Texans love to talk about leaving the Union, but they get really upset if you say you agree.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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One. Texas cannot secede from the United States legally. This means that there is only one method for Texas to secede and that is to murder everyone in Washington DC. That's it.
So knowing this, the United States in the event that Texas had thought it seceded from the United States would in turn end the lives of a whole lot of folks who supported this notion of secession. Of course there would be resistance to this whole dying idea from a lot of Texans and that would lead to a lot of US military also dying, not nearly anywhere near the amount of Texans dying, but a non-zero number none-the-less.
That's what a seceding Texas and the United States would have in store for itself. A lot of dead people. And that's the full extent of a Texas leaving the United States would look like. Dead people. Not riches, not freedom, not utopia, just dead people and lots of them. Because there's not a legal manner by which Texas can leave.
Two. So let's say Texas somehow finds out how to leave the United States. They have a pretty strong economy, but running yourself as a wholly independent nation is vastly different than running a State and right out the gate, there's a massive level of doubt that the Texas Legislature could pull off such a feat.
Additionally, the thing that triggered the first civil war would come back. The whole United States telling every nation on the planet Earth that they were not allowed to treat the Confederacy as an independent nation. It's really hard to conduct international trade of any sorts if zero people on the planet accept your currency. Now the TNM think they'll be able to score bilateral deals on their oil products. No one will trade with them at market rates, right out the gate that's the first thing the US will tell everyone. Texas in order to sell would need to sell to nations that weren't friendly to the US and those nations themselves would only do so at greatly reduced market rates. Nowhere near any kind of money for them to be a self sustaining nation.
Because on the International stage, if say Texas was trading with North Korea (for example), NK isn't going to hand Texas enough money (even if they had it, which they do not) to make Texas a threat to NK. That's being dumb. Internationally, you keep beholden nation, beholden. There are zero ways Texas does anything internationally because zero people will recognize their unit of money, which in turn means you cannot move goods outside your nation, which makes it very difficult to be an independent nation. Not to mention that given enough time, the US knows where the refineries are and hitting them with a missile is not some impossible task. That's part of the asymmetry of this whole thought experiment. Shooting one missile is very cheap for the US, rebuilding an entire oil industry complex is very expensive, especially for a nation that will be cut off from most of the metals and material require to rebuild. And even if they rebuilt it after X number of years, it still only requires a single missile to destroy it.
Even if Texas could, which they cannot, leave the US, there are zero benefits for them to do so and they would almost immediately be taken advantage of by foreign powers to a point that whatever economic benefit they have today, would be gone in a matter of years. The state has goodwill on the International stage but only by the virtue of being a US State. Most first world nations wouldn't trade with Texas just in principal and the US government would almost see to it that no nation on the planet traded with them. They do have a very strong domestic economy but it would stagnate easily two to five years in without international trade. Their median wage is just too low and their cost of living too high for them to coast on domestic consumption and production alone. Not to mention they would very likely be fighting a war with the US, which they would very likely be losing very badly.
They do not get to keep any airplane the US military bought and if they tried the US would just bomb it into dust. They don't get to keep airports Federal dollars bought, the US would pit the runways. They don't get to keep any ports facing the gulf, the US would set it on fire from their battleships. They don't get to keep any of it, they have to build it all back themselves, and if they try to keep it, we do the thing the US does best, destroy it completely with the idea that we'll just rebuild it back once we've killed everyone that's needing to die. Anyone who has studied the Reconstruction era already knows this.
But none of this matters because Texas cannot leave the United States, full stop.
I don't think all of your analysis is plausible, but I mainly disagree with your first and last points.
It not being legal for a state to secede is not an obstacle. Those same laws stop being applicable when the state stops recognising the sovereignty of the the US.
You should probably compare it to the Basquian independence referendum, where the same illegality applied, but it still prompted the state to take military action and quell any ideas of independence. No civil war, no legal battles, but temporary martial law and a long going political battle to keep them in the state.
