Posted on 11/15/2012 11:01:23 AM PST by far sider
Total vanity thread.
I kind of like the whole idea of Texas seceding. It is the most obvious state to do so. There may be enough Texans to make it a serious proposition, but I have my doubts.
But aren't there other options short of secession that any state could resort to, if they are serious?
The federal government can only exercise such overreaching control over the states because we allow it. Individual states could put their feet down.
For example, here in Ohio, we deduct the state income tax that we pay from our federal taxes. Texas could create an income tax equal to the federal income tax. Texans could just deduct their state taxes from their federal returns, and Texas keeps ALL the money, instead of whatever the feds decide to give back. I would much rather give my money to a state government that was not antithetical to my beleifs than to a distant, tyrranical federal government.
They could do the same thing with all other revenues to the government.
The federal government should be at our mercy, not the other way around.
The state of Texas votes Republican because it doesn't agree with what Northern liberals want to do. Take those Northern liberals out of the picture and what Texas voters want to do will change.
I wouldn't be surprised if an independent Texas looked more or less like the country it decided to leave. That's what happens. Given enough time, independence movements make government stronger, rather than weaker. We revolted against Britain and the taxes Parliament imposed on us and developed a government that taxed us more than the British ever did.
People just love to look at the CSA as though it were some anti-government movement, when it was a government that was at least as repressive as any other American government. Ireland revolted against England to go its own way in the world, but decades after British influence were thrown off Ireland is more European and less "Irish" than it was in the past.
Maybe I'm rambling, but politics has to do with a balance of forces and tendencies. Remove one force and you'd be surprised what the new balance will be. When the welfare state isn't seen some alien Northern thing, Southerners or Texans might take to it more than a lot of people think now.
I appreciate your instructional and cautionary comments. We need to analyze where the exit is from some of these alluring theme park rides we contemplate.
Burke told France that a Napoleon was their future but none agreed at the time.
“Maybe I’m rambling, but politics has to do with a balance of forces and tendencies. Remove one force and you’d be surprised what the new balance will be. When the welfare state isn’t seen some alien Northern thing, Southerners or Texans might take to it more than a lot of people think now”
Perhaps...in two hundred years...by then it would be time for some other new revolution.
So you’re on for the bet?
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