wife so much that you're willing to risk putting her through the unspeakable hell of watching to slowly die from an illness that could have been caught early and prevented? -Why did she "hate" me so much that she lied to me about her intentions in life, her religiosity, her willingness to seek help for her anxiety disorder and neuroses, her desires to relocate?

And for the record, I do have a terminal disease that sucks up my resources but will take a while to do me in. My pulmonologist has suggested relocating to another region that would be better for my health. My wife doesn't seem to let that influence her decision to stay here so she can be under her family's wing.

M: Tell you what, I'll trade places with you. You can have my nowhere life in a hotbed of conservatism and xenophobia and I'll take yours in a town considered one of the most beautiful and livable in the Western Hemisphere.

I suspect you'd be just as miserable here in San Francisco. -You're right. Why would I want to go somewhere with all types of art, theater, museums, music, restaurants you name it when I can sit here in Bugtussle and listen to people try to "out-conservative" each other? Just because this little town has three talk radio stations filled with right wing vitriol and the local Tea Bag Party (which might as well have been titled the "outraged we have a darkie in the White House march") drew more people than towns twice its size, why should it dissuade me from enjoying all of that wholesome, red-blooded American goodness? Just because the locals want to dismantle the public school system because it's only for poor whites and blacks, why shouldn't I have faith in it?

Just because the emissaries of this place are women dressed in "Scarlett at the barbecue" attire, because I pass antebellum mansions festooned in Confederate decorations or because one of the most celebrated historical figures is an unrepentant Confederate admiral or because, as I type, there are government-sponsored banners waving from the light poles downtown with the "rebel flag" on them declaring this Confederate History Month, why should I think about all of that?

Why should I care that I am effectively disenfranchised? My votes for POTUS have never counted as my electors have always voted for "the other guy." I've never voted for a winner for the U.S. House or Senate as they are always the most rightward candidate? My appearance at the polls has become little more than a charade, but still I go.

Tell me, if the South is so wonderful, why did you ever leave?

No one would want liberals to live in a place where they are perceived to be a legitimate fear, but it is not the liberal's responsibility to leave. Secessionists and other crackpots inciting hatred are the problem, not the liberals. Why should they be given the upper hand?

And, by definition, said government of that someplace is either incapable or unwilling to do anything about it.

And since you know that this is the case, why are you relying on them for your safety?

who successfully intervened in the south during the 60s.

I suspect our federal government would have something to say about it if the government of Texas were to provide a power outlet for secessionists. All this being hypothetical of course.

I am seriously blown away that you would be willing to write off Texas and put the responsibility on liberal Texans to abandon their homes and their livelihoods. Astounding, just astounding.

A friend jokingly asked me what would happen to all those soldiers at Ft. Polk if Texas seceded.

I told him "they'll be surrounding Governor Goodhair's home with tanks, will arrest him, and will deliver him to the US Justice department."

The whole notion is idiotic, and based entirely upon Perry's failure to understand that the right to secede was never a right of Texas. The reality is about one quarter of Texans would say they would support secession, but if push came to shove, that would dwindle to maybe 5%.

Tell me what the Constitution is doing down there or what it should be doing. And the OP's point is that if Texas seceeds, it gives these assholes a greenlight to do whatever they want - which means the U.S. Constitution would have no jurisdiction over them.

You are simply not reading what I wrote.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

In SPITE of the obvious stupidity of the idea. And the thin-skinned Dem "moderates" getting themselves in a tizzy when the RWers are called on their obvious stupidity.

when your enemies are hanging themselves, I suggest providing more rope. this is a continued invitation for wingnuts to keep talking about how much they hate America. keep it up, boys and girls.

in the south would consider funny.

Only a few of the right-wing knuckle draggers are mouthing this crap. I was born, raised, and have always lived in Texas. I have always been a democrat, as well. I live in a community that is 95% republican..not country-ass republicans who don't really follow politics, but an affluent community of republicans that include activists that went to Florida to protest the election in 2000 and to the RNC convention in 2004 (remember the purple band-aid lady? She lives here). I have not heard even one thing ever mentioned about secession. The ones yelping about secession are the idiots (and yes, that includes Perry). The people who don't have a friggin clue about how politics work...all they know how to do is drink and cuss. Complete sentences seem to elude them. You know the ones I am talking about.