You could also compare with the politics in Northern Ireland and Scotland and the efforts made to stabilise and keep the country integrated.
Not being legal means we would immediately be at war. There is no mechanism within our current constitution for a state/entity to legally secede. Texas is unlikely to survive a war with the rest of the US, especially since all current US assets would leave the state.
In practice, secession comes for good reason, and the long term optics and/or diplomatic relations of civil war are very bad.
If the public sentiment of Texas truly was that they feel disenfranchised and disconnected from the US, not even a civil war would keep them in line.
This is the real threat in the Basque and Northern Ireland, not the hundreds of lives lost in a one sided military action, but the divides in society, the armed and executive branches, as well as the growing public dissent over the distaste of oppressing your neighbour.
Thank you for this write-up, you raise a lot of good points that sound correct. I have no clue if you're right but I appreciate the effort.
Good timing, right before the election. Maybe Trump can be their president.
Go on! Get!
Again, this is performative nonsense. Yes, we'd be happy to let them go, but there's actually no legal method for them to leave.
And a big fucking precedent saying that they cannot. The end result of the civil war said no. States cannot leave the Union, not even Texas. They tried, they failed.
i really hope they make it. this would be very entertaining. theres nothing more fun than reminding texas they already lost once and a second take wont go any better.
they cant even keep their electrical grid goin and they are swimmming in oil, wind and fucking sun.
It would be absolutely hilarious if we built a wall around Texas.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Lol, Texas can barely handle keeping the power on in the winter, they'd starve in a few years if they had to do everything for themselves.
There is no way Texas would survive on its own in its current state. So many companies would instantly pull out and many of its citizens are on some sort of federal assistance.
Build a wall around Texas and make them pay for it. We don't want them illegal Texicans here anyway.
So ... Texit?
I would happily let them go and then laugh watching them be stuck between the US and Mexico with no working electricity because all their "leaders" are just crooks.
Texan here: this happens every year, and nothing happens.
Not even Mexico wants it back now.
Hilarious! Given their leaders (Abbot, Paxton) they don't actually know that they don't get to keep military assets. They'll be annexed within a few days. And whipped even earlier. The cowboys won't be a team as soon as it passes...
Their front line can be the brave Uvalde police department
The can form a militia with all those AR-15s they're proud to own.
Sounds like we might need to bring freedom to Texas so we can re-liberate their oil.
If that was ever actually was successful I would be out of the state the following week and enlisting in the us air force the next.
I'd happily help kill the crazies I'm surrounded by here. It's funny in every major city they're totally outnumbered here though, if it wasn't so gerrymandered and people voted in every election texas would finally turn blue.
I know there's lots of jokes that get dropped every time this comes up, but I honestly and unironically hope they do leave the union. They're a rogue state. They actively sabotage both themselves and the rest of the country. They're a drag and should absolutely be let loose.
If they left the rest of the country would instantly improve.
If Florida left too we might actually start becoming a civilized country.
This isn't actually going to happen but I think a Texit would be pretty funny and wouldn't last long. As soon as they lose federal funding and have to negotiate trade, figure out how to handle their own citizens documentation and try to figure out what happens to citizenships and the freedom of travel in the US, I'm sure they'd be like "this was a mistake, we're passing a law that repeals this, please let us back in!"
I would hope that the response would not simply be 'ok welcome back' at that point, just as it would not be for the UK were they to ask the same from the EU.
Texas leaves the Union and then the MASSIVE MILITARY PRESENCE in Texas arrests every Texas politician and potentially fights the Texas National Guard and police if they are dumb enough to fight.
Does it mean anything if it’s on the repubs primary? Wouldn’t that only be registered republicans voting?
Do they know what Brexit is, in Texas..? Would they learn anything from it..?
Americans learning from other countries? They don't even know their own.
Texas would crash and burn in record time without federal assistance.
The shitbags pushing this are morons.
Reminder that Texas sucks. Republicans suck too. They’re a pox on America.
same as everywhere else this happens, there are a few insane assholes who want to tell everyone else how to live, and get fat doing it