"...who knows what might come out of that"
April 15, 2009 7:05 PM Subscribe

Mere days after asserting his state's "sovereignty" from an "oppressive" Federal government, Governor Rick Perry stands before an angry crowd at Austin City Hall and announces that Texas may once again secede from the Union. "There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

The spectre of secession has graced Texas before, of course. Except the last governor to deal with the possibility of secession and civil war was against the whole idea. Could the previously fringe idea of Texas secession once again be gaining momentum?

posted by Avenger (303 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite

Neat!
posted by gc at 7:08 PM on April 15, 2009

Who is it that hates America again?
posted by waitingtoderail at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [37 favorites]

The GOP, had it a mind, would be very, very, very against the idea of letting it's big Electoral College Motherlode slip away. It'll never happen.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

Just to clear something up, there's nothing in the state constitution that asserts the right to secede. So, that's a big old load of crap.

And Rick Perry is a fuckface. Thank god Texas governors don't have any power.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [11 favorites]

Them Texans sure know how to score themselves governors.
posted by Atreides at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [5 favorites]

What a guy. Over eight years of abject failure as governor and this is all he's got. Of course none of this has anything to do with the fact that the guy would probably have a primary challenge if he runs for the Senate.
posted by blucevalo at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

It'll be a shame to see the Judd foundation come under the control of Mexican drug cartels, but fuck it, HIST'RY IN THE MAKIN'.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Go for it!
posted by cogneuro at 7:12 PM on April 15, 2009

It's just stupid enough an idea that the Glenn Beck audience will go for it.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:12 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

As a native Texan... I'm glad we just moved to California. Uggggh.

Rick Perry was always a huge embarrassment, but he used to at least keep kind of quiet.
posted by Nattie at 7:13 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

and if we're being intellectually honest about secession, let's take a minute and remember how much we'd have applauded a governor who talked secession while Bush was in office.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:13 PM on April 15, 2009 [5 favorites]

Let the fuckers go. No Federal money for hospitals, schools, airports, or national defense. No sucking off of the Fed teat for manufacturing projects, highways, or internet infrastructure.

Sorry Red States, but librul Blue States like California and New York contribute a lot more in terms of jobs and tax revenue than you ever will.

So yes, please, go away Dumfuckistan. You'd probably be happier living in Iran or Saudi Arabia anways.
posted by bardic at 7:13 PM on April 15, 2009 [23 favorites]

But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people...

To be fair, he has a point and Congress and the White House should listen up. They were elected to enact a very progressive agenda and I haven't seen it yet. Get with the program. (And if that loses us Texas, it's only icing on the cake.)
posted by DU at 7:14 PM on April 15, 2009 [8 favorites]

Can we just give this 5% of the population, white supremacist, libertarian, conservative, Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck worshippin', teabaggin', gun-lovin', sore losers like North Dakota or something? They can all go there and be "real Americans" and can stop worrying about black helicopters and fascism and or socialism and elect Sarah Palin president and do away with taxes and science and education and have mandatory church services twice a day and go back to the dark ages and leave normal people the fuck alone.
posted by ND¢ at 7:15 PM on April 15, 2009 [52 favorites]

and if we're being intellectually honest about secession, let's take a minute and remember how much we'd have applauded a governor who talked secession while Bush was in office.

Uh... not at all?
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:16 PM on April 15, 2009 [27 favorites]

OK, but five years from now I don't want to see you tex-backs sneaking across the Oklahoma border to escape the crippling poverty and steal our jorbs.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:17 PM on April 15, 2009 [23 favorites]

Wait, this is real?
posted by swift at 7:18 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Go for it, man. Just pay us back the related costs created by Enron. That would take care of the deficit for a while. Put up or shut up Perry.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:18 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing."

- William Tecumseh Sherman
posted by Flunkie at 7:19 PM on April 15, 2009 [11 favorites]

Mavericky!
posted by Soliloquy at 7:19 PM on April 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

Please!
posted by oddman at 7:21 PM on April 15, 2009

Okay, fine, but they have to take Oklahoma with them.
posted by hal incandenza at 7:21 PM on April 15, 2009

I retract my previous statement regarding secession.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:21 PM on April 15, 2009

Whoa, I just put secession together with the only-popular-in-the-South-ness of the GOP and the obvious racial issues. This can't be going anywhere good.
posted by DU at 7:22 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
posted by rand at 7:24 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Hey Mexico, I hear you guys are missing some land. Please help yourself.

Signed,

The 49
posted by dhammond at 7:26 PM on April 15, 2009 [34 favorites]

Look where it got them last time.
posted by yclipse at 7:26 PM on April 15, 2009

Oh my God Rick Perry. You make it so difficult to pretend you are a decent governor.
posted by Pants! at 7:28 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Who is it that hates America again?

Well, on the one hand they shoot presidents. On the other hand they shoot people who shoot presidents. Call it a wash.

let's take a minute and remember how much we'd have applauded a governor who talked secession while Bush was in office.

Y'know, when people say "lead, follow, or get out of the way," it's an exhortation to lead, or at least follow, not genuinely to get out of the way.
When it comes to resisting malfeasance by the federal government my answer isn't 'quit.'
This go it alone crap looks good on paper and sounds tough, but in practice it's a real bitch to pull off. I'd actually rather get a coalition together and unify the country against the federal government to resist the policies that I can't stand. You get 50 governors, or hell, even more than half of them if they're big populations, you've got some serious clout there. Odds are the president and the congress will listen to you.
This? Not so much.
Plenty of policies still going that really suck though, yeah. Maybe he's just looking for publicity. Y'know, in a good way.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:28 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Rick Perry is an unbelievable dipshit. I haven't lived in Texas since 1997, and I'm embarrassed for y'all from way over here.

It's times like these we need Molly Ivins. I imagine her sitting with Ann Richards in Heaven, looking down, asking St. Peter "Hey, are we allowed to spit on him from up here?"
posted by louche mustachio at 7:28 PM on April 15, 2009 [21 favorites]

Party like it's 1861!
posted by washburn at 7:29 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

This crawling haircut isn't going to do jack diddly squat other than to (maybe) rile up a few of his dimmest constituents, at most. At some point, we may well wish that we had someone around who could possibly lead such a movement, but Perry?

He is the government. The barrel of scumbags really does seem to be bottomless at times.
posted by metagnathous at 7:29 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

t the fuckers go. No Federal money for hospitals, schools, airports, or national defense. No sucking off of the Fed teat for manufacturing projects, highways, or internet infrastructure.

Sorry Red States, but librul Blue States like California and New York contribute a lot more in terms of jobs and tax revenue than you ever will.

So yes, please, go away Dumfuckistan. You'd probably be happier living in Iran or Saudi Arabia anways.

