Will Texans Follow Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh And Tom DeLay Into Secession?

This Texan isn't into no hand washing but he knows how to handle swine flu just fine

Texas' soon-to-be former governor, Rick Perry, has stopped pushing the secession thing. Presumably someone told him the 25% of Texans who want to secede from the United States are already supporters of his and that the 75% of Texans who are loyal Americans might get turned off by his pandering to extremists. That's not to say that there aren't some big voices-- crazy voices, but big ones-- in favor of the secession talk. Of course, there's Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, and lunatic fringe sociopath Rep. John Culberson but the real lunacy comes from former U.S. House Republican majority leader Tom DeLay.

If you missed DeLay on Hardball playing up to the Texas Know Nothings and the state's multimillionaires who will never be happy as long as they have to pay taxes, here's DeLay explaining why secession is on the table:



According to DeLay, "The state of Texas is a huge donor state. We only get about seventy cents back for every dollar we send to the dederal government. We're paying for a lot of this and Texans are fed up with the government growing like it's growing... Texas is wealthy because it works hard. It's a pro-business state. It doesn't over-tax its businesses and its citizens. Its nowhere near what California or New York or New Jersey that's losing businesses left and right, losing jobs left and right. It isn't even close to what the rust belt is. We are a pro-business state... We don't have an income tax..."

DeLay doesn't mention how Texas wealth was built on untaxed oil profits-- mad dog, rabid Texan defenders of the oil depletion allowance (which probably cost Kennedy his life and Nixon his presidency) have cost the federal government over $70 billion. Nor does he talk about the billions and billions of dollars fed by the federal government into the war-making contractors of the Dallas area. No it's all because Texans are so smart and hard working. If that were even clsoe to being accurate, how would DeLay (and Perry and the the Texas-first knuckleheads in the most reactionary congressional delegation in America) explain why ordinary Texas families live at the bottom of the heap compared to almost every other state in America. As Juan Liberale, a Texan himself, points out: his home state has little to show for all of these years of Republican control. Texas is now making Mississippi look almost good! Here are the 20 points Chris Matthews should have asked DeLay to explain:

1) 49th in teacher pay
2) 1st in the percentage of people over 25 without a high school diploma
3) 41st in high school graduation rate
4) 46th in SAT scores
5) 1st in percentage of uninsured children
6) 1st in percentage of population uninsured
7) 1st in percentage of non-elderly uninsured
8) 3rd in percentage of people living below the poverty level
9) 49th in average Women Infant and Children benefit payments
10) 1st in teenage birth rate
11) 50th in average credit scores for loan applicants
12) 1st in air pollution emissions
13) 1st in volume of volatile organic compounds released into the air
14) 1st in amount of toxic chemicals released into water
15) 1st in amount of recognized cancer-causing carcinogens released into air
16) 1st in amount of carbon dioxide emissions
17) 50th in homeowners' insurance affordability
18) 50th in percentage of voting age population that votes
19) 1st in annual number of executions
20) 1st in number of retarded presidents sent to DC

DeLay, no doubt, would have argued about the last point, celebrated the second to last and smiled with satisfaction about the third to last. Perhaps reports today that former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, the man who ended DeLay's disgraceful political career, is probably running for Texas Attorney General (or even governor) will wipe that self-satisfied look off his well-fed face. Predictably, as a precaution against a swine flu epidemic, Governor Perry went running to the federal government for help.


UPDATE: Is Hendrik A Texan Name?

Ken wanted me to take a look at Hendrik Hertzberg's excellent piece, So Long, Pardner in the new New Yorker. I think we all should.

Putting aside the technicalities, though, what about the merits? Secession has been in questionable odor ever since Fort Sumter, but there are big differences between then and now. The cause of the Civil War was slavery, and the white South’s determination, in Lincoln’s phrase, “to strengthen, perpetuate, and extend” it. That was something worth fighting against, if not worth fighting for. But a difference of opinion about a marginal tax rate? There is, to be sure, a superficial parallel: just as only a minority of Southern whites owned slaves, only a tiny minority of Texans are due for a tax increase. It’s an aspirational thing. According to a poll taken the other day, a mere third of the people of the Lone Star State, and only half of Texas Republicans, are currently inclined to secede. But, if the numbers mount, might it not be better for all concerned if we just let Texas-- and, by extension, any other parts of the old Confederacy that wish to accompany it-- go?

...For the old country, the benefits would be obvious. A more intimately sized Congress would briskly enact sensible gun control, universal health insurance, and ample support for the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. Although Texas itself has been a net contributor to the Treasury-- it gets back ninety-four cents for each dollar it sends to Washington-- nearly all the other potential F.S. states, especially the ones whose politicians complain most loudly about the federal jackboot, are on the dole. (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 on the dollar, as compared with Illinois’s seventy-five cents.) Republicans would have a hard time winning elections for a generation or two, but eventually a responsible opposition party would emerge, along the lines of Britain’s Conservatives, and a normal alternation in power could return.

The Federated States, meanwhile, could get on with the business of protecting the sanctity of marriage, mandating organized prayer sessions and the teaching of creationism in schools, and giving the theory that eliminating taxes increases government revenues a fair test. Although Texas and the other likely F.S. states already conduct some eighty-six per cent of executions, their death rows remain clogged with thousands of prisoners kept alive by meddling judges. These would be rapidly cleared out, providing more prison space for abortion providers. Although there might be some economic dislocation at first, the F.S. could remedy this by taking advantage of its eligibility for OPEC membership and arranging a new “oil shock.” Failing that, foreign aid could be solicited from Washington. But the greatest benefit would be psychological: freed from the condescension of metropolitan élites and Hollywood degenerates, the new country could tap its dormant creativity and develop a truly distinctive Way of Life.

Not every Southerner would be eager to go along with the new order, so delicate diplomacy would be a must. New Orleans might have to be made a “free city,” like Danzig (now Gda?sk) between the world wars. If partitioning Austin along the lines of Cold War Berlin proved unfeasible, peacekeeping troops might have to be sent in. But, before long, living side by side in peace and tranquillity, we could all say either “God bless the United States of America” or “God bless the Federated States,” as the case may be.

And don't forget Austin... and Houston... and most of Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. The United States of Oklahoma, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Rural Georgia and Parts Of Texas... that sounds like a winner. And they can take Utah with them.