Its Time to Texit.

[Soccerdad1995]

Considering there is a post thread right now about Beto being elected Senator, Texas leaving the US is potentially premature.

In addition any state wishing to leave would need to assume it’s share of the Federal debt.

And we would also get our share of existing military equipment and other assets that debt helped to buy like the strategic oil reserve, etc., right?

Also, one minor correction to a post up-thread. The US Postal Service is not owned or operated by the Federal government. I don't know why we would assume that it would cease operations in an independent Texas, but if it chose to do so and sell off it's assets here, I'm sure a successor would emerge.

[PriestTheRunner]

Seems to me that the Constitutional question of seccession was settled in 1865. My oath to support and defend that Constitution has no experation date.

But if your government who has sworn to uphold that constitution starts to betray it, I'd say at that point your oath is as good as null and void. I'm all for the constitution, but when our leaders who have sworn to protect and follow the constitution start picking and choosing parts they want to uphold and others they want to infringe upon, it's time to do something about it. just my 2 cents.

I'm still trying to figure out how NSA spying doesn't violate the 4th amendment, but that's just me.

[PriestTheRunner]

Considering there is a post thread right now about Beto being elected Senator, Texas leaving the US is potentially premature.

In addition any state wishing to leave would need to assume it’s share of the Federal debt.

And we would also get our share of existing military equipment and other assets that debt helped to buy like the strategic oil reserve, etc., right?

Also, one minor correction to a post up-thread. The US Postal Service is not owned or operated by the Federal government. I don't know why we would assume that it would cease operations in an independent Texas, but if it chose to do so and sell off it's assets here, I'm sure a successor would emerge.

Considering that FedEx and UPS are both cheaper and more reliable than USPS, it isn't a stretch to say that a privatization wouldn't be a bad thing. Either way, if we are gonna buy our share of the debt, shouldn't we get our share of the assets too? Or is the US AG gonna roll down main street and demolish the local post office?

Federal assets don't disappear in a Texit, they are rightfully purchased. (Though, considering the ethics of most recently-revealed top level staff, I wouldn't doubt that a printer or two may go missing )

[Ruark]

It's a great idea, but so is growing wings and flying. Not going to happen. The loss of federal dollars would be devastating. They're more pervasive than you think. For example, virtually all of the special education funds in the public schools, including special ed teachers' salaries, are federal. Federal funds comprise 73% of Texas welfare funding. 40% of highways. It goes on. Plus a whole slew - literally hundreds - of small federal funding programs. For example, a local telephone coop was able to run fiber optic cable to EVERY SINGLE HOUSE in a 4-county area with the help of a federal rural broadband initiative. It's a long list. And that's just the funding aspect.

Further, I don't think the public support is really there. Remember, 44% of the state voted for Hillary. Right now, with 55% of the vote in, Cruz is leading Beto by 1%, but that's ONLY because votes from Texas's vast rural areas are starting to trickle in. Without them, Cruz would be slaughtered. For example, Beto won 75% of the vote in Austin. The focal point here is not Cruz vs. Beto, but that it appears a foregone conclusion that there wouldn't be any kind of massive, grass-roots groundswell of support for Texit. There's a big chunk of support there, but it's not an unstoppable political juggernaut in any sense of the word.

Of course 10-20 years from now, who knows what's going to happen? But for right now, in my opinion, Texit, beautiful as it appears, is just wishful thinking.

[Jago668]

Of course 10-20 years from now, who knows what's going to happen? But for right now, in my opinion, Texit, beautiful as it appears, is just wishful thinking.

10 to 20 years from now Texas will be blue. I imagine in 4 to 6 years Texas will be purple.

[Lynyrd]

The best thing about Texit is that we could close the borders and keep liberal idiots from coming here.

[PriestTheRunner]

It's a great idea, but so is growing wings and flying. Not going to happen. The loss of federal dollars would be devastating. They're more pervasive than you think.

Except for every federal tax dollar we send to DC, we get .66 cents worth of federal dollars back. If that every becomes widespread knowledge then expect the equation to change.

I would like to question, however, where on earth the federal government gets permission to be involved in an intra-state data/phone provider or has permission to have absolutely anything to do with education (aside from enforcing the constitution upon the states through the 14th amendment, that bit is legally justified...). But as far as saying X-program gets these dollars and Y-program gets these, explain to me the federal authority to take such actions? All of it is illegal.