Sorry to interrupt your insults with some actual facts, but Texas sends more money to the Feds than it receives.
posted by gyc at 7:30 PM on April 15, 2009 [10 favorites]

Might want to tell FEMA you've decided you don't want the money you requested 5 days ago. Or rescind the request for a thousand troops to be sent to the border. And tell the US to get their bases out.
The real kicker is this quote: I believe the federal government has become oppressive. I believe it's become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state." Yeah, Texas never does that.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 7:31 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm picturing Molly Ivins and Barbara Jordan getting St. Peter all liquored up and exhorting him to pee on Perry. Also: don't let the door hit ya, Rick.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:32 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Gov. Perry Backs Resolution Affirming Texas’ Sovereignty Under 10th Amendment

So, I'm no constitutional scholar, and the only amendment I can remember off the top of my head is the eighteenth, which I think is about hot, barely-legal teens. But isn't the 10th amendment the one that gives states any powers that the feds don't already have claim to? Because if so, I am almost positive that it does not apply at all in this situation. He might as well have invoked the eleventy-twelfth amendment.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

He might as well have invoked the eleventy-twelfth amendment.

Lets not give him any ideas.

Also, (and I hate to intrude in my own FPP) but let me just say that most Texas I know (including the most conservative Republican types) consider Perry to be an insufferable douchebag of apocalyptic proportions.
posted by Avenger at 7:35 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Texas sends more money to the Feds than it receives.
Yeah, but that wouldn't be the case if it did secede. American and Southwest would pull out because all flights would become international, and coupled with losing military bases, the economy would tank.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 7:35 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm all for Texas secession. Some of the dumbfucks here in Oklahoma move to Texas.
posted by wierdo at 7:36 PM on April 15, 2009

Didn't we already settle this one? With Texas on the losing side, even?
posted by stevis23 at 7:36 PM on April 15, 2009

Gee, how many times was I called a traitor by right-wing fuckheads during the Bush years because I was against the war in Iraq?
posted by vibrotronica at 7:36 PM on April 15, 2009 [8 favorites]

Um..Some of the dumbfucks will move to Texas.
posted by wierdo at 7:37 PM on April 15, 2009

But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.

Yeah the American people sure hate the guy they elected in a huge fuckin landslide.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:38 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm picturing Molly Ivins and Barbara Jordan getting St. Peter all liquored up and exhorting him to pee on Perry.

All slapping him on the back, saying "OK, just aim for that hair. You can't possibly miss."
posted by louche mustachio at 7:39 PM on April 15, 2009

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry is asking FEMA to issue an emergency declaration for 199 Texas counties dealing with wildfire threats.

Pigs at the trough, until they run up against their own inability to govern, then the federal government is the solution to whatever problems may arise. Same old shit.

Tom Delay Lite.
posted by metagnathous at 7:41 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

The Onion or a Republican? Who can tell anymore?

Are there any serious grown-ups left who speak for the Republican Party? Because there should be; as much as I like Obama, I don't want to see a one-Party country. We need a serious opposition party.

But the Republicans seem to offer only jokers and haters: RNC Chairman Michael Steele talkin' 'bout makin' Republicans "hip-hop", Rush Limbaugh calling Obama a fascist and a socialist, various clowns claiming Obama is a Muslim and isn't a citizen, Sarah Palin grasping for relevancy and appointing an Attorney General designate who thinks the only problem with men raping their wives is that the victims won't keep their mouths shut, Bobby Jindal condescending to the nation.

And now Rick Perry pandering with talk of succession.

It's like they don't want to be elected. Many that's intentional: maybe they see the whole house of cards they built collapsing, and figure it's safer to be outside the tent pissing in, so they can pretend they had a plan that evil Demonrats rejected, when it comes time to pick up the pieces.

But serious leadership it isn't.
posted by orthogonality at 7:42 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell” (Philip Sheridan)

Secede. I double dog dare you.
posted by photoslob at 7:42 PM on April 15, 2009 [9 favorites]

On a related note, earlier today I announced that Austin would be seceding from Texas.
posted by zylocomotion at 7:43 PM on April 15, 2009 [16 favorites]

Texas gets $.88 back per dollar taxed

New York gets $.79 back.
California gets. $.78 back.
Illinois gets $.74 back.

Go. And let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. And no, you can't have Pantex.
posted by eriko at 7:43 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's perfectly reasonable to condemn an entire state based on the stray comments of its governor, amirite?

Next time a black person makes the news for committing a crime, I await comments from enlightened liberal mefites ascribing that person's behavior to all black people.
posted by saslett at 7:35 PM on April 15

I wasn't aware that there were statewide elections for criminals. Thanks for the heads-up.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:43 PM on April 15, 2009 [18 favorites]

It looks like Texas has the 4th largest federal civilian employee base, with 124,500 federal jobs.
posted by Brian B. at 7:44 PM on April 15, 2009

Sorry to interrupt your insults with some actual facts, but Texas sends more money to the Feds than it receives.

Yeah, I was gonna say that Texas is big enough (has enough industry and population) that they're probably net contributors.

So perhaps the real net benefit of a sans-Texas union is that it'd no longer be a source of candidates for federal office.
posted by weston at 7:47 PM on April 15, 2009

Palin/Perry 2012, Teabag Party.
posted by edgeways at 7:48 PM on April 15, 2009

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
posted by empath at 7:50 PM on April 15, 2009

As someone born and raised in Texas, I can only say that this is:

A: The stupidest plea for attention I've ever heard from a Texan.

and

B: Something that almost all white male Texans would LOVE TO SEE GO DOWN.

They love their cowboy Texan thing. They love to talk about how "they could secede anytime"
if they wanted to. Like this Six-gun of Damocles hanging over the Fed. Nonsense.

Would the Aggies be our Military? That's the logical conclusion, since those guys are all training to be Marines. College Station would become the Pentagon? Nonsense.

He is making a big stink to draw attention to himself, and to call sour grapes on the fact that a liberal Democrat is in office. He is trying to vie for something, most probably. He'll be running against Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and is maybe trying to steal votes away from the next big running mate, the TEXAS SECESSIONIST Larry Kilgore.
posted by gcbv at 7:51 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Republicans lost one election and they'll destroy the country to show their displeasure. Less and more
posted by acro at 7:51 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Go to a local council meeting or two, and you'll get a pretty good idea of where all the Rick Perrys come from - bred and born right in the heartland, all these fucks. Do you really believe any of the crucial decisions are made during public meetings? Hell no - all that stuff is decided before the meetings are ever called to order to begin with. That's where all that rot comes from. You can't build anything healthy on top of that.
posted by metagnathous at 7:51 PM on April 15, 2009

Can people truly be this incredibly dumbfuckian?

Americans are an ambitious people.

Oh, Texans too.

Just as an aside, I know the people the rest of the country tends to hear about are the gun totin' racists and dipshits and stuff, but Texas is secretly awesome. It's full of enclaves of genuine weirdos, liberal rednecks, the ruggedest of rugged individuals. Like a plant of the desert, anyone who is a freak in Texas has to be a badass in order to survive in such a harsh climate, so if you have the courage and patience, you will find yourself partying with the strangest people you will ever know.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:53 PM on April 15, 2009 [51 favorites]

Hey, you can't fix every election. Suck it up, you big baby.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:57 PM on April 15, 2009

I'm a native Texan, and I've long been sick of the dimwitted Texas-bashers who constantly crawl out of the MeFi woodwork to spout some idiocy or another about a large and diverse state.

