# Why not let Texas secede? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264 "2013-10-15T00:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/21 "2013-10-15T01:47:25Z")
> [@JM\_Hanes](#): > > I’m so sick of that racist crap. Obama could be white as the driven snow and conservatives would still be fighting the liberal policies he stands for tooth and nail. But, with considerably less grassroots support. That’s just how it is. Look at Clinton – he came in for some insane hate, but **nothing** like Obama has; and Obama ain’t a single degree to Clinton’s left, if that. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/22 "2013-10-15T02:03:58Z")
To paraphrase Lincoln, allowing succession would trade temporary peace for future instability. You think people in Texas feel different from you now? Wait until they become an independent state. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/23 "2013-10-15T02:14:36Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > “An irony of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is that one of its key provisions, the individual insurance mandate, has conservative origins. In Congress, the requirement that individuals to purchase health insurance first emerged in Republican health care reform bills introduced in 1993 as alternatives to the Clinton plan. Yes, it was proposed as an alternative to the Clinton plan; possibly the GOP just wanted to torpedo the Clinton plan, possibly they wanted it in its own right. If it’s the latter, why didn’t they bother with it once they had a House majority while Cheney was presiding over the Senate and Dubya was in the Oval Office? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/24 "2013-10-15T02:18:48Z")
Fuck that. I want their oil. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/25 "2013-10-15T02:21:08Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Note that nowhere near a majority of any State wants to secede. So the answer to “why don’t we let States that want secede” is that none do. Yes, and thanks for introducing a bit of sanity into this rant. These threads always amuse me (and the OP is not offering anything new here), when there is a much easier solution. **Don’t try to fucking federalize everything.** Let states run their own affairs. You want UHC in CT? Go for it. No one outside that state is stopping you! You want UHC with permission from [MS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Mississippi.svg)? Hah! You can forget about abortion and good luck persuading them about that in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/26 "2013-10-15T02:22:59Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Because I believe in a one Republic, indivisible. OH MY GOD! You didn’t say “under God” between “Republic” and “indivisible”! Of course I’m not serious, but it felt good to rant like a right winger for one second. Back to the question- I believe the Civil War established that you can’t leave the Union without permission. With permission, I don’t see a problem. Texas, go ahead and leave. And take the rest of your Confederate brethren with you. The rest of us are far, far, far, far better off without you. (one could insert an infinite number of fars). ---
**Author:** ![JM\_Hanes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@JM\_Hanes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JM_Hanes)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/27 "2013-10-15T02:28:54Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > “…the individual insurance mandate… Governor Mitt Romney… [Newt Gingrich]” And then there are the other 2,000 pages of fill-in-the blanks legislation, which hand off writing all the actual healthcare regulations (with the force of law) to appointed bureaucrats. Newt, of course, was the Republican primary version of a one-night stand. There’s a reason he hasn’t held elective office since he was booted out of Congress. But back to secession, The ever growing divide in this country is not really red states vs blue. If you look at the election breakdowns within North Carolina, for example, what you’ll see is an urban/ex-urban divide which repeats itself over much of the country. Divide things up that way and the reds will have most of the food, most of the oil, and all of the guns – with not nearly as many people to support. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s a win-win from a liberal perspective. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/28 "2013-10-15T02:30:27Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > OH MY GOD! You didn’t say “under God” between “Republic” and “indivisible”! Of course I’m not serious, but it felt good to rant like a right winger for one second. By the way, this is in no means a slam at QSH. My esteem for him has grown immeasurably over the past few months. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/29 "2013-10-15T02:50:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yes, and thanks for introducing a bit of sanity into this rant. > > These threads always amuse me (and the OP is not offering anything new here), when there is a much easier solution. **Don’t try to fucking federalize everything.** Let states run their own affairs. You want UHC in CT? Go for it. No one outside that state is stopping you! You want UHC with permission from [MS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Mississippi.svg)? Hah! You can forget about abortion and good luck persuading them about that in the first place. I would love to hear a compelling argument why you feel the United States must stay the only 1st world nation on this planet without UHC. We will drag your backward ass states kicking and screaming into modernity whether you like it or not because we’ve been successfully doing it since this nation was founded. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/30 "2013-10-15T02:57:45Z")
I imagine **John Mace** supports UHC, but the point he is correctly making is that the States are large enough that they can run effective single payer systems within their own borders if they choose. Texas being against single payer doesn’t mean Connecticut can’t have it. Even the smallest U.S. State is bigger than other countries that have successfully implemented a single payer universal healthcare system, meaning the smallest State would have a big enough pool that it’d get the benefits of single payer (in case some would argue that an individual State lakes the necessary size or etc to implement single payer.) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/31 "2013-10-15T03:14:37Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I imagine **John Mace** supports UHC, but the point he is correctly making is that the States are large enough that they can run effective single payer systems within their own borders if they choose. Texas being against single payer doesn’t mean Connecticut can’t have it. > > Even the smallest U.S. State is bigger than other countries that have successfully implemented a single payer universal healthcare system, meaning the smallest State would have a big enough pool that it’d get the benefits of single payer (in case some would argue that an individual State lakes the necessary size or etc to implement single payer.) If it was possible for one state alone to pass legislation for UHC in America why hasn’t it been done? If we can agree UHC is inevitable, why not do it now across the board? ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/32 "2013-10-15T03:16:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Just letting Texas go and be an independent republic is off the table. > > But we are open to discussion of giving it back to Mexico. The illegals are way ahead of you there, bub. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/33 "2013-10-15T03:19:59Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Fuck that. I want their oil. Well, if they secede then we can either impose a dictator on them, or we can conquer them and ineptly occupy them while trying to steal their oil. You know, the traditional American way of dealing with foreign owners of oil. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/34 "2013-10-15T03:33:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Just letting Texas go and be an independent republic is off the table. > > But we are open to discussion of giving it back to Mexico. Like Mexico would take them ! ---
**Author:** ![JM\_Hanes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@JM\_Hanes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JM_Hanes)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/35 "2013-10-15T03:59:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Obama ain’t a single degree to Clinton’s left, if that. If you’re not joking, your attention must have been focused elsewhere when Clinton morphed into a centrist right in front of us. IIRC, he actually embarked on pruning the size of the Federal government. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > …Texas, go ahead and leave. And take the rest of your Confederate brethren with you… Don’t know if this applies to you, but folks who make remarks like that seem oblivious to the monumental demographic shifts which have resulted in a “New South” that even native southerners a mere generation ago wouldn’t recognize. The Old South started disappearing way back in the 70’s, when northerners began moving to the Sun Belt en masse – a [migration](http://www.newgeography.com/content/002585-new-census-data-reaffirms-dominance-south) which continues to this day. > [@](#): > > Southern states accounted for more than one half of the nation’s population growth between 2011 and 2000, despite having little more than one third of the population. Moreover, the South was the recipient of 95% of the inter-regional net domestic migration (people moving from one state to another), with the West accounting for the other 5%, with the losses split between the Northeast and the Midwest. Those numbers do include a lot of folks who moved up to places like Detroit for work and have now been moving back for years, but a huge, culture changing, percentage of our population has been imported directly from blue state back yards. Shoot, we must be _at least_ half Yankee or more by now. Notwithstanding a few high profile, putative, secessionists, it’s not Southerners who are living in their Confederate past. It’s the folks who think our confederate past is alive and well, when it’s been dead and dying for decades. Racism certainly persists in some quarters, but on nothing like the scale our detractors casually presume, nor is it a uniquely Southern phenomenon, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/36 "2013-10-15T04:08:01Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > If it was possible for one state alone to pass legislation for UHC in America why hasn’t it been done? If we can agree UHC is inevitable, why not do it now across the board? It was - in Massachusetts under Romney. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/37 "2013-10-15T05:34:31Z")
> [@JM\_Hanes](#): > > I’m so sick of that racist crap. . . . To begin with, bull. I well remember the slogans and placards and bumper stickers that appeared in profusion in 2008, many before he was even nominated. The racism was overt. Also, you’re wrong about something else. Imputing racism to someone else is not “racist.” Even if it were crap, it would not be “racist crap.” You misuse the word. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/38 "2013-10-15T05:46:33Z")
Offer Mexico TX dirt cheap, but require they also take LA MS GA FL. Let TN OK SC and AK (? no map handy) be border States and see if Mexico thinks they could be useful as well. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/39 "2013-10-15T06:08:52Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > There was a lot of discussion about states that wanted to secede from the US when Obama was elected, but that was before this latest shit from Ted Cruz and his pals. > > I’ve had it. If Texas wants to secede, let it. If Mississippi and Alabama and any other red states want to join it, let them. > > I think the US would be better off without them. Yes, there are a lot of good people there, but for whatever reason, they elect idiots to Congress, and those idiots are more interested in fighting whatever a black president is for, than in helping the country. They’d be happier on their own, I’d be happier without them, sounds like a win-win. > > We could agree on no tariffs, and open bidirectional immigration for the first five years, so trade would be unencumbered, and nobody would be stuck where they didn’t want to be. They could require everybody to carry a machine gun; we could enact single payer universal health care. Everybody’s happy. > > Why not do it? We settled this almost 150 years ago with 600,000+ casualties. It was fight over Goddamn slavery. You know, people owning people, working them to death, beating the shit out of them, selling their offspring for profit never to be seeing again, doing so in the name of Jesus…I know, I know, it was about defending southern Evangelical Christian family values. If Texans feel that strongly, I suggest they organize a Shirley Jackson style state lottery and sacrifice 520,000 of their own. In return, we let them secede. After all, freedom’s worth dying for, isn’t it? As an added bonus, there’s a one-in-50 chance that that sniveling little troll Cruz would get the rock. I like those odds. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264/40 "2013-10-15T06:09:27Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > By the way, this is in no means a slam at QSH. My esteem for him has grown immeasurably over the past few months. Thank you. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-let-texas-secede/671264.md?page=3)