I don't get offended by those making jokes about letting Texas secede. I have a skin so thick you can't cut it with a machete! I think older dems must have to have survived the Reagan and Bush years. I have poked fun at other states for one reason or another, and turnabout is fair play. So don't get pissed when I fire back a zinger about your state...and I will! Ha ha ha! We gotta have a little fun every now and then or we'll all go crazy...like those Kali-fornians!

a) It ain't gonna happen.

b) If it did happen, it wouldn't play out as the OP describes.

Perry did this to give the wingnuts another reason to get themselves in a froth. They're going to do what they're going to do - and will always be marginalized - with or without succession.

Look .... We love you Texas Liberals - But I find it difficult to imagine a great uprising of Liberal pique large enough to draw battle lines against the vicious secessionists that run your beloved state.

NOBODY is going to take up arms against them ....

It is regrettable that good Liberals fear living within the state they apparently love, but most NON Texan Liberals would frankly offer to start building that fence ...

I have moved my family 3 times so far to find suitable employment, and I would do so again to find a suitable political environment, if necessary .... I understand that this situation is VERY uncomfortable for you, but we all must adapt to the realities as they exist.

Texas is NOT a friendly state for Liberals, and it is not expected to become one any time soon ....

I feel for you, but the situation is out of your control, and perhaps Liberals in Texas might need to reconsider their citizenship there ...

OR .... Proceed to persuading a good many Texans that Liberalism is good and Conservatism is bad .... I dont see that happening ...

This is about the realities behind the drive for secession. No, secession is not likely to become a reality.

But the violent attitudes driving the rhetoric behind secession ARE real, and most southern and Texan liberals know it.

Please.

dg

Or, how about stopping by the Texas forum? Or doing some damn research? Or Jesus! Get off your ass and help us in Texas...oops that would require doing something.

You do realize we get no support at the national level right? That we had an awesome guy running for Senate and he got no help, while the national party gave millions to incumbents? He got NO help trying to unseat Cornyn.

But then, obviously, you already knew all of that, since you're so well educated on what's going on in Texas politics.

because I did not like the socio-political environment in that place ... it simply didnt suit me or my family ...

Color me lazy or whatever, but I am no Ghandi nor Jesus ...

I have no control over you or the good people of Texas ....

I did not pledge any intellectual superiority regarding the state of Texas, nor did I besmirch the reputations of the Liberals there ... So I do not understand where your angst towards me comes from .... But I frankly do not care ....

If the people of the state of Texas decide to peel away from the rest of the union, then I greatly doubt that I, nor a good many Liberals from without the state, will be willing to take up arms and stop the secession, should it come to pass ...

You want to change texas ? ... fine: change texas .... That is YOUR calling, not mine ... I cede the state of Texas to the lot of numbskulls who happen to control it ... I am ultimately powerless to control their behavior, and so I wont waste my time worrying about it ...

You want to call that lazy ? ... fine: I call it realistic ... We go after what we can actually achieve, without spending energy uselessly on pie-in-the-sky notions of what effects or impacts we can or cannot create in different places on our world ...

You dont like the right leaning government in the state of Texas ? ... change it ....

I have my own crosses to bear .... It's up to you to change it, live with it, or get the hell out of it ...

Stew in your own juices ....

Sounds like a good deal to me. They'd end up with their property. lol

You seem to be talking about abstracts.

Put a number to the sociopaths and then we can talk.

Don't you think you should actually bone up on the history of certain issues before posting about them?

It ain't THAT bad, and if it is, stay away. Period.

You like numbers? 3.5 million Texans voted for Obama. Surveys indicate the state is headed back toward a Democratic majority. Not that any of this matters to somebody with the views you obviously hold.....

I'm the one saying it's not that bad in Texas. Get a grip, asshole.

need to remember WE'RE the ones with all the nukes.

Please actually read my post. This was not about whether or not Texas should secede.

liberal in a predominantly conservative state" as it is.

Texas has already set itself apart from the the nation - with or without secession.

Not that it is alone in its barbarity, or that there are not good citizens there as well, but frankly secession will not trigger anything that is not already happening there.