Should Texas be allowed to secede from the union?

CNN ^ | November 14th, 2012 | Jack Cafferty

[Pfesser]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry does not support a petition for the Lone Star State to secede from the union.

But a lot of people do.

The online petition asking the federal government to allow Texas to withdraw from the U.S. following President Barack Obama's reelection has nearly 100,000 signatures. It appears on a section of a White House website called “We The People" and cites economic difficulties due to the federal government's inability to cut spending.

Supporters suggest that secession would protect Texans' standard of living and "re-secure their rights and liberties."

[Pfesser]

Many of the comments to this article said that the supporters would be tried for treason. I say no. After the Civil War, not even Jefferson Davis was tried for treason. The North was afraid that they would lose in court what they had won on the battlefield.

[Mouton]

Perhaps they could leave though and annex some others!

[paglia444]

It’s not treasonous to peacably petition the government for secession.

If Texas goes, it needs to take a bunch of other states with it because having it out of the Union would mean permanent Democrat control of the remaining 49 states into eternity. I’d like to see the South as a whole peel off.

[rurgan]

Yes. We have a right to seek independence and freedom from this evil,tyrannical, communist regime in Washington DC. We have to secede.

Anybody here think that this evil communist Obama will not try to be dictator for life? All Stalinists do this as Chavez of venezuela did. Chavez,Sadamm Husein had elections too. Obama marxist did better than Chavez and Saddam in many counties in Ohio etc.

[Irenic]

If our government doesn’t intend to secure our border and plans to give amnesty to illegals living here now, the problem will never end.

If our government helps Mexicans in Mexico learn about our food stamp program and we let non-citizens use our entitlement programs, healthcare, welfare and all.

Then we collect taxes from Mexico and Mexican citizens or they let Texas secede and enjoy the same benefits and sovereignty as Mexico.

[grobdriver]

Should Texas be allowed to secede from the union?

"Be allowed"?
If we decide to go, we should just go and screw getting "permission"

[Vigilanteman]

No, Texas shouldn't be allowed to secede from the union.

The small but densely populated Obama loving areas of the country should be turned over to the Red Chinese as special administrative regions until they pay off the debt Obama ran up. Without any help form the rest of us.

[SeekAndFind]

1) Hold a referendum. If a huge majority want to secede, I don’t see why they can’t be allowed to peacefully do so. After all, countries like the Czech Republic and Slovakia did so peacefully. Singapore seceded from Malaysia over 50 years ago and both countries are thriving.

2) There’s a new entity that just voted to join the union — PUERTO RICO.

So, the USA will still have 50 states and the flag will not change.

3) For that matter, if Obama really wants 57 states, I can see the following scenarios : Divide California into 3 states. Allow Long Island ( which has an existing secession movement ) to secede from new York State. Divide Pennsylvania into West Penn and East Penn (Where Philly is located ). Heck, if we can have a West Virginia and a North and South Dakota and North and South Carolina, I don’t see how we can’t have something similar elsewhere.

[billorites]

There gonna loose their damage deposit if they go.

[Gaffer]

IIRC, Texas at the time was a sovereign Republic that freely agreed to annexation by popular vote of its citizens.

It was not a recognized US Possession as a territory. This is much different than the circumstances of incorporation of the other states. It seems to me that which is entered into freely, can be exited freely.

[txrefugee]

“When in the course of human events.....” A state that is forbidden to leave lives in slavery, not freedom.

Why was it fine for the colonies to leave Britain, but wrong for the South to leave the USA?

The rule is, if you win the war, you don’t have to be consistent.

[Pfesser]

Secede from the Union? Some in Tennessee say aye
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/nov/13/secede-from-the-union-some-in-tennessee-say-aye/?comments_id=2432946
20 States Now Working on Process to Secede from the Union
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/405077/20121115/20-states-now-working-process-secede-union.htm#.UKUqf4ZXLIU
Thousands call for Georgia to secede
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/nov/15/thousands-call-georgia-secede/

[WilliamofCarmichael]

What Union?

