A fuckton of federal spending - F35s in DFW, bell textron helos, missiles and other stuff; Fort Hood and Fort Bliss are GIGANTIC, there's defense spending all over the state. It's not staying in The Fuckjikistan of Texas
If Texas left the US, wouldn't that be a massive blow to the federal Republican party losing all those electoral college votes and seats in the legislature?
Let mexico have them. Those drug cartels would own them in no time. What was left would be no match for the true genius that is the current president of mexico.
Mexico would have to get in line. An oil rich independent nation with minimal defenses right on our border? They'll be a protectorate within minutes, and PR can take their place as a state.
I think this comes up every year or so and never amounts to anything other than some headlines and a bump in Republican rah-rah.
However, when I follow this line of thinking to its conclusion it scares the shit out of me. It ends with armed militia showing up at my home to "enlist" my kids to be cannon fodder for these assholes' holy war against the Yankee libs.
The feeling of inevitably and helplessness is crushing.
GOP knows it too. They'd lose +13 R seats in Congress and +2 R seats in the Senate. As well as 38 votes in the EC, which despite Texas becoming more purple hasn't gone D in a presidential election since 76. Taking Texas out of the equation could easily make both chambers and the executive D.
Texas already owns all its oil, including ocean mineral rights. This was part of the terms of statehood.
They were allowed to keep their unallocated lands and mineral rights in order to pay off their debts and become a state, rather than the United States assuming the debt.
This turned out to be a huge financial boon for the state and continues to be.
Perhaps you missed the sarcasm of "spread democracy". I was referring to the United States' history of invading or meddling in countries with oil. I don't know why you think ownership is any obstacle to possession.
Or rather, was found to have never had the right to secede in the first place. Any vote to leave is less a declaration of secession and more a declaration of a war of independence against the United States.
Presumably somewhere in Texas, this time they'll have nukes. They shouldn't 🤞 have a way to use them, but it's curious what would happen with them if a vote to secede was successful.
Why would that be the case? Nuclear missile silos are concentrated in the north central United States specifically to give them more time to fire before detection and landfall of incoming ICBMs.
The vulnerability of Texas to a submarine launch is too great to consider it a base for launch in a mutually-assured destruction scenario. It also doesn't have any reactors capable of producing isotopes needed for nuclear weapons.
I won't claim to know about ability to produce the components of a weapon or ability to actually use one, but it appears that the only facility in the US that has the capacity to assemble or disassemble nuclear weapons is in Texas.
Nuclear armed hostile state in political upheaval within the boarders of the contiguous US, also with substantial oil reserves ... That's like the royal flush of getting invaded
If they seceded I'm sure the federal government would make the argument that they are on federal land, even if it's within the Texas borders. Since it wasn't state land, their secession wouldn't apply so it would remain the USA. If Texas wanted to refuse the US Federal government access to them, they'd learn a swift lesson. Texas has a lot of guns, but the army has more.
Would it only be Texas though? Is there a chance that other US states might also join along with them, not because they wanted to secede before, but because the GOP is a cult and they can convince their people to go along with anything? Plus, how many military personnel would “defect” over to this new Texas Republic? The idea of Texas leaving and trying to go it alone against the rest of the current US is fairly one-sided, but what if Texas peels away a sizable chunk of the US with it? I wouldn’t doubt that Trump would support it if it meant saving his skin from all the trials he’s involved in (though given the status of most of them it may not be necessary).
Any state with ruling Republicans is likely to try and follow suit, as Texas leaving would mean they no longer have to votes to win a majority in federal congress or the executive ever again.
