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How Texas Can Secede (without really trying)

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Mmmm. Seceding. Tastes like... donuts.

You don’t have to know me very long to know that I’m a native Texan who takes great pride in seeing “Texas” as the country of origin on my birth certificate. I love my state and I find it hard to imagine living anywhere else (though Colorado has definitely grown on me). Pride in my state, though, is waning on account of a recent online petition that we secede from the union.

Apparently, when you’re a democracy, and democracy happens, but democrats win, that’s justifiable cause to secede from the union. So if we’re seceding, I’ve got some ideas on how to git ‘r done.

Before I get through our secession plan, I need to address some issues that you’re sure to ask.

Hold on…what’s up with ‘We’? Aren’t you in Colorado?

You know the region of the country in which I currently live by its current political borders. Historically, the country of Texas extended into present day ‘Colorado’. I live in unclaimed Texas territory. I haven’t left Texas; I’m reclaiming my state country.

How can you be trusted; didn’t you live out-of-state for a while?

I didn’t live out-of-state by choice. My family moved to their place of birth when I was ten. My mother and father are natives of Illinois. They can’t help that they were foreign born. However, God’s grace covers a multitude of sins, including that of being a Yankee. They moved to Texas to find opportunity, and when it was time to move to Illinois to be closer to family, they chose to do so. Yes, I lived out-of-state, but that hasn’t influenced my politics.

But you were educated as a foreigner!

You’re right, I didn’t move to Texas immediately after becoming a legal adult. I chose to go to Southern Illinois University – Carbondale first and obtain degrees in Spanish and Defeat  French. A degree in Spanish is essentially the study of pre-Texas history, and French is one of the languages spoken at the United Nations; it’s important that we get international recognition right away.

But your wife is a Yankee!

She is. She’s also a veteran. She served internationally in both war-time Bosnia and the Missouri Air National Guard. Call her one more dirty word and I’ll let her use the shotgun instead of the .38.

How to Succeed at Seceding

Texas + Oklahoma = Texoma

We merge with Oklahoma

Aggies + Sooners = agooners

First we have to recognize that Oklahoma is really the land that no one wanted. After ‘borrowing’ some land from Native Americans and killing off a few million of them, we decided that Oklahoma would be the consolation prize for the survivors. Where does the Trail of Tears end? That’s right, Oklahoma. And honestly, who doesn’t cry a little bit when you go into Okie country?

Let’s set the Five Civilized Tribes free. No more Bureau of Indian Affairs for them. They’re now free to have their state of Sequoya. Screw Thanksgiving’s silly attempt to look like a celebration of our native peoples. We’re giving our Native American brothers and sisters a holiday, just for them. And we’re also going to take Australia’s lead and have a “Sorry Day”, too. And we’ll offer instant citizenship to any Native American in the upper 48 that moves here. It’s like Israel’s Aaliya, but without  Hamas or humus.

Oklahoma also is a big provider of oil and natural gas. When we’re independent, we aren’t bound by the Upper 48’s dumb EPA guidelines.  Come on, who’ll notice if Oklahoma or Texas gets a little bit of oil on their plains? Being so close to our neighbors-to-the-north, we’re sure to become their number 1 exporter of crude oil. And if the US doesn’t want our oil, that’s fine. We have a pretty large coastline, it’ll be a breeze to export Oklahoma Oil to any place that wants lower gas prices (Put out those cigarrettes, France).

Texoma + Colorado = Texomado

We reclaim Colorado

Let's face it, we'll be a polyamorous country (like France, but with facial hair)

 

Colorado is unclaimed Texas territory. We’re just taking it back. And after living here for two years and realizing how many Texas natives live in Colorado, there’s more than enough anchor babies now to get the job done without much of a fight.

If there is a fight, no biggie. Even though Oklahoma beats Texas in guns per capita,we’ll be an unstoppable machine together. What’s that? Colorado is loaded with stoners? Welcome to your infinite supply of munchies (courtesy of our Texas State Fair Fried Food Imports). Oh, you have Air Force bases and Apache helicopters? Neat. We brought real Apaches.

Colorado is the beer capital of the US. Now we’re able to share the love with entirely-too-sober Southern Baptists. We have the mountains now; we get a spike in revenue from the tourism. We build an 8-line super highway directly to Denver from Houston. Now we’re a shipping hub from our ports on the coast to the center of the “Flippin 47”.

Texomado + New Mexico & Arizona = Texicomadozona

The Nation’s First Two-fer

Arizona is pretty darned conservative and I’m surprised they haven’t tried to secede already. They’ve been struggling with illegal immigration and they haven’t gotten the support they wanted from the federal government. Let’s give them a chance to protect their borders they want to; we’re a heavily armed and independent nation witha helluva lot of guns.

What’s great is that we become the number 1 retirement place in the world. We’ve got the dry climates for the Canadians and the mountains for the 30-something hipster millionaires.