When are we going to consider that there are two Americas and settle the problem once and for all?

America's Elite Class New Normal:

I remember.

The 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats were celebrated in the establishment MSM as the most intelligent generation ever!. They are now arguably that very establishment that praised them and they hold themselves and their ideological issue in even higher regard.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. [it won't fall but it] will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

[all the best]

1. The Constitution does not prohibit secession. The legal argument boils down to this: 1. The Constitution does not mention secession. In any way. 2. The Tenth Amendment says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Now I don’t have a Ph.D. in logic, but even I can figure out that if something is not mentioned, then, according to the 10th Amendment, it isn’t prohibited to the states. In fact, it is the opposite of prohibited. Now I know that the Supreme Court says no secession allowed, which means the federal government has declared that you can’t escape the federal government. Gee, that’s no shocker. So, sure, if you believe that the federal government should be the last word on what the federal government can and cannot do, then that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that we have constitutional government. If the federal government gets to decide what the Constitution says, then the Constitution is nothing more than a suggestion box for the feds.
2. The Civil War did not “settle” the issue. Well, it settled the issue in the way that I settled the matter of ownership of that Steve Garvey baseball card when I beat up that other kid and took it. (OK, that never happened, but you get my point.) Secession was never settled beyond the federal government’s assertion that it has the right to kill people who try to exercise their rights protected by the Tenth Amendment.

3. Secession is treason/unAmerican/craaaazy/for slavers only. Prior to the confederacy, there were some slaveowners who got together and seceded from their government. They were called Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. If you’re opposed to the secession of 1776, then that’s fine, you might be consistent on this issue, but if you’re one of these right-wing pundits who thinks the Declaration of Independence should be read aloud every July 4, and then says that secession is nutso, you might try actually reading that document you profess to love.
The Declaration makes a simple argument:
1. Humans have rights from the Creator
2. Governments exist to secure those rights (a debatable assertion but we’ll roll with it.)
3. When the government fails to secure those rights, we can ditch it and start our own government.
That’s pretty much all it says. If you thought that was true in 1776, when tax rates were 1% and there was no such thing as a the EPA or the FBI or the IRS, why is it not true now? Because we’re so much more free now? And, no, the Declaration did not say that the government is free to violate rights as long as people get to vote on it.
The Declaration establishes that there’s no such thing as treason, and a free government requires the assumption of just secession.

Thus the whole Revolution [of 1775–1783] turned upon, asserted, and, in theory, established, the right of each and every man, at his discretion, to release himself from the support of the government under which he had lived. And this principle was asserted, not as a right peculiar to themselves, or to that time, or as applicable only to the government then existing; but as a universal right of all men, at all times, and under all circumstances

[ConservativeDude]

The rule is, if you win the war, you don’t have to be consistent.”

Sort of like who gets to decide on the definition of “war crimes”.....

[MichaelAsher54]

[clamper1797]

They should not even need to ask permission

[Vigilanteman]

Divide Pennsylvania into West Penn and East Penn (Where Philly is located ).

No need for a separate East Penn. Just cede the Obama voting cluster counties from Philadelphia to Scranton along the NJ line to New Jersey.

New Jersey is a pissant state whose main economic function is to serve as a garbage dump and warehouse for NYC. The East Penn area as described would be a natural fit.

Without Scranton and Philly in the mix, the rest of us could easily outvote Pittsburgh and Erie.

[drew]

Sam Houston was pretty clear on the subject:
"I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union."

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Like I've said before, at this point this is merely mental exercise. In the near future, who knows.

Anyway... Not Florida and Virginia. I'd say Oklahoma, Louisiana, maybe Arkansas, maybe Mississippi and New Mexico, although the poverty in Mississippi would potentially be a drag on the new nation. Tennessee is just too far--no way would the government allow a new country to reach that deep into its heartland and partially sever the old US. The new country would also have to claim a fair chunk of the guld for the oil and such. A strong alliance with Alaska (hey, if Texas why not Alaska, its plenty big and far enough away) would also be good, allowing access to northern areas.