I get that the federal fingers are stuck down in almost every aspect of funding/grants/business, but that is a problem- not a feature. If Texans ever realize that they could support all of those programs at 2/3rd the taxation dollars taken, expect more people to start questioning the status quo.

The best thing about Texit is that we could close the borders and keep liberal idiots from coming here.

Or even better, prevent out-of-state dollars from flowing in as campaign contributions. Why the heck can a liberal in New York send 5,000 to Beto in Texas? Why does said liberal have permission or authority to interfere in a Texas election? You wanna talk about collusion, talk about that!

[flechero]

In terms of raw numbers- there are far too many dems here to even think texit is possible. Besides, the surplus of money the rest of the country gets from Tx is something they will fight tooth and nail for. Optimistically- we have about .01% chance.

[Paladin]

I must point out that the globalists, aka the Superclass like George Soros, do not consider themselves citizens of any nation and use their influence on a worldwide scale.

We can not run away or back down from them.

[RogueUSMC]

Eventually for Tx, it would be like being stuck in between Mexico and Venezuela!

Wall around the whole state?...

[Ruark]

I would like to question, however, where on earth the federal government gets permission to be involved in an intra-state data/phone provider or has permission to have absolutely anything to do with education (aside from enforcing the constitution upon the states through the 14th amendment, that bit is legally justified...). But as far as saying X-program gets these dollars and Y-program gets these, explain to me the federal authority to take such actions? All of it is illegal.

These programs do not lend themselves easily to oversimplification or knee-jerk verbal ejaculations about government intrusiveness.

Federal funding grants are, in general, generated to fund federal projects, in alignment with the fundamental concept of "if the government requires it, they have to fund it." There was a federal initiative to expand broadband internet and telephone into rural areas, where it wasn't fiscally realistic for private internet and telephone service providers to do so. So there was federal funding made available to support the initiative. It paid for miles and miles and miles of roadside trenching for fiber optic cable. Then from there, even more trenching, sometimes far off the road, to lay fiber optic cable to individual homes, even if it was a decrepit old mobile home a mile back in the boonies. Without this initiative, millions of rural dwellers would still be sitting out there with dial-up, or struggling with rusty phone wires drooping from phone poles and overpriced, unreliable rooftop satellite dishes.

Special Education funds are the same way. By federal law, education services must be provided to all school aged children, including the disabled. This was mandated by IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1973. To enable public schools to provide these services, IDEA funds are made available to school districts based on special education eligibility data. Without such funding, special education services for disabled children would be virtually non-existent. Texas alone receives over a billion dollars per year in IDEA funding, covering such expenses as teachers certified in special education, special instructional materials and adaptive equipment, staff development, etc.

There are literally hundreds of federal education grants, each targeting a specific student population or a broader objective. I used to manage one federal grant, for example, that paid for training teachers and educators in innovative instructional technology. Another provided special additional funding for "high cost" students, special education students who required extremely expensive equipment or medical services. These resources are a gift from Heaven for a cash-starved school district that can barely afford to keep the lights turned on.

And with Texit, it would all vanish instantly.

[PriestTheRunner]

...

Federal funding grants are, in general, generated to fund federal projects, in alignment with the fundamental concept of "if the government requires it, they have to fund it."

While I agree with everything you have said, I think you are missing my main point. It is not legally viable for the federal government to require things not authorized to them in the Constitution. Anything not authorized to them falls to the states. Education should (and does) fall to the states for provision and enforcement. As such, it should be illegal for the federal government to earmark (or more accurately hold fiducially hostage) funds for specific purposes.

I think South Dakota vs Dole was incorrectly decided. As well as some other cases before it (such as Wickard vs Filburn).
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educa ... dole-1987/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

It is not withing the federal government's authority to have anything to do with education and as such they have no authority to provide specific funding towards any related program.

And with Texit, it would all vanish instantly.

While I think these programs are beneficial to society, it should be up to Texas and our representatives how taxes for education be spent. If Texit happened next year and we wanted to keep all of these programs, we could do so while being financially stable and reducing taxation by about 25%-30%. Those programs wouldn't instantly be gone, but they would instantly be decided by Texans instead of the US as a whole.

Also, don't doubt that democrats want Texit as well in decent numbers.
This Rueters polling from 2014 (a bit old) shows 30.1% support for Texit from Democrats alone. It shows 40.2% support from Republicans.
If every democrat voted against Texit, it would likely never pass, but there are significant number of them open to and actively supporting the idea.

http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/T ... psed/false

[Charles L. Cotton]

...