At this point, we’ll be big enough that we can really pick up The Land of Enchantment at no extra charge. Mountain state + mountain state = mountain mecca. With so many mountains, now we can do a proper hunt for the nation’s biggest illegal immigrants, Bigfoot (A.K.A. Sasquatch). No more undocumented neanderthals in Texomado (except maybe Boulder).

Texomadozona + Mexico = Texico

It’s easier than shouting  ¡Viva Texicomadozona!

Texico or Téxico

Now that we’ve occupied the good parts of the southwest, we have to deal with the obvious immigration issues. No, not the Mexicans. The Yankees. We need a border to keep them from flocking to the Friendly Militarized Land of Enchanted Opportunity. In order to build that border, we need Mexicans. If you haven’t heard, Mexico is loaded with ’em… and drug cartels. So we’ll use our growing army, recently acquired Air Force, and real Apaches to clean up down there. It was getting a little unkempt, anyway.

Mexico is our first acquisition that comes with an extended coastline that includes access to the pacific coast. With the huge labor force that we have, we’ve definitely got what it takes for, “Panama Canal Part Dos: Bienvenidos a Téxico”. Now we’re free to import from China. Not only that, coffee is grown in Mexico, too. Number 1 commodity in the world, say hello to number 2. Not only do we get two of the world’s top commodities, we’ve got tons of other agriculture, too. With that glorious 8 lane highway we built, getting oranges in Aspen can’t be easier.

But, United States, you are a beautiful country! Minus that hole in the middle

Addressing Amnesty

I'm just going to put this "Yank chip" in your right hand. Don't like it? Fine, I'll tattoo "Yank" on your forehead.

We obviously have a problem with citizenship in our current country. That’s not going to go away in the Republic of Texico. Under this plan, I would propose dual citizenship: You keep the citizenship of the country in which you were born, and you’re granted citizenship of Texico. Mexicans are Texicans, too (this will be our ICE motto, BTW).

We do have to deal with the fact that we could have a substantial population that may not have been born in any of the six independent states of Texico. Anyone who is married to a Texican during ‘The Great Status Update’  is granted citizenship. We’ll also give citizenship to anyone who is a parent of a native Texican. Trickle-left and trickle-up citizenship will help us weed out the weirdos.

Dealing with Immigration Issues

It’ll be cost prohibitive at the beginning to build the border. So we are going to have to deal with illegal immigration from “The Landed of the Effed-Up Flag”.  We’ll enact a work visa policy that makes sense. We only issue work visas to companies where they can prove that the labor they’re importing can’t be provided in-country. We’ll call the policy, “Texican before Texican’t”. Furthermore, we’re nixing student visas, except where the student is coming to Texico to earn a degree that supports one of our key exports. We’ll also provide expedited citizenship to anyone who is coming to work in any of Texico’s top exporting industries (coffee and crude oil).  We don’t want anyone here, we want people that are going to contribute to the country’s bottom line. Anyone moving to, or living in Texico that isn’t working in a key industry has 6 months to do one of two things: get a student visa to study an approved degree; get a job supporting our exports. If they don’t, we’ll ship ’em to Utah, where they’re hippie-dippie lack of contribution to the betterment of society might be appreciated.

We’ll take Arizona and Oklahoma’s lead on policing immigration. If you can’t prove your Texican citizenship or show your visa, it’s a night in jail. We’ll track down your info in our unified database and if you don’t show up, you’re on a bus to Utah in the morning. Don’t even worry about packing.

Drug Policies that Will Make Sense

Like Stoners will ever have the energy to actually move

Texico isn’t under the rule of the federal government. We’ll take Colorado’s lead and legalize marijuana. This will weaken the drug cartels enough that it’ll be easier to clean them out when we merge with Mexico. The revenue from taxed marijuana should be enough to support education policies in each of our independent states. I’m calling this plan, “Stoned for smarts”.  States that want to legalize harder drugs, including cocaine, should be allowed to do so if it can either improve education or improve law enforcement. What you do to your body is your choice; if you’re willing to pay the 25% tax on hard drugs, more power to you. In order to keep usage down, we’ll give tax breaks to companies that enforce drug testing and zero tolerance on drugs.

And now I've saved your twinkies. You're welcome

Healthcare that Heals

Health insurance sucks in the US. In Texico, we’ll let insurance companies provide healthcare across state lines. If  you want health insurance from Mexico while you live in Colorado, fine. We’re going to force insurance companies to compete – you know, that thing that keeps prices down. We’re not going to pass laws stating that they must, or must not, insure on pre-existing conditions. Health insurance in a free market will want to provide insurance on existing conditions because if they don’t, you’ll go to the provider that does.