But this... sheesh.

This is pretty damned embarassing.

Lone Star haters, you get one on this.
posted by John Smallberries at 7:58 PM on April 15, 2009 [7 favorites]

You're right, Optimus Chyme. The analogy isn't perfect and I concede my mistake. Thanks for reminding me that President Bush spoke for everyone too.
posted by saslett at 7:50 PM on April 15

He didn't have to speak for everyone; he just started wars that we happily paid for. When people say "Americans are dumb assholes" I pretty much just nod in sad agreement - the people are accountable for electing crazies and idiots.

Even though Texas has a plurality-based gubernatorial election, it's fair to say that this dude is a fair representative of the Texan mindset. Hell, I moved out of Arizona in part because the Evan Mechams and Fife Symingtons and Joe Arpaios were so evil and corrupt I started to feel bad about myself for living in the state.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:00 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Can people truly be this incredibly dumbfuckian?

If there's one thing that history teaches us it's that most people are not very fucking bright.
posted by fshgrl at 8:04 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

*scratches head*

I've seen articles about this for hours now, and I still don't believe that it really happened.
posted by gchucky at 8:05 PM on April 15, 2009

orthogonality Are there any serious grown-ups left who speak for the Republican Party? Because there should be; as much as I like Obama, I don't want to see a one-Party country. We need a serious opposition party.

I agree. Can the new opposition party be the left wing, to offer balance, instead of only right and farther right?
posted by paisley henosis at 8:06 PM on April 15, 2009 [21 favorites]

So yes, please, go away Dumfuckistan. You'd probably be happier living in Iran or Saudi Arabia anways.

There's about 24,000,000 Texans. About 10 million of them lean Democratic, by the statistics. We're ALL American citizens, and I'd eat my hat if anything like 10% of even the conservatives here actually favored a shit-stupid idea like secession. All the urban centers in the state except Fort Worth went Obama in the last election, as did the entire Rio Grande valley. It's not easy bucking up under an utter cretin like Perry, but on behalf of the intelligent, hardworking liberals who are trying to make Texas a more livable and forward-leaning state, I'd like to issue a hearty fuck you.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:07 PM on April 15, 2009 [46 favorites]

Go, you fuckers, go.

We'll even trade you Oklahoma in return for Lyle Lovett and the memory of Townes Van Zandt.
posted by felix betachat at 8:09 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Adios, mofo.
posted by dickymilk at 8:09 PM on April 15, 2009

Oh SIT DOWN, Perry! We have not begin to see oppressive and intrusive.

isn't the 10th amendment the one that gives states any powers that the feds don't already have claim to? Because if so, I am almost positive that it does not apply at all in this situation. He might as well have invoked the eleventy-twelfth amendment.

IANACS either, but the 10th ammendment says that the power of the Federal government is limited to that expressly granted by the Constitution. So it is appropriate--though it pains me to side with a douchebag--for him to try to support his claims of Federal oppressiveness and intrusiveness using the 10th amendment.
posted by njbradburn at 8:09 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

I wasn't aware that there were statewide elections for criminals. Thanks for the heads-up.

No, we hold those on a federal level.

Seriously though, and with all due sorrow expressed for Mefites who must suffer in the shithole, fire-ant-ridden, Heartlandhickistan that is most of the state: Good Fucking Riddance to Texas, if it secedes. Let's ship every last Goddamn right-wing criminal to that penal colony of a state and let it fuck itself right the fuck off.

The clearminded will make their way out of the new Texan Empire, just as smart, free-thinking East Germans had to leave their country to escape the tyranny of the USSR. Let's see Texas survive without sucking at the teat of the rest of the US, while brain drain leads the best and brightest to search for better lives anywhere else.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

"I believe the federal government has become oppressive. I believe it's become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state."

It just turned intrusive a little while back there when them yankees elected the colored fella. It just became oppressive when an astroturf campaign backed by plutocrats and their talk-radio lackeys decided to use tax day as a backdrop for race-baiting of FUCKING SEMI-LITERATE KNUCKLE DRAGGERS. IT WAS NOT OPPRESSIVE WHEN TEXAN TRAINED MONKEY DRAFT-DODGER AND BASEBALL NE'ER-do-well GW Bush created out of whole cloth several new intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies and encouraged torture, mandated indefinite imprisonment without due process for "enemy combatants," and pushed tax breaks for the richest individuals and corporations as a cure-all for our economic ills. But now that a black guy is president, well damn it's oppressive! I wish these fucking cowards would admit that their so-called oppression stems from the fact that a black man is president. Perry is walking a fine line between rabble-rousing and treason, and, while I bear Texans in general no ill will, I really wish Perry would get the fuck out of my country.
posted by Mister_A at 8:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [29 favorites]

It's times like these we need Molly Ivins. I imagine her sitting with Ann Richards in Heaven, looking down, asking St. Peter "Hey, are we allowed to spit on him from up here?"

I miss them both, and Bob Bullock, like I miss the sun.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:11 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ugh. As if I don't get enough crap from my NYC friends for being from Texas.

Just...Austin is really, really, really cool, ok? Barton Springs, 6th Street, Leslie (yo, have you guys seen him around lately? I heard he'd gone missing...), SXSW, hippies, slackers, Alamo Drafthouse, ect. I am from Austin.

Maybe we could use the whole ability to split into four different states deal and break away from the rest of that fucked up state.

Maybe we'll keep San Antonio. It's all right.

Anyway. Like I was saying: Austin is my hometown, and I love it.

If you haven't been, you should probably check it out before it requires purchasing a visa and dodging gunfire.
posted by jnaps at 8:12 PM on April 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

Austin is cool and can stay, we need SXSW and the Drafthouse for national security reasons.
posted by amuseDetachment at 8:14 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

When ever the Southern United States ( in this case Texas) winds up on the front page I know I'm going to hate Mefi. Please go ahead and show what a bunch of bigots you really are.

You are all as evil as those you call sinners.
posted by nola at 8:16 PM on April 15, 2009 [7 favorites]

Just as an aside, I know the people the rest of the country tends to hear about are the gun totin' racists and dipshits and stuff, but Texas is secretly awesome. It's full of enclaves of genuine weirdos, liberal rednecks, the ruggedest of rugged individuals. Like a plant of the desert, anyone who is a freak in Texas has to be a badass in order to survive in such a harsh climate, so if you have the courage and patience, you will find yourself partying with the strangest people you will ever know.

let me just say that most Texas I know (including the most conservative Republican types) consider Perry to be an insufferable douchebag of apocalyptic proportions.

I have it directly from someone who was on his staff here a few years ago that this is a gin-you-wine fact. Prima-donna with a hair-trigger temper that throws his weight around, even though it's 70% wig.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:19 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, (and I hate to intrude in my own FPP) but let me just say that most Texas I know (including the most conservative Republican types) consider Perry to be an insufferable douchebag of apocalyptic proportions.