Federal funding grants are, in general, generated to fund federal projects, in alignment with the fundamental concept of "if the government requires it, they have to fund it."

While I agree with everything you have said, I think you are missing my main point. It is not legally viable for the federal government to require things not authorized to them in the Constitution. Anything not authorized to them falls to the states. Education should (and does) fall to the states for provision and enforcement. As such, it should be illegal for the federal government to earmark (or more accurately hold fiducially hostage) funds for specific purposes.

I think South Dakota vs Dole was incorrectly decided. As well as some other cases before it (such as Wickard vs Filburn).
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educa ... dole-1987/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

It is not withing the federal government's authority to have anything to do with education and as such they have no authority to provide specific funding towards any related program.

And with Texit, it would all vanish instantly.

While I think these programs are beneficial to society, it should be up to Texas and our representatives how taxes for education be spent. If Texit happened next year and we wanted to keep all of these programs, we could do so while being financially stable and reducing taxation by about 25%-30%. Those programs wouldn't instantly be gone, but they would instantly be decided by Texans instead of the US as a whole.

Also, don't doubt that democrats want Texit as well in decent numbers.
This Rueters polling from 2014 (a bit old) shows 30.1% support for Texit from Democrats alone. It shows 40.2% support from Republicans.
If every democrat voted against Texit, it would likely never pass, but there are significant number of them open to and actively supporting the idea.

http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/T ... psed/false

This has been discussed before and I think you took a strong stance in support. As was noted in the older thread, if Texas were to become an independent country again, then there's no guarantee the U.S. would be buying our goods and services. There goes a big percentage of our state GNP.

Also, Republicans lost 12 seats in the Texas House and 2 in the Senate yesterday. That fact cannot be ignored or explained away. It's long past time for the Republican Party to appeal to Hispanics who are natural-born Republicans in terms of values and beliefs. Immigration is the only real issue between us. Yes, there are others, but they are relatively insignificant.

There will be no Texit.

Chas.

[clarionite]

This has been discussed before and I think you took a strong stance in support. As was noted in the older thread, if Texas were to become an independent country again, then there's no guarantee the U.S. would be buying our goods and services. There goes a big percentage of our state GNP.

Also, Republicans lost 12 seats in the Texas House and 2 in the Senate yesterday. That fact cannot be ignored or explained away. It's long past time for the Republican Party to appeal to Hispanics who are natural-born Republicans in terms of values and beliefs. Immigration is the only real issue between us. Yes, there are others, but they are relatively insignificant.

There will be no Texit.

Chas.

I have a hard time understanding why Hispanics, Blacks and Jews tend to vote more Democrat. From my point of view Democrat policies have harmed their groups more than helped.

I guess it's just that the Democrats have been very successful in hanging the dreaded Racist label and the concept that Republicans were for the rich around our necks. It's hard to get some people to understand that creating an opportunity for you to work and build something for yourself isn't holding them back. They only seem to respond to fear tactics and offerings.

I'm afraid the Roman Juvenal understood mankind too well.

"Panem Et Circenses"


And that Alexander Fraser Tytler understood our style of government too well.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

[bblhd672]

I have a hard time understanding why Hispanics, Blacks and Jews tend to vote more Democrat. From my point of view Democrat policies have harmed their groups more than helped.

I guess it's just that the Democrats have been very successful in hanging the dreaded Racist label and the concept that Republicans were for the rich around our necks. It's hard to get some people to understand that creating an opportunity for you to work and build something for yourself isn't holding them back. They only seem to respond to fear tactics and offerings.

Mainly because modern Republicans have “higher standards of decorum” and will take repeated punches to the face without responding in kind. The Republicans will site truth and facts that the Democrats and their accomplices in the media will distort and lie about the intent of the Republicans. Couple that with a growing Democratic voting base of low education voters who just continue to buy the lies and vote “D” without thinking and considering facts the Republicans are ceding the future of the country without a serious fight.
Democrats have a stated goal of fundamentally changing the country to a socialist government instead of a Constitutional Republic.
Republicans appear to have a goal of delaying the Democrats as long as they can, not defeating them in the war of ideals, facts and truth.
Another factor is that many religious groups have become socialist in nature and are boldly advancing the Democratic Socialist agenda.