Why else would these people sign petitions demanding to secede when they didn’t do so when Clinton was elected President, Carter was elected, etc? What’s the difference between the Democratic Clinton winning in '96 and the Democratic Obama winning in '12? It’s not the fact that they are Democrats!
The rage comes from the fact that people are purportedly participating in a civil democratic process, but when they don’t get their way, they want to opt out. “Everything’s hunky-dory if I’m in charge; but if you’re in charge, I should be allowed to take my ball and go home.”
As a practical matter, it is disruptive to infrastructure, administration, economy, etc., to allow any old group of malcontents to have any practical path towards sovereignty. We live in a modern, technological, integrated culture in which our lives depend on public conveniences that require stability and don’t work if there’s an opt out for anyone who feels the whim.
Before the Obama administration, the WhiteHouse.gov “We The People” petition program, which makes the petitions very easy, very centralized, and highly visible, did not exist.
Make no mistake, I’m not saying that there are not people who are angry at having a black president. I’m saying that seeing 100,000 signatures on an online petition for, say, Texas, to secede, does not enable one to conclude reasonably that:
a) Many Texans want to secede, or that:
b) Those that do are motivated by racism
This is because there is no way to know if the signers are Texans, if they are even remotely serious, if they are trying to make Texas look bad, or to any degree who they are or what their motives are.
See also: Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
Originally formulated by Penny Arcade as Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.
Perhaps not, but that doesn’t change the fact that Texans for secession do exist, have existed for decades and have been vocal through the entire period.
Actually, they were more publicly vocal and gained more support (cf: live demonstrations in Austin and across Texas) after Obama was elected. While it never had sufficient broad popular support across Texas, the demonstrations were sufficient to be disquieting. There was also a noticeable number of “SECEDE” bumper stickers on the roads. Granted, all those people aren’t serious, but some are. Take that as you will.
There’s no way to guarantee any overlap exists between real life Texas secessionists and the online petitioners, but it’s probably non-zero. The likely overlap with racists is also non-zero.
Did they get more vocal, or did they begin to enjoy more media coverage? The media just devoured this secession nonsense, since they love a good vs. evil narrative and a lunatic fringe. That’s how you get anti-vaccine movement coverage. Coverage endows the subject with an unearned authority, after all; it means the fringe is Important.
More vocal.
You didn’t previously have people in large numbers at events for state level officials (like Rick Perry) expressing support for secession. You might have the occasional nutter, but there was actually a massive undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Obama administration that expressed itself publicly as more support for secession. The bumper stickers outpaced media coverage, at least in Texas.
I’ll grant that there’s more of a case the general US response to Texas secession may have been driven by media coverage, but that’s not the case inside Texas itself.
You have to understand all this feeds into the Texas mythos. There’s a strange Texas pride that is bizarre to anybody coming in from out of state. It’s the same thing that has some Texans believing there’s an exception that allows the Texas state flag to fly at the same level as the US flag (no such exception exists and any state flag can be flown at that level).
The secession movement is a by-product. It’s partially built from the previous status of Texas as a sovereign nation, misleading lots of Texans into thinking Texas is allowed to withdraw from the union any time it wants. It’s also drawn from an unusual agreement with Texas was admitted, where it can, at any time, split into 5 separate states. All these things get conflated into a secession movement that never really dies, even after 150+ years of statehood.
And these beliefs, true or false, get fed to children and grandchildren and so on as part of a Texas culture.
Ok, not being Texan, I’ll take your word for it. Texas is a peculiar case, in that it may come closest in the modern U.S. to having a state identity that’s valued equal to or above the national identity, at least in some quarters, correct?
The only secession talk I hear about in my part of the South definitely falls under “occasional nutter”. I think more people wrote articles on the secession petitions than actually, sincerely advocate secession, at least outside of Texas.
I believe this to be false. This is the relevant language:
Note that it says “under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.” That means that Texas can be split into more states the same way that any other state can be split. And the “by the consent of said State” is already part of the U.S. Constitution’s rules.
So, in my view, effectively, all this provision does is limit Texas into splitting into no more than five states, a limitation that does not apply to any other state.
You are correct. But it does give Texas a little Legislative history on this and perhaps a vote or two in Congress might be swayed by it. However, Texas requires the permission of Congress to split, just like nay other state.
PS, Snopes ratings on this are misleading.
It’s not false, but I guess clarification is in order (apologies for the digression). And, yes, the Snopes article is not very illuminating.
“Under the provisions of the Federal Constitution” basically means admission to statehood falls under Constitutional rules, which state that Congress makes the rules on how states get admitted.
Basically, Article 4 Section 3:
[QUOTE=US Constitution, Article 4, Section 3]
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
[/quote]
Congress, under this provision of the Federal Constitution, has already ‘pre-approved’ the additional 4 states to be formed from parts of Texas when Texas was admitted to the Union. No deadline on when it was to happen or that it has to happen at all. So, it only takes an act of the Texas Legislature (the state concerned) to make the division happen.
It will never actually happen, but the possibility remains.
Sort of. As per the above reasoning, it prevents Texas from splitting into more than 5 states without additional approval, which is the same restriction applied to any other state.
No. This is false.
I realize there are previous threads on this, but do you have anything beyond a blanket denial?
It’s not a SCOTUS decision or anything, but here’s a law review article from the University of Minnesota and printed in the UT law journal pretty much making the same argument I presented.
It’s a bit irreverent and the authors are clearly having fun with it, but they are making a serious legal argument for it.
Well, besides the point that that article seems to be a April Fools joke, and the Snopes article which sez the opposite, I offer this incontestable proof: *they haven’t done it yet. *
In todays GOP strategy of bring back Jim Crow laws and trying to stack Congress any way they can, why would they say “NO” to eight more senators and thus control of the Senate?
Texas Republicans are a little worried about keeping the state red beyond about 2025. The separation strategy could end up backfiring.
Obviously, it’s contestable proof.
It may be in the current GOPs best interests to make 4 more red states. But it’ll be a tough sell, anyway. All the major cities are purple, at best and most are actually pretty blue. So, they’d end up losing some House seats in exchange. And demographics shifts still aren’t in their favor.
Also, Texas culture. Texans like the idea of “Texas is bigger”. Splitting up the state is anathema to the idea that Texas is its own little world.
Why would Congress approve?
There is very little the people of this country can almost universally agree on, but one thing is: we don’t need more Texas.
Is it “secession” if the majority secedes instead of the minority? Because that’s an even more amusing scenario to ponder.
We’d need to write a new Constitution. We could clear out a lot of deadwood.
The Founders would be shocked there were SCOTUS justices still running an 18th Century operating system in 2013. (Well, actually they wouldn’t be. They were after all revolting against the same sort of thing in their day.)
We should still build the border wall, though, to keep the undesirables out.