Stop complimenting Rick Perry, please.
posted by spiderwire at 8:19 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Why are all these gringos swimming south across the Rio Grande?
posted by McGuillicuddy at 8:23 PM on April 15, 2009

The Canadian version.
posted by gman at 8:24 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Awww, this is so sweet!

Governor Perry's handing Kay Bailey Hutchison the Governor's chair, all wrapped up with a bow and everything.
posted by ShawnStruck at 8:26 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Governor Rick "Hair" Perry is a dumb ass. Always has been. For some reason, since Ann Richards, my state feels most comfortable with a complete imbecile in the office of governor. However, it's true, that office holds almost no power. Lieutenant governor on the other hand, different story. (Kinky's going to run again as a Democrat, but he'll get iced again. Still, he stirs things up.)

This kind of stuff is just fuel for ill-informed rednecks. It's also total folly. Texas can no more succeed as a stand-alone republic/small country/ whatever than any other state in the union. We like to talk big, but we're just as dependent on the federal tit as everyone else. Plus, Texas has no state income tax. I can see it now- Secede, and pay MORE TAXES! Fucking morons. Saw a guy today driving a large, customized, loud truck- he had 2 bumper stickers - "Secede" and "Impeach Obama" (don't get me started on how badly people misunderstand the true definition of impeach) Needless to say, he wasn't impressed with my "I'm a Constitution Voter" ACLU sticker and my "Texans For Obama" sticker. I wonder how easy it is to drive with no thumbs...
posted by PuppyCat at 8:29 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

@Optimus Chyme um...since when is 52% a landslide? (It does not matter what the next major % was...52% is not a "mandate" by any stretch.) While I would prefer that America not be even more decimated than when Bush had the mantle of command , it will be very fulfilling to be able to say "I told you so" (in a scant 3+ years) to those 52% [redacted] who elected BHO. Then again, they will probably still be too devoted to really see what happened/is happening now.
posted by hrbrmstr at 8:29 PM on April 15, 2009

Which reminds me of this 2006 Texas campaign slogan: Kinky Friedman for Governor: How Hard Could It Be?
posted by nicwolff at 8:30 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Here's the thing about Texas. The majority of its land mass is made up of tiny shithole towns full of ignorant shitkickers who have never been outside of a 25-mile radius around their hometown and have never met anyone who isn't exactly like them, but have plenty of ignorant opinions about them anyway. I mean, just the most awful places you've ever been, where Dairy Queen and church are the centers of social life. Its population centers, namely Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, however, are like West Berlin. All of these cities went heavily to Obama in the Presidential election. There are awesome music scenes, great restaurants, arthouse cinemas, Universities, straight and gay bars of all kinds, and everything else you'd expect to find in a large city. However, due to the way representative government works, and due to some sleazy gerrymandering by the Republicans, the shithole towns have all the political voice, the state always goes red, and mindless bryl-creemed panderers like Rick Perry get elected. Keep that in mind when you rag on Texas, because you're also ragging on a lot of people that agree with you on most things when you do so. The people that don't only use their computers to forward emails about how the Libruls are trying to ban Jebus and secretly look at gay porn, so they aren't reading this website anyway.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:30 PM on April 15, 2009 [25 favorites]

Rick Perry's house burned itself down because it was afraid he would move back in.
posted by spiderwire at 8:31 PM on April 15, 2009 [11 favorites]

I haven't been to Texas yet (hope I won't need a passport to visit!), and I really want to go, because Texas has awesome birds. I know three Texans, all of whom are awesome and weird (only one lives in Austin).

Rick Perry's a douchebag.
posted by rtha at 8:31 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, but where would people hold SXSW?
posted by vanadium at 8:32 PM on April 15, 2009

Bush could become the first new President of the texas Republic since 1846.
posted by Scoo at 8:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

What's with all this Texas hate? I mean, really? Every single time TX is mentioned in a mefi thread all the haters come out of the woodwork. And apparently that's ok? Because they're all just rednecks and cowboys. Right?

As an ex-pat Brit who spent ~6 very happy years in Austin, I'm far far more homesick for TX than I am for the UK. I'd move back to Austin at the drop of a hat if I could.
posted by schwa at 8:33 PM on April 15, 2009

On a related note, earlier today I announced that Austin would be seceding from Texas.

This, really. I don't understand how Perry keeps getting elected, but as a Texan I say that that it needs to stop.

It's all political theater with this guy. When the first round of stimulus came down, while Bush was still at the helm btw, Perry was crying about how some money would go to "job creation in Hollywood". Oh how all the rich, white men in the room guffawed at that.

Because, you know, everyone in Hollywood is a media star of some sort and has hundreds of millions of dollars. Goddamn toolbox.
posted by Talanvor at 8:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

I miss them both, and Bob Bullock, like I miss the sun.

OH HELLS YES. Can you imagine this happening on Bullock's watch? I can't.

Bob would be standing behind Perry, smacking him across the back of the head every time he looked like he was going to open his mouth.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

The reason Texas will never secede is because they are perhaps the only state in the union with so much to lose in the process. Their annexation agreement easily allows for the creation of 4+1 new states, with Mexico possibly disputing the border region in that event. Opening that can of worms is just what they would seek to avoid.
posted by Brian B. at 8:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [5 favorites]

Whoops, sorry about the caps on Texas, no disrespect intended.
posted by Scoo at 8:34 PM on April 15, 2009

It's really quite remarkable how insane the USA has become over the past few years. Maybe it's just because of Fox and a lot of vocal nutcases on the internet, but it sure seems like you've got yourselves a very significant population of — well, nutcases describes it well.

Obama's what, less than three months into this job, and you've already got State governors threatening to pull out of the country? You've got "teabagging parties" today, where people who would be bankrupt if they had a major illness are protesting taxes on the ultra-wealthy? You've got people buying guns and ammo for an upcoming civil war?

WTF, America?

It's embarassing.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:34 PM on April 15, 2009 [26 favorites]

I definitely see your point, NoLa. To be sure, Perry is a douchebag. And I find his statement as disrespectful to the office of the President and as destructively disloyal to our country as a liberal politician or some celebrity spoutin' off about what terrible things our soldiers are doing in the war. But when phrases like "FUCKING SEMI-LITERATE KNUCKLE DRAGGERS" get bandied about in the blue, you know there isn't real engagement.
posted by njbradburn at 8:36 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I smell a flameout a comin'!

Lord, don't tempt me. I've got to get some sleep tonight -- big client flying in from NZ tomorrow. Tons to print. Kids to raise. I just don't have the time, though that MetaTalk button is mighty magnetic about now. The Texas-bashing has really gotten out of hand, here, lately. I guess we're the last safe demographic to go *ist on. Try to remember the thousand or so Mefites that are in Texas when Metafilter goes on a Texas-bashing-fest. It really grates on the nerves of those of us here who really, really do try, because we just love the place for some insane reason. It's home, and Perry or no, you couldn't prize me away with a wrecking bar.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:36 PM on April 15, 2009 [16 favorites]

RE: Silly Charges of Federal Gov't Opression, Taxation and Socialist Tendencies.

