The subject of secession has been popular since the election. I think there is a secession petition filed on the White House website from every state. Several states, like Texas, have reached that magic 25,000 signatures.
Does that mean Texas will secede? No. The petitions are meaningless gestures. There are others, however, who are serious about secession. Catalonia, for example…a segment of Spain.
Separatists winning in Catalonia, Spain: early results
BARCELONA, Spain | Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:43pm EST
(Reuters) – Four separatist parties in Spain’s Catalonia looked set to win a majority in regional elections on Sunday, partial results showed, but the main one was on course to lose some seats, possibly undermining its bid to call an independence referendum.
With half of votes counted, the ruling Convergence and Union alliance, or CiU, was winning 48 seats in the 135-seat local parliament, well down from its current 62 seats.
The separatist Republican Left, or ERC, was winning 20 seats, with two other smaller separatist parties taking a total of 16 seats, giving the four parties 60 percent between them.
Regional President Artur Mas, of CiU, had campaigned on a pledge to hold a referendum on independence, in response to a resurgent separatist movement among Catalans who are frustrated with Spain in a deep economic crisis.
Opinion polls had forecast that CiU would retain 62 or more seats in the local Parliament and that all four separatist parties would have more than two-thirds of the seats. Neither of those projections was met as the results began to come in.
Without the psychological backing of a two-thirds majority, analysts have said, it may be hard for Mas to defy the constitution and the central government in Madrid and try to hold a referendum.
Our experiment with secession failed 150 years ago. Other attempts around the world such as the Ukraine and Belarus has succeeded, albeit not without some blood being shed.
The talk in the US about secession has been just that—talk. The state of the nation, the economy, federal interference, the overall feeling of governmental tyranny, hasn’t yet reached the level where secession is being seriously discussed.
Yet.
There are some opinions that it could be done…by Texas, for instance. Texas has always had an independent streak. It, and California, were Republics before merging with the United States. The Republic of California was a joke. A side show, really, by a few Americans at the beginning of the War with Mexico in 1846. The Republic of Texas, however, existed for a number of years before succumbing to debt and internal divisions.
There are some today who think Texas could bring it off this time.
Secession, y’all: Why Texas can pull it off
Bob Smiley, Author, “Don’t Mess with Travis”
When Thomas Dunne published Don’t Mess with Travis in May — my comedic political novel about a freewheeling Texas governor who becomes fed up with a Constitution-stomping president and decides to secede — I knew I had landed on something relevant. I didn’t know it was this relevant.
As of writing, the Texas petition to peacefully “withdraw” from the United States via the White House’s open petition webpage is up to 62,481 signatures, on its way to tripling the required names needed to trigger a response from the Obama administration. No doubt Texas’s desire to break free is a source of amusement inside a White House that has mastered the art of belittling the opinions of its challengers, but there is one not-so-small problem here: Texas could pull it off.
Here’s why:
–Resources. Texas currently sits on one-quarter of the nation’s oil reserves and one-third of the nation’s natural gas reserves. Even more, fully 95% of the country receives its oil and gas courtesy of pipelines that originate within Texas. This is what one might call leverage.
–The Texas Economy. This is well documented but worth repeating. In the last decade, even with the Great Recession, Texas has expanded by one million jobs. One million. That’s more than every other state … combined. Because of its friendly business climate, Texas is home to more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere else. If Texas were its own country, it would have the thirteenth-highest GDP in the world, just behind Canada and Russia. Or think about it this way: For every dollar Texas taxpayers send to Washington, they currently get only about 80 cents back. Theoretically, they could transfer those funds to the state’s coffers and still give every Texan a 20 percent tax cut.
–Utilities. Texas is the only state with its own power grid. Developed over the course of the last 100 years, the Texas grid covers the majority of the state and is fully state controlled. Translation: Texans could rest assured that the federal government doesn’t have the power — literally — to turn off their lights.
–Defense. While no match for Uncle Sam’s firepower, Texas does have a significant defense presence, namely in the Texas State Guard (which answers only to the governor), the Texas National Guard, the Air Guard and the legendary Texas Rangers. Texas is also home to two of the nation’s largest military bases — Fort Hood and Fort Bliss — and being able to control those two installations is nothing to sniff at. But let’s not forget the firepower of the citizenry itself. There’s a reason burglars don’t waste their time in Texas.
–History. Texas has done this before. Twice, actually. First in 1836, when it seceded from Mexico and became an independent country. Second in 1861, when it joined the Confederacy. And while the South did lose the Civil War, it didn’t lose it in Texas. In fact, by the end of 1864, the North didn’t have one square foot of Texas soil under its control despite many attempts. Even a full month after Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House Texas was still fighting. Texans love their state and they love a fight. That is a lethal combination.
Yes, Texas could make a go of it as an independent nation…if the U.S. would let it go peacefully. But let’s be realistic. That won’t happen. Obama and the libs need Texas. They need the taxes from Texas and they cannot allow the precedent of secession to be successful. Alone, Texas cannot withstand the power of the federal government.
Yes, there has been a number of pieces of fiction where secession succeeded. A more likely outcome would be something like that in Tom Kratman’s A State of Disobedience. The scenario at the beginning of Kratman’s book is eerily like that we find ourselves today.
If secession is to succeed, it must be by a coalition of states. Single states would not have sufficient power and defensive forces to win against the FedGov.
Like I said above, we’re not at that state yet and I pray we never find ourselves with that choice as our only option. The United States will not dissolve peacefully.
Why, then, are we discussing it? Because the credible threat of secession may force changes within the FedGov to resolve some of the differences between us, who revere the constitution and personal liberty and the statists who lust for power of government over people. Secession, then, is a tool—a last resort tool to be used to coerce the government to mend its ways and to restore some of our freedom.
It is a dangerous tactic. If secession is threatened, our options limited to two choices if we don’t get the concessions we demand: knuckle under to the FedGov or secede. Know then that with secession comes civil war because the FedGov needs us more than we need them.
When you hear talk of secession or participate in it, be aware of what you truly mean. There are consequences of such actions.
