Spoiler alert: No, it fucking doesn’t.
I’ve purposely forgotten about the Alamo just out of spite.
The what?
It was the last time Texas successfully seceded from a country.
Fucking do it pussies
The USA is a country created by seceding from Britain, and Texas itself seceded from Mexico before joining the USA. In this context, arguing that secession is wrong in principle seems to be hypocrisy. If there really was strong support for independence in Texas (there isn’t) then I think holding a referendum like Scotland did would be the right thing to do.
The UK and the US are not structured similarly: Scotland is a country, Texas is not.
But the main point here is that all of America belongs to all Americans. The people living in Texas don’t have some special right to the land of Texas and the people of California don’t have some special right to the land of California.
Texas seceding and becoming its own country because the people currently squatting on it want to leave America makes as little as your neighbor doing the same. If people living in America no longer want to live in America they are free to leave but they are not free to take part of America with them when they go.
What about Taiwan?
You think that Taiwan should be forced to stick with China?
Your question doesn’t make any sense; the People’s Republic of China has never had control of Taiwan.
Even if we set aside Scotland as a special case, how is your argument against Texas secession inapplicable to the secession of the thirteen colonies in 1776? Or to the secession of Texas from Mexico? Doesn’t it imply that the USA should give Texas back?
They were colonies. Does that really need to elaborated on? If a territory of the US like Puerto Rico wants to vote for independence more power to them.
Or to the secession of Texas from Mexico? Doesn’t it imply that the USA should give Texas back?
If we were having this conversation between 1836 and 1848, yeah, probably. But since Mexico conceded the land that contains Texas to America as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that’s since been settled.
The colonies seceding wasn’t legal. There was a war about it, and the very people who fought that war didn’t encode a right to secede into the constitution.
I was confused because I assume any state can have a referendum and decide if they want to become a country similar to what Quebec was looking for.
While it make sense legally if you say Texas belong to America, I still feel that if the majority of people who currently lives there decided they want to be their own country, it doesn’t make sense to force them to be part of the states.
‘Texas Government’ and ‘The Right Thing To Do’ are oxymorons.
Paging William Tecumseh Sherman. General Sherman to the Courtesy Phone.
It does not. There are no clauses in the Constitution that allows a state to secede. Even if they did, that lack of federal funds and citizen exodus will kill the state.
Even if they did, that lack of federal funds and citizen exodus will kill the state.
And where would be the bad in that?
I’d feel bad for the many people that will be economically trapped there. I can imagine even in that scenario that people will stay put simply because they can’t afford to up and move to a different state. The alternative would be to live in their car with their whole family in a neighbouring state, I assume.
Imagine the housing crisis when 50% of texans try to find a home in nearby states. And I’m being very conservative with that percentage, as I can’t imagine half of the population of texas would even support secession and would want to stay in their doomed state.
Well, nearly all those people had and have to power to vote. They got the government they deserved. Are they “economically trapped” to vote Republican?
Bro and/or sis, do you know what a fucking Gerrymander is?
Yes, I know, and this has been done by people who got voted into power in the past. Texas has a history of f-ed up governments.
BUT: There are millions in Texas who don’t care enough for their future to go to the polls, or even f-ing register to vote. Yes, it is more difficult than in civilized countries, but millions in Texas simply ignore the only way they have to change the situation. See here.
How do you feel about your GOP-majority House of Representatives? I guess you just didn’t vote hard enough.
Luckily my country is not led by fundamentalist neo-fashists like the US. I wish your president all the best for the next election. Trump in the white house would be a catastrope for the whole world.
Careful around that edge. Back to class with you, son.
I think generalising across the whole group like that is what got us into this mess.
Just look at the voter turnout in Texas and then still tell me there is no way to change the situation.
A state can not secede, but it can be expelled.
Don’t give them any ideas
Let’s do the latter part of your statement. I’m ok with that outcome.
It would be wild. The Texas government can’t even maintain a power grid. How the hell do they think they would do without help from the federal government and with a brain drain!
Sometime in the future:
Company Exec: We need more engineers to run our infrastructure, but 90% of the qualified people have TURNED TRAITOR and ran to the states.
Politician: it’s fine, we control the regulations now so we’ll just pass a bunch of engineers through school and it’ll be taken care of sits back in solid gold chair puffing on Cuban cigar
CE: perfect! Genius! Problem solved forever! Didn’t need a DemonRat for THAT!