We’re also nixing federally run hospitals and healthcare facilities in Texico. Any hospital will be financed strictly by the state.We want hospitals to be run and managed by the people in the community.  Let’s let the people around you care for you, not some bureaucrat that doesn’t know the needs of your hometown. And no, Texico won’t provide your healthcare. But if your state wants to, that’s fine.

A Constitution that Doesn’t Look so Constipated

Bill of Rights, ur so sexy. Show me your first amendment again

 

Texico isn’t going to be just a nation, it’ll be a group of independent states with a common goal. So we’ll draft our constitution in a way that protects individual freedoms first, states’ rights second, and the nation’s rights third. We’re keeping the freedom of speech, assembly, religion, along with the right to bear arms. You’re free from any army occupying your home, unwarranted search and seizure, and you don’t have to perjure yourself. You get a speedy trial by jury, and you can have civil trials. Most importantly, you have a state  before a federal government. I figure we can do a quick copy and paste from the Bill of Rights to our new constitution. We’re just doing a ctrl + c, ctrl +v.

We’re going do something crazy in Texico. We’re going to put it right there in the constitution that no law or agency can exist at the federal level until 2/3rds of our states have already had it in existence for one full year. We won’t pass laws until we know they already work.

Bicameral legislature seems like a good way to balance the government, so we’ll have our own House of Texican Representatives that’s based on the population and our own Senate. We’ll give each state three senators, though. Why? Because one of them will represent the businesses and lobbies of that state. That’s right, we’re giving our lobbies and businesses a political voice. Instead of all these lobbies having to buy our politicians, they can just have one. Just one. We’ll call that senate position the ‘Seat for Legislating Economic Activities for Zealous Enterprises’.

Since all members of our federal legislature will earn the median salary of the state in which they live, they’ll probably want to keep taxes low and job growth high. And since we already have a S.L.E.A.Z.E  senator who represents all of the businesses and lobbies of that state, there would be a conflict of interest for the other two folks to have any job other than being our senators or congressmen. And I figure we’ll cut their pay by 15% every term that they serve. If they want to mooch off our system, they’re going to have to work hard for it.

We probably aren’t going to ditch our two party system in Texico, so we’ll just plug it right into the constitution that each state is allowed to have as many political parties as there are states. That’ll make the debates fair, but still shorter than a Lord of the Rings marathon.

We can all admit that the last few presidents have kind of sucked. Rather than get a guy who doesn’t know jack about leadership, I say that our president is nominated out of our pool of active and former governors. Oh, and he must be a native Texican, too. He’ll not only have to prove his leadership, he’ll need to prove his dedication to Texico with documentation that’s a little more legit than a Facebook status.

In Conclusion

I’ll admit, secession does sound like a pretty good idea now. I figure we can just do a quick relationship-status update on Facebook to get the ball rolling.  The US will probably get all clingy and passive aggressive, but we’ll block ’em if they become a problem.

But maybe, just maybe, “Civil War 2: Double the Bloodshed” just won’t work out the way we hope. Maybe it’ll be more violent and less hilarious than the most tragic war in the history of our country. An estimated 620,000 died in a Civil War that was fought over states’ rights (to enslave part of the population). Maybe starting another one just because we don’t like the president makes us childish and ignorant. Maybe when democracy doesn’t go our way, our response shouldn’t be like a teenager complaining that life isn’t fair, and maybe, just maybe, we should respond with political ideas that unite our country, instead of dividing it.

When you can’t tell the difference between someone in the center, and someone on the opposite side, it’s you  who has gone too far. Democrats have gone too far left. Republicans have gone too far right. Both sides are making black and white issues in a world that’s shaded gray.  About ten years ago I predicted that the United States would experience a ‘polarization’ where we will all drift to the extremes, and that we would collapse once my generation reached the age of political power. I’d like to think that we’re more mature than to have an online petition to secede, but apparently in the 21st century, it’s easier to click a “like” button or sign an online form than to formulate political ideas that can unite a country.

 

2 Comments


  1. I think the reasons Texans cry when they drive through Oklahoma is because OU kicks Mack Brown and UT’s a## [edited: sorry, no profanity] so badly, and far too frequently for their tastes! I also think the fact that democracy works as it does is not the reason some want to secede. It is because of what many perceive to be unconstitutional infringement on state matters. I don’t think, as many believe, that Texas can secede based on their constitution and the agreement that brought them into the union. What they can do is, without Federal permission, choose to divide into up to 5 separate “Texas states.” They would then be able to send 10 total Senators to the US Senate, and given Texas being Texas, I would bet it would be 8-10 Republicans. The US could either allow the 10 Senators, or the US would have to choose to let Texas out of the US. Interesting, huh? Oh, and I hope things are going well for you. Let me know if you ever go get some instruction down in Texas (re our last conversation about firearms etc…).


  2. Joe, you’ve made an interesting point. Sounds like there’s a “Plan B” I need to account for.

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