What drives the folks who are protesting, what they see as, tax increases is that many of these people believe in their heart of hearts that they too can be multi-millionaires. They believe that they are good people. They believe that because they trust in Jesus or YHVH or the Virgin Mary and follow all the rules that they will be rewarded in this life AND the next. Neo-Calvanist thought at its worst.

I know we've all covered this before. But, it is important to remember that these protesters take the infrastructure and services provided by government without giving a thought about where the money comes from to pay for infrastructure and services. The blanket assumption is that all gov't workers (from the basic civil servant on up to the President) are lazy, greedy liars and cheats who are just in it to enrich themselves.

A telling quote from talkingpointsmemo.com:

Live Bagging

"Some guy from PA just showed up, said he hated government, and then they asked him where he works. It turns out he works at the Dept. of Transportation. "Civil servant", he says. I wonder if he realizes everyone in the crowd hates him and want to end his job."

This seems to be, from my reading of this situation, the very person who WOULD vote for a politician like Perry. And would be very happy to secede from the USA. This is because their sense of entitlement is so entrenched that they assume that all they have been given by the gov't continues on in perpetuity regardless of wether or not the rest of The Union is around to help them along.

As previously (though not directly) stated; it seems these folks need a painfully sharp wake-up-call. But, I don't see that happening any time soon.

On a personal note these are the same folks who try to drive cyclists off the road and claim it as their right because they "pay for the roads that the cyclists use for free". Without analyzing the logical fallacy inherent in that statement.

I do realize that some readers may mark my statements as naive. But, I remind you (dear readers) that were it not for the sweat of our backs; the giving that we must do to preserve the union both in gifts of blood and gifts of money, that we are all in this together. If you selfishly assume that you bear the whole load and take yourself out of the picture to spite the rest of us, it is you who will fail. The tiny you that grasps so tightly to your presumed sense of self-primacy will fail on its own. And it is this very sense of self-primacy that REQUIRES taxation by a government entity, which must be designed to think of the good of the whole.
posted by Severian at 8:37 PM on April 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

However, due to the way representative government works, and due to some sleazy gerrymandering by the Republicans, the shithole towns have all the political voice, the state always goes red

The presidential election cannot be gerrymandered. McCain won Texas by a large margin. As did Bush before him, twice. And Dole before him.

Bush the Elder before him won by a relatively small amount, but the margin probably would have been significantly larger if not for Perot.

Of course, Bush the Elder won by a large margin the time before that.

And Reagan before him. Twice.

Oh look! A Democrat squeaked out a win over three decades ago! Awesome.
posted by Flunkie at 8:41 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

OK, Perry's remarks are funny and all . . . but, all kidding aside, now . . . how are they NOT treasonous?
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:41 PM on April 15, 2009 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I'm sure. Next time you're partying with one of this plethora of genuine weirdo liberal redneck ruggedest of the rugged badass freaks, please let them know that the rest of the country would appreciate it if they voted.

They do vote. Unfortunately, what Decemberboy said is pretty true. Especially since 2003, Texas has some districts that look like a snake eating Legos.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:42 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Well, beat up on Texas all you want, but it's NOWHERE as scary as Oklahoma or Louisiana. Or even Arkansas. Those are some fucked-up, backwards states, filled with folks just trying to figure out how to make a suicide run on Obama.
posted by PuppyCat at 8:42 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

followup....

I should note that I think that Texas needs to stay for the good of Texas and the rest of the USA. And that wierdos and wackos show up in all states. I'm sure there are folks here in my home state of Wisconsin who are looking at Gov Perry and thinking "My I wish he were our governor and considering seceding. I am sure sick of that Doyle crook." (no offense to Doyle intended).

We definitely should avoid the Texas bashing and the loltexans.

This is a surprising story in its own right. But it is a lot of wind.
posted by Severian at 8:44 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

If there's one thing that history teaches us it's that most people are not very fucking bright.

Which is why I hold most populous movements as inherently suspect until they achieve some positive good.
posted by edgeways at 8:44 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Bush could become the first new President of the texas Republic since 1846.

Hope he knows kung fu. He'll have to go through Chuck Norris.
posted by Flunkie at 8:45 PM on April 15, 2009

I used to knock Texas because they don't know how to cook BBQ right, but Mefi has cured me. I realise now Texans find them selves in the same stupid steryotipical predicament all Liberal Southerners find themselves in; we must stand together (BBQ not withstanding) or we will most certainly fall apart. (like delicious pulled pork)
posted by nola at 8:46 PM on April 15, 2009 [11 favorites]

It's home, and Perry or no, you couldn't prize me away with a wrecking bar.

Woohoo for Texas homesteader laws!

Not incidentally, this is how it works in Texas:
1. Immunize homes from bankruptcy
2. People build bigger homes
3. Property taxes go up -- oh PS oil reserves
4. No state income tax

Also not incidentally, TX is one of the states that contributes positively to the federal income tax pool, you ignorant fucking Yankees.

[stokes fire]
posted by spiderwire at 8:46 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm sure there are folks here in my home state of Wisconsin who are looking at Gov Perry and thinking "My I wish he were our governor and considering seceding.

Are any of them your governor?
posted by Flunkie at 8:49 PM on April 15, 2009

Are any of them your governor?

No, thankfully. Doyle seems to like having Wisconsin be part of This Union.
posted by Severian at 8:51 PM on April 15, 2009

What's with all this Texas hate? I mean, really? Every single time TX is mentioned in a mefi thread all the haters come out of the woodwork. And apparently that's ok? Because they're all just rednecks and cowboys. Right?

I think the rest of the country is a bit sick of the "mythic Texas." You have George W. Bush, New England scion, old money blue blood, went to New England boarding schools since he was 8 prancing around his ranch and talking with an approximation of a Texas accent. You had his education secretary talking about how she is a "mom from Texas" a zillion times. Perhaps it is the politicians, but the rest of the country is a bit sick of people from Texas never letting the rest of the country forget that they are from Texas. Sort of America's ugly Americans.

I am not saying this is true, but this is the *perception* of Texans that a lot of non-Texans have.

PS I've been to Austin, love it, been to Dallas, like it much more than I thought I would. Hate the weather though, summers are pretty freakin' brutal.

Personally, the welfare that Texas gets in terms of farm welfare, water welfare (so they can grow cotton in a semi-arid place) and the road welfare that Texas gets means that Texas will never give up that goose thaty lays the golden egg.

This is a righ-wing meme to counter Obama. The *LOOK SOCIALISM* Let's have a tea party from all the TAXES (which I don't think have been actually applied yet, and which would make income taxes at the level they were in the 90s.

But you know, it will work. People are stupid sheep. *

* this is not to say there isn't legitimate criticism of obama's policies re: economy. I too am nervous about the money being spent, it seems out of fear, but it is pretty freakin' disingenuous for a Republican to be outraged.
posted by xetere at 8:54 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

OK, Perry's remarks are funny and all . . . but, all kidding aside, now . . . how are they NOT treasonous?

The only thing that saves them from being treasonous is that they are kind of pathetic.

