Rant #2 for today

[mellicious]

Col linked to this funny bit in the Daily Kos about all these supposed libertarians wandering around lately. In the comments, I expressed the opinion that we ought to fence off part of Nevada, say, and stick them all out there with no government services and see how they like it.

I am tired of idiots. I've been very quiet for the last month mostly because I am trying to avoid the healthcare rant I want to write - not because you guys wouldn't be interested, I'm sure, but because I am incapable of being rational about it. Now there's news that there are people in Texas who actually want to try to secede. I don't know why I'm surprised. Actually I guess I'm not surprised at all that they exist; I am just pissed off at their insistence on making idiots out of themselves in public. (Although admittedly, I ought not be surprised at that, either, especially with the abundance of evidence in the past month of people's willingness to do so.) I don't think this would have a chance in hell of passing even if it did somehow get on the ballot - among other things, wouldn't it be illegal? - but I've heard some people in other states who ought to know better act like all Texans feel like this and I'm tired of being tarred with that brush. Texas is only barely a Republican state any more, although I know it's hard to believe. Like a lot of places, it's divided sharply down the urban-vs-rural divide, but urban is winning, increasingly so. And I think maybe in Texas the urban-vs-rural divide is even sharper than in other states. There are a lot of people out there on the prairie and in the small towns who may not be far from me physically, but otherwise, they might as well be on another planet.

Comments

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

Secession talk is utter idiocy. A state can't secede from the Union -- there was this war thing 145 years or so ago that addressed that issue. (And but for the fact that it ended slavery, there's many a time I wish it had gone the other way -- Bush could have run his banana republic from Richmond, and Cheney never would have gotten within spitting distance of power in the North.)

If you're interested in the legal theory, it's that the Union is not a Union of States, but a Union of the People. In other words, the Constitution is a compact among the people of the United States, and only the People can authorize a secession or dissolution. Now the interesting academic question is, if Texas (or any state) applied to Congress to secede, and Congress voted for it (and the President signed it), would secession be legal? Or would you need a constitutional amendment? In other words, is it easier to get in (Congress admits new states) than it is to get out?

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

There's this urban legend (or something) in Texas that it was written in the agreement when we joined the US that we had the right to leave again. This is baloney, I know, but I've heard it off and on for years, and I think that's what those "secessionists" ranting on the steps of the Capitol were talking about, to the extent that they were saying anything rational at all.

(What I remember from living in Austin was that there are always crazies ranting on the steps of the state capitol. Sometimes they're liberal crazies, sometimes they're conservative. The only thing new there is that anybody was listening.)