They just won't let this go. Now we have the Governor of Texas toying with the idea of secession. I have diaried about this before, when the daft Glenn Beck brought this up (oddly, right after Obama was elected), but I'm not going to let it go, either. Beck is at it again, so I am too.
A fired-up Texas Gov. Rick Perry told an Austin crowd gathered as part of the national “tea party” protests that while there was “no reason” to dissolve the union, “but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”
His comment was made amidst shouts of “Secede!” — a word also a popular slogan on signs.
“Texas is a unique place,” Perry told the crowd, according to the Houston Star-Telegram. “When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that."
Well, Rick, maybe you've been away. Your little issue got straightened out 140 years ago, in the Supreme Court case of Texas v. White (1869). Here's part of the writeup on Wikipedia, though you can look at the actual case if you want to:
Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The Court held in a 5–3 decision that Texas had remained a state of the United States ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. It further held that the Constitution did not permit states to secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null".
Let's look at the signature statement from that opinion:
It is needless to discuss, at length, the question whether the right of a State to withdraw from the Union for any cause, regarded by herself as sufficient, is consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
Sorry, Rick. Your argument is "absolutely null".
"Who knows what might come out of that?", you ask. I'll tell you what will come out of it. Squat.
You know, you probably liked Ronald Reagan. No secession talk over taxes at that time. But his highest tax rate was 39.6%, and Barack Obama is merely proposing to return the top bracket to that percentage. You're being taxed less now than you were under The Gipper. Was Reagan a socialist? Was he thumbing his nose at Texas?
But maybe that's not what you're really protesting. So, um ... could you explain it again?