And it's also not like Texas has cornered the market on prominent politicians shooting their damn fool mouths off about stuff like armed insurrection.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:55 PM on April 15, 2009

Also not incidentally, TX is one of the states that contributes positively to the federal income tax pool, you ignorant fucking Yankees.

Well, it paid so frickin' much for the Savings and Loan bailout of the 1980s and early 1990s that it all evens out.
posted by raysmj at 8:56 PM on April 15, 2009

Just chiming in to say fuck you haters. Texas /is/ awesome, and while it would be comical, we could defend and provide for ourselves just fine (Texas is home to world class medicine, petroleum engineering, agricultural science, etc.). Rick Perry is a douchebag but you can't turn around in NYC or California without stepping into an uncouth and incurious pile of self aggrandizing feces.
posted by polyhedron at 8:57 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

DEAR REPUBLICANS!

You're doing it wrong.

Let me get this straight for a second.

You're organizing "massive" protests against a tax cut for 95% of Americans.

You're complaining about a cut in military spending-- which in reality is actually an increase in military spending-- then you bitch and moan about an increase in spending.

You're complaining about money being thrown at the banks in order to keep them solvent, then you complain about portions of the government like the FDIC, whose job it is to make sure your money is safe.

You have Junky McDumbshit and Whiney McCryington, who you listen to on AM radio-- seriously, AM radio, in the 21st century, whatthefuck, over--and watch religiously, tell you to not listen to what people in power have to say.

You're railing against "creeping socialism" all while barely living from paycheck to paycheck or barely subsiding on Social Security, all while screaming against any initiative to lower your drug costs because don't worry, those nice people from your health insurance company are part of the free market!

You are actively complaining about the fact that our troops will be coming home from Iraq by 2011.

You are discussing secession only five months from the days when you were talking about how the people planning to vote for That One weren't real Americans.

You are pissy about the President telling an utterly incompetent CEO to resign, after your guy told an utterly incompetent director of a government agency that he was doing a heckuva job.

You are quoting Ayn Rand.

Let me give you a hint, republicans. You need to cast out the lunatic fringe from your party, such that it is, and real fiscal and social conservatives need to wrest power from the whacked-out fearmongering psychopaths once and for all. Our Guy will listen to what you have to say! Really, he does! I know, that's a strange thing for a President, but it's the truth! Make a calm, rational argument about how maybe he should cut spending, starting with cutting some of the unneeded weapons systems (settle down-- I know you want to scream "why do you hate America" but trust me, let your grownup side take over again), and recognize that the budget has been inflated because he isn't going begging for cash for the war every six months like your guy did, and talk it over with him, and maybe you'll get a couple more votes next time around.
posted by mark242 at 8:58 PM on April 15, 2009 [65 favorites]

Good show mark242, for staying on topic and making sense. Bravo
posted by nola at 9:02 PM on April 15, 2009

People love bashing NJ, too. You learn to ignore it.

Honestly, though, I am looking forward to moving out of state again.
posted by defenestration at 9:02 PM on April 15, 2009

Let me give you a hint, republicans. You need to cast out the lunatic fringe from your party

And be left with whom?
posted by Flunkie at 9:02 PM on April 15, 2009 [5 favorites]

Okay, fine, Flunkie. We're all ignorant hicks.

By the way, the defining characteristic of an ignorant hick is that he has incorrect, slogan-informed opinions about entire groups of people outside of his own social sphere. Just throwin' that out there, hyuck-hyuck.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:04 PM on April 15, 2009

I will personally volunteer to US Grant their traitorous asses if they do this.How about a little Shermanesque march to the sea from Oklahoma to San Padre island? It would be Texas delenda est.

Seriously, watching Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris fight for the most black-helicopter-fearing idiots who could still believe in what the GOP is selling just fills me with the warmest feeling.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:04 PM on April 15, 2009

Kinky Friedman for Governor: How Hard Could It Be?

Sadly I don't really know Texan history, since I've only been here a little over a year... but didn't he also run on: "Kinky Friedman for Governor: Why the Hell Not?"

Still, I was amused and surprised when I visited the Alamo and discovered that the UK home nations lost more men there than any of the US states. I'll have to remember that next time I want to wind up a local... :-)
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 9:05 PM on April 15, 2009

You have George W. Bush, New England scion, old money blue blood, went to New England boarding schools since he was 8 prancing around his ranch and talking with an approximation of a Texas accent.

So... fuck New England?
posted by spiderwire at 9:07 PM on April 15, 2009

What's with all this Texas hate? I mean, really? Every single time TX is mentioned in a mefi thread all the haters come out of the woodwork. And apparently that's ok? Because they're all just rednecks and cowboys. Right?

It's really easy to explain. They keep electing evil incompetent asshole politicians, G. W. Buch, Tom Delay, Phil Gramm (Ron Paul lol). The list just keeps growing and the rest of the country is getting sick of having these assholes in power. Look at the Texas republican party platform if you want to see the dark heart of American conservatism.

When people from other people used to criticize the U.S. because they elected bush, all I did was smile and nod because ultimately the citizens are responsible for their democratically elected leaders. Same thing goes for Texas.

Also for all their big talk, Texans have some of the thinnest skin in the Union, so it is fun to needle them and watch go all HURF DURF DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS.
posted by afu at 9:07 PM on April 15, 2009 [7 favorites]

Just chiming in to say fuck you haters. Texas /is/ awesome, and while it would be comical, we could defend and provide for ourselves just fine

Unless you're unemployed, since my understanding is that the Texas unemployment fund is close to insolvency, and Rick Perry doesn't want to take the stimulus funds for unemp. extension. Then again he doesn't the power of some neighboring state governors.

Try getting the $60,000 Neiman Marcus Lego brick replicas of yourself (if you're straight, although I guess there could be special orders, if you're money's still green) and an opposite sex partner across state lines after seceding, meanwhile.

Let's give the wealthiest Americans a tax cut anyway.
posted by raysmj at 9:07 PM on April 15, 2009

Okay, fine, Flunkie. We're all ignorant hicks.

By the way, the defining characteristic of an ignorant hick is that he has incorrect, slogan-informed opinions about entire groups of people outside of his own social sphere. Just throwin' that out there, hyuck-hyuck.

Interesting. I didn't say anything about anybody being hicks, nor about anybody being ignorant, let alone about some entire group of people being ignorant hicks.

I'm not sure which of my posts you're referring to, but I've correctly stated that (A) Republicans have won all Texas presidential elections decisively for a long time now and (B) "Texas districts have been gerrymandered" does not account for that fact, and I have made a tongue-in-cheek reply to the idea that the Republican Party needs to cast out its lunatic fringe.
posted by Flunkie at 9:09 PM on April 15, 2009

Rocker Ted Nugent performed a shredder guitar version of the national anthem

michigan rednecks REPRESENT!

yeah, it's just so easy to blame it all on southerners until you look in your own backyard
posted by pyramid termite at 9:15 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing."

- William Tecumseh Sherman

So quoting war criminals is cool now?
posted by oaf at 9:16 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Texas /is/ awesome, and while it would be comical, we could defend and provide for ourselves just fine.

