I can't even begin to fathom how many times I've had a variant of this conversation: I'm speaking to someone I've just met from out of state or another country, and they ask me where I'm from. I sheepishly admit that I'm from Texas, but just a microsecond before adding "But I've lived in Austin for the last twenty years, which doesn't really count." Most people laugh, but it is true. We are a tiny sane dot of blue amidst a frothing red sea of dead-end wingers.
And it is getting worse. As one might expect from an ex-Aggie yell leader (to the uninformed, yell leaders are male cheerleaders laden with a veritable closet full of repressed homosexual overtones who perform for the militaristic, traditionally all-male Texas A&M), Governor Goodhair Perry has decided to lead the Republican broken-record obstructionist chorus.
Yes, I know, Perry's newly found conversion to tea-bagging forces one forget the fact that when his good buddy W. was in the White House the Guv. snapped at every piece of pork waved in his face. No matter--consistency has never been a strong suit of his. Or Republicans in general.
The more I think of it though, Perry just might be on to something. The government is getting too big and oppressive. When the State of Texas can send prisioners to death by the busload (although in fairness a few of them might have actually been guilty of their crimes), when it can prohibit two loving men or women from enjoying the same marital benefits as the most dysfunctional hetero couple in the trailer park, when sex toys are against the law and the most basic tenets of science are denied in favor of a biblical fairy tale, when all of that occurs (and it has), fellow Austinites, it is time to secede!
Texas can keep the cookie cutter suburban hell of Dallas and Houston. We keep our lovely neighborhoods like Travis Heights and Clarksville.
Texas can keep toxic Deer Park and Beaumont. We keep pristine Barton Springs.
Texas can keep the racism of Jasper and Vider. We keep our tolerance.
SXSW, ACL, and all of the other events we put on are ours naturally, but Texas will still have its...monster road rallies? The public slaughterhouse-slash-shitty country music fair known as the rodeo?
Texas can keep their fossil fuels. We will keep our green entreprenuership and high-tech industry.
Texas can use the Flinstones as an science education tool. Don't expect them to be able to get into UT though.
Texas can not have the capitol building, however. That's in our territory now, and it will be renamed the Molly Ivins Center for Knowledge and Equality. Sorry Gov, but you people hate us liberals, right? Move the new Texas capitol to Lubbock or Odessa or some other conservative paradise.
I'll end with Perry speech, which only took a few edits to become Austin's declaration of independence.
I believe the federal state government has become oppressive. It’s become oppressive in its size, its intrusion in the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affars of our state city.
Texans Austinites need to ask themselves a question. Do they side with those in Washington Republican wankervilles who are pursuing this unprecendented expansion of their own power, or do they believe in individual rights and responsibilities laid down in our foundational documents.
Where’re you gonna’ stand? With an ever-growing Washington Texan bureaucracy, or are you going to stand with the people of this state city who understand the importance of state’s city’s rights.
Texans Austinites need to stand up. They need to be heard, because the state of affairs that we find ourselves in cannot continue indefinitely...
...We think it’s time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington batshit crazy Republicans that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas Austin. That’s what this press conference, that’s what these Texans Austinites are standing up for. There is a point in time where you stand up and say enough is enough, and I think Americans, and Texans Austinites especially have reached that point.