6 months later
CE, looking haggard and with singed hair: well this has been a disaster. The engineers were just pushed through and graduated without learning anything! Nobody knows how to do the jobs we need done! My house caught fire because a power surge overloaded my entire block! Half the state is dark!
P, from behind a platinum, diamond-encrusted desk, in a gold-trimmed silk suit: well I haven’t seen any evidence of this, my house is perfectly fine! The spotlights and private security do a great job of keeping the looters out. But that has nothing to do with this. Get back to work.
I think that last line would rather read: “That sounds like communism. You are not communist, are you? Now get the problem with that one nuclear plant fixed, or you might find yourself and your family sent to Guantalag labor camp, tovarisch.”
We should let them. Then, in a year, when they declare bankruptcy and everyone is freezing because there’s no power, we’ll just buy them. We can let Puerto Rico be the 50th state, and Texas can become that weird thing where they’re part of the country, but have no voting rights.
I was thinking something similar. They’d go bust in a heartbeat, and perhaps at that point it would be cheaper to just invade and make them a tributary state.
Damn, I like this idea!
North Carolina resident here, I’d live in New York if Money wasn’t an object, it is… the problem with letting the problem states seceede is that you have trapped those who are physically locked in place by their finances (or lack thereof) into an even shittier situation.
Isn’t that part of the objective for those problem states though? “All the productive smart people are leaving - lets succede so they’re kinda stuck here.”
What if we just give it back to Mexico? Would they even accept it? 🤷🏼♂️
DO IT! We triple dog dare you!
“Texas, I will literally suck your dick vote for me”
Nikki Haley, probably.
I mean, anyone can do anything if they want to. They just can’t do it without consequence.
We settled this 150 years ago
There was a war
YOU LOST
TEXAS, SPECIFICALLY, LOST
AS DID YOUR HOME STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, NIMARATA
Honestly, I think you could make a pretty good case that this statement is “aid and/or comfort” to insurrectionists, and thus disqualifies Haley to hold federal office under the 14th amendment.
And I think we need to start pushing those cases hard, right now. These days you throw a fucken rock and it seems to hit 12 loser larpers before it even starts to wane.
They didn’t just lose the war.
They lost a fucking SCOTUS case in 1869 that said states do not have the Constitutionality to leave the Union. And the best part is, that case was called Texas vs. White. Texas has lost this fight twice.
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
The irony of the fact that conservatives want no-fault divorces for women.
I learned from Texas public school teachers in the 1990s that Texas is the only state that has the right to secede because of its state constitution, and I’m sure they’re still teaching that bullshit today. Yet they somehow ran out of time to mention TX v. White, but is anyone surprised?
Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.
That female pronoun for a state is awkward as fuck. Hope that isn’t Wikipedia.
This is what happens when you let your enemies live and then give them full freedom to coalesce once more over a century and keep waging war against you along the way while you’re fiddling your thumbs.
Booth’s actions in April 1865 gave the Confederacy its best chance at returning. If Lincoln has presided over reconstruction, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
I am a hobby historian but I am not that deep (yet) into US history for me to have an opinion on (this specific) topic. :)
Mind expanding on it?
Sure! So, when Lincoln, a Republican, ran for reelection in 1864, he chose as his running mate Andrew Johnson who, while a staunch unionist and opponent of secession, was a Southern Democrat from Tennessee, a Confederate state. Johnson was chosen as Lincoln’s running mate as an attempted symbol of national unity, but they clashed on many political views.
Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction was quite moderate. He wanted to allow the rebel states back into the union with mild changes and concessions, including that the rejoining states would not be led by anyone who had rebelled against the Union; he supported some level of civil rights for freed slaves; and there are some historians who argue that he had also signaled a support for Black suffrage.
However, upon his assassination, Lincoln’s moderate plan was tossed out in favor of Johnson’s coddling approach. Johnson was an anti-abolitionist, and showed no interest in providing any protections for freed Black people. He welcomed former Confederate states back in with little to no changes to structure or concessions following the war. He also vetoed attempts by the Republican Congress to limit the former Confederate states’ ability to pass Jim Crow laws or allow former rebels to serve in positions of leadership again.
Were Lincoln alive to see reconstruction through, I believe the southern “Lost Cause” narrative would’ve withered and died on the vine, and civil rights would’ve been settled a century before it was litigated in reality. The South would’ve felt their loss and been chastised, rather than simply welcomed back with open arms. And people who had rebelled would have rightly been put out of public view and made to live out the rest of their lives in relative solitude.
That’s interesting, he was re-elected during an ongoing civil war? I would think he’d be assumed to effectively be in a state of dictatorship (in the classic Roman sense of war-time appointee as commander-in-chief under martial law) under such circumstances.
During 1861-65, how did that work for the confederacy, did they hold elections too? If not, who was in charge? I ask as you seem very knowledgeable on the subject, and it is hard finding resources to learn more in depth about certain aspects of your history- asking a human is always the best option, always.
I will have to look up reconstruction, never delved that deep but when I think of it yeah damn, figuring out how to set up and manage post-war society must have been a pretty tough nut to crack. How would you even enforce it and avoid partisans and guerrilla warfare? Very interesting.
Edit: And THANK YOU for taking the time! :) <3
We’ve had one war, yes. But what about a second war?
Except it doesn’t. Legally. We shut that shit down after the civil war, Nikki.
I hate to quote Antonin fucking Scalia here but… “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede." Source - TexasTribune.org
Is Scalia saying that whether or not a right exists can be decided through the use of force? I would expect a judge to disapprove of trial by combat.
No. He was saying a state cannot unilaterally secede from the union. Succession is technically possible but requires the union to agree to let whichever state is dumb enough to try it. Otherwise it is literally a declaration of war against the union.
But how did the Civil War establish that there is no right for a state to unilaterally secede, if not through trial by combat? If the Confederacy had won, all that would establish is that the Confederacy had the stronger army; the Union victory can hardly establish more that the reverse.
I suggest you actually read the article I linked to from the Texas Tribune in my original comment. It could not be more clear that you didn’t bother and I’m not going to continue rephrasing it’s conclusion for you.
The article doesn’t have anything relevant to what I’m saying except that Scalia quote. I’m not denying that the Supreme Court of the USA has decided that there is no right to secession - it has decided exactly that. However, that’s not what the Scalia quote says - it says that whether the right exists was decided by the outcome of physical conflict. That’s what I think is silly. If there’s no right to secede, there would have been no right to secede even if the Confederacy had won. Likewise, if there were a right to secede, it would exist even though the Union did win.
However, that’s not what the Scalia quote says - it says that whether the right exists was decided by the outcome of physical conflict.
As I explained already, that’s not what the Scalia quote meant. That’s what you erroneously imagine it means. There is a difference and it’s already been explained to you both in the original article I linked to and by myself. We are done here. Any replies from you will be ignored.
That is the weakest executive assertion that I have ever read.
I pledge blah blah blah one nation* under god blah blah blah
*terms and conditions apply, non binding, we reserve the right to change terms without notice, no shirt no shoes no service
But you better stand, remove your hat, and salute the flag
The last few years have taught me the flag they’re effectively honoring is not the stars and stripes at all. Honestly, the situation today is kind of like them awakening to the fact that they were Confederate traitors all along and not only acknowledging it, but being proud of it.
So true, basically as un-American as it gets…
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It’s only illegal when the Democrats want to secede
which they lost
Are you sure? I am pretty sure the war was rigged.
Yep, it was rigged so that Julia Grant could endorse Lincoln
Did they? I still see their flags flying and statues of their heroes still standing. That sounds to me like the “winning” side decided that reconciliation was more important than accountability and that there was no possible way that would come back to bite the US in the ass repeatedly for the next 160 years.
As discussed elsewhere in the comments, the Union should have crushed the southern elites until this nonsense was dead for good. As a modern southerner, I can attest that was the time to deal with this foolishness.
Knowing that some of the generals during the Civil War were actually quite forward-thinking and just generally intelligent, I’d love to somehow go back in time with evidence of things that will happen because they went easy on the southern states after aleverything was over, sit down with them and see what they think.
And would they still go easy on the southern elite, or would they American History X them into the Great Sleep?
All I know is i grew up in the same area William T Sherman was born in, and I’ve just got a natural urge to walk to the sea for some southern BBQ.
I wonder if Texas could be financially sufficient if they do leave. They are for now, but the defense industry is huge there, and if they really did leave, theres no way the US wouldn’t move that production. This is also the reason they will never leave, the MIC and clandestine orgs that oil it have done worse things for less sever threats to the MIC. Abbot would get Kennedy’d if they so much as though this was a real possibility.
It’s funny, I can’t find any information about where she got her law degree.
lol I was just literally wondering if she thought she was a lawyer.
Sounds like Kristi Noem recently who was complaining about how states have a right to protect their borders…and she’s bordering fugging Canada.