Didn't Texas already try seceding once? Can't remember how that one turned out.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:18 PM on April 15, 2009

As it turned out, he was correct.
posted by Flunkie at 9:18 PM on April 15, 2009

What's with all this Texas hate?

Trying to actually answer and not cause problems. Honestly.

I think part of it is that Texans, and especially native Texans, are just touchier about their state than residents of many other states are. More actual pride to start with or something.

Rag on Florida, and sane residents just roll their eyes knowingly and commiserate with you. Rag on California and they mostly just chuckle. Rag on Massachusetts and Massholes rush to say fuck you, it's actually ten times more retahded than that.

But rag on Texas and a lot of Texans just get all wounded and victimmy at you.

...which causes replies, which keeps the thing going.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:19 PM on April 15, 2009 [10 favorites]

"Also for all their big talk, Texans have some of the thinnest skin in the Union, so it is fun to needle them and watch go all HURF DURF DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS."

Ah OK I see. LOLTXians is ok because they can give it but can't take it. Fair enough. But I'm sure some of your best friends are Texans.

Way to label 24M people.
posted by schwa at 9:20 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bully for Texas musical culture. Love me some Bob Wills. Etc., etc. But Rick Perry is crazy, a nut getting nuttier due to being in a potentially tight race in a primary this year. I'm wondering if this might be a year in which a Dem. could handily win the Texas governor's race this year, if he continues this sort of behavior and wins the primary. Is there any potentially strong competition from the Dem. side?
posted by raysmj at 9:21 PM on April 15, 2009

I'm not sure which of my posts you're referring to, but I've correctly stated that (A) Republicans have won all Texas presidential elections decisively for a long time now and (B) "Texas districts have been gerrymandered" does not account for that fact

Yeah, and you did that in order to refute my and louche mustachio's assertion that a lot of people in Texas are liberals.

Yeah, I'm sure. Next time you're partying with one of this plethora of genuine weirdo liberal redneck ruggedest of the rugged badass freaks, please let them know that the rest of the country would appreciate it if they voted.

Also, you conveniently ignored the part of my post about how all the counties with the major cities went heavily to Obama. So don't be all like "hmm, interesting, I was just stating facts for no reason except for the post I didn't mention with my dickish response to louche mustachio".
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:21 PM on April 15, 2009

Yeah, and you did that in order to refute my and louche mustachio's assertion that a lot of people in Texas are liberals.

Oh, please. Of course there are lots of people of any particular sort in Texas. There are lots of people in Texas.

Unfortunately, as my reply that you're complaining about indicated, there apparently are not nearly enough of them.

You know some "ruggedest of the rugged" "badass liberals" from Texas? That's fantastic. I don't doubt you. Just don't pretend they're particularly significant from an electoral point of view.
posted by Flunkie at 9:24 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing."- William Tecumseh ShermanSo quoting war criminals is cool now?

War criminal? Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime. Only in the feverish imaginations of the"Confederates in the Attic" crowd.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:25 PM on April 15, 2009 [10 favorites]

Former Texan here (seven long years, one of which was at UT-Austin, even) to chime in and say: GOD, secession would be a dream come true to me (even though I know that's not really what Perry was talking about, and that it'll sadly never actually happen).

Oh, and Austin's OVER-FUCKING-RATED. (All seven of those years? Yep, right in the 512. Oak Hill Elementary, LBJ High School, UT-Austin.) Drop it in most any other state in America, and it wouldn't be so goddamn impressive. "Live music capital of the world?" Yeah, if you like a relatively narrowly defined group of subgenres of music, which curiously happen to be listened to mainly by whites.

Sum'bitch, fucking Montclair, New Jersey is more interesting than Austin.
posted by CommonSense at 9:27 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

You know some "ruggedest of the rugged" "badass liberals" from Texas?

LBJ? Ann Richards? Jim Hightower? I mean, what've you got?

That's fantastic. I don't doubt you. Just don't pretend they're particularly significant from an electoral point of view.

That's moronic. By that criterion, the only liberals that are significant from an electoral point of view live in Ohio and Florida.
posted by spiderwire at 9:29 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, and Austin's OVER-FUCKING-RATED. (All seven of those years? Yep, right in the 512. Oak Hill Elementary, LBJ High School, UT-Austin.) Drop it in most any other state in America, and it wouldn't be so goddamn impressive.

This, too, is silly. Every city in the world is overrated in the eyes of the teenagers that live there. You left UT when you were 19 and you're commenting on how the live music scene sucks? Seriously, WTF?
posted by spiderwire at 9:32 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ah OK I see. LOLTXians is ok because they can give it but can't take it. Fair enough. But I'm sure some of your best friends are Texans.

Way to label 24M people.

Why is defending an arbitrarily defined geographic region that has been historically extremely privileged so important to you?
posted by afu at 9:33 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Right, moronic. OK. I'm sorry that, in a thread about the governor of a state implying secession, that state having decisively voted for Republicans for President for decades now, in response to someone who said that the state is "full" of plenty of "badass" "liberal rednecks", I said yeah, gee, then we'd appreciate it if they would vote.

Good night.
posted by Flunkie at 9:34 PM on April 15, 2009

Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime.

It most certainly is when you steal or destroy everything in your path, regardless of who owns it, when you do so.
posted by oaf at 9:36 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime.

And that's all that happened kids, well that and BURNING ATLANTA TO THE GROUND. But don't worrie because then the United States of America finished killing off most the the Native Americans. But that doesn't really make most people feel good when they think about it so instead lets take a long hard look at what went on in America just be for we finished our continental genocide. Yippie!!
posted by nola at 9:41 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

This, too, is silly. Every city in the world is overrated in the eyes of the teenagers that live there. You left UT when you were 19 and you're commenting on how the live music scene sucks? Seriously, WTF?

Yeah, except that I'm 34 now, and have lived in lots of other places before and since, and am well aware that the perception of Austin as some kind of music mecca is shaped by a rather demographically narrow group of individuals. With the emergence of SXSW (it didn't exist back when I lived there), there are people who hold a financial interest in perpetuating this myth.

When I lived in Austin, I suspected this to be the case, but couldn't really be sure; in the 15 years since I left, having lived elsewhere, I've only gotten more and more confirmation. Austin may be "live music capital of the world" in terms of sheer number of acts performing live, or number of live music venues, or whatever -- and I will grant you that those are fair measures for many, but not me -- but the measure I've always used is breadth of musical styles, genres, and Audiences Appealed To (TM). In this last measure, Austin has always failed miserably. As it inevitably will, given its rather non-cosmopolitan (maybe up until the last single-digit handful of years) demographics and Texas (as a whole)'s lack of interesting/urban-ness.

Back in the late '80s, I'd listen to that insanely deep-voiced dude on KUT on Friday nights going over the club schedules around town, and I'd hear the same shit every fucking week . . . Geezinslaws playing here, Austin Lounge Lizards playing there, blah blah blah. Where was the nascent hip hop scene? Where were the reggae acts? Where was the real R&B? You couldn't get a good international act to come to Austin for love or money back then. Maybe now you can get some, if they've "crossed over" enough to appeal to the "Class X" types from another MeFi thread from today (I'm a little too buzzed right now to look it up and provide the link), but something more cutting-edge? Nah, not to be found. Where WOULD you find such things?

Oh, that's right. On the coasts. And if you're really lucky, maybe they'll make a quick stop in Houston or Dallas.

(Disclaimer: Disgruntled former volunter at KAZI 88.7 FM, an Austin station that played anything BUT what you heard in those 6th Street venues, and never got that whole "Austin's music scene RULES!" bullshit. So yeah, maybe I have my own agenda.)
posted by CommonSense at 9:44 PM on April 15, 2009

Apparently we make fun of Texans because it is easy and provokes a rewarding response.
posted by fshgrl at 9:52 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Optimus Chyme um...since when is 52% a landslide? (It does not matter what the next major % was...52% is not a "mandate" by any stretch.

I remember when Bush snuck in with 49.999% of the popular vote, and he said something like "I may have won 50% of the votes, but I won 100% of the presidency." That was pretty much the last thing he said that I agreed with. Mandate, smandate. The guy that sits in the Oval Office gets to enact his agenda to the best of his ability. 52% may not be a mandate, but neither is 48%.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:53 PM on April 15, 2009

Oh, and while I'm poking at easy sacred cows, Slacker was masturbatory dogshit, and Linklater sucks.

(Alright, now I'm just being abusive.)

Mike Judge is still cool, though. He'll get honorary American citizenship if and when this secession actually happens.

Oh, and I guess my brother-in-law from Houston probably should, too, if only to keep my sister from getting mad at me.
posted by CommonSense at 9:54 PM on April 15, 2009

While I would prefer that America not be even more decimated than when Bush had the mantle of command , it will be very fulfilling to be able to say "I told you so" (in a scant 3+ years) to those 52% [redacted] who elected BHO. Then again, they will probably still be too devoted to really see what happened/is happening now.

Now I'm curious. What is really happening now? Spell it out and when the next three years proves how clear-sighted you are, you'll have enormous bragging rights. Here's your chance.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:54 PM on April 15, 2009

Austin's music scene is total bollocks, I'll give you that. Just boring bar rock and noise music wanking, mainly.

Exactly. It just doesn't make sense to me that one would say that this one aspect of the city is unfairly overemphasized and then call the city overrated based on that same aspect.
posted by spiderwire at 9:56 PM on April 15, 2009

Texas' governor actually thinks this?

OH YES GET RID OF TEXAS NOW

(sane Texans, it's okay, the United States still has room for you guys)
posted by kldickson at 9:58 PM on April 15, 2009

Exactly. It just doesn't make sense to me that one would say that this one aspect of the city is unfairly overemphasized and then call the city overrated based on that same aspect.

Because Austin and its boosters (official and unofficial) are the ones who make such a big deal of it in the first place.

Barton Springs? Definitely nice. But equivalents are easily found elsewhere.

Fun weirdos and outcasts from society? Hello, Northern California (and a ton of small towns in upstate New York, or Massachusetts, or in corners of Chapel Hill, or hell, little nooks and crannies most anywhere in small town America).

Lots of educated people? Bay Area. Research Triangle. NYC. Metro Boston.

Liberal politics? Hi there, a TON of places outside of Texas. Canada. The entirety of Northern Europe, for fuck's sake.

Everything is relative. For Texas, Austin is definitely a crown jewel. No question there. But that's just it: For Texas. Great. And I'm the wealthiest person from Lohara, Himachal Pradesh, India. *

( * my mother's ancestral village . . . per capital annual income is probably in the three digits of dollars.)
posted by CommonSense at 10:03 PM on April 15, 2009

"Why is defending an arbitrarily defined geographic region that has been historically extremely privileged so important to you?"

"historically extremely privileged" wtf? let's harsh on all states that don't pay income tax?

It's important to me because I lived there, loved it there and have a lot of friends there. And the LOL@TX theme is becoming more and more common on mefi. Any story that mentions TX instantly turns into this kind of lame ass mindless bullshit. It isn't useful and doesn't highlight what's good about metafilter.
posted by schwa at 10:03 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Too bad, so sad:

Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law.

In Texas v. White (1869) the Supreme Court said states can't secede.

Didn't Texas already try seceding once?

Twice, actually. So far they're 1-1.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 PM on April 15, 2009

Austin is the live music capital...of Texas. Utne Reader's best of Earth issue a few years back correctly pointed out that the place with most live music venues per capita on the planet remains Athens, Geo.

Also, the Treaty of Annexation, not the Constitution of the State of Texas, is what gives Texas the incontrovertible right of secession (let alone the 10th Amendment and the fact that Texas was never party to the Articles of Confederation, which is the source of the spurious "perpetualness" of our Union, never mind that the Constitution of 1787 supposedly supercedes the Articles in entirety).

And all 49 of the states other than mine suck equally (hugs though, good luck guys). Especially South Carolina. Thanks for waking the Yankee war machine, you Palmetto stacking nincompoops. And I'd like to thank the previous poster for not denying that Sherman wasn't a war criminal, just that war crimes are justified when the poster agrees with the criminal. Even Sherman's adjutant, the great Democratic congressman from Illinois, General John A. Logan referred to Sherman as "an infernal brute" while serving under him in Georgia back in '64.

And for people complaining that their state loses more than it gains from our Union? Suckers!
posted by Dr. Grue at 10:04 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

alright, alright.. howabout this?
1. Fuck Perry and GWB... I think all of us can agree on this, they are both assholes.

2. And woo hoo to Ann Richards and Molly Ivans, both of whom rocked out and who have passed on, I think we can all agree to that

Now, can we come to consensus about Cornyn? I think he is a serious douchnozzle, yes?

As are these lovely texans: Bush I, Phil Gramm, Ross Perot, Alberto Gonzales, Dick Armey, James Baker, Tom DeLay, Ron Paul, Chuck Norris, Harriet Miers, T. Boone Pickens, Karl Rove,

The following Texans rate high in my world, perhaps yours? Sandra Day O'Connor, Bill Moyers, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jim Hightower (LBJ gets mixed reviews actually, for obvious reasons).

So, is it safe to say that currently, we can offer a collective 'fuck you' to those Texans who have elected and enabled from the first list, and a rousing cheer for those from the second? Right now it seems TX tends to elect some pretty horrible people. Hopefully that will change... that Perry will get defeated, even if it is by KBH, whom I don't like, but I consider her at least somewhat sane.

We all have politicians in our states (*coff*michelle bachmann*coff*) that we are embarrassed by, but it doesn't make the State or the population any better or worse than any other. Lord, if people judged Mn by Bachmann alone we'd be in pretty poor straits up here.
posted by edgeways at 10:04 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime.

And that's all that happened kids, well that and BURNING ATLANTA TO THE GROUND. But don't worrie because then the United States of America finished killing off most the the Native Americans. But that doesn't really make most people feel good when they think about it so instead lets take a long hard look at what went on in America just be for we finished our continental genocide. Yippie!!

Native Texans nearly killed that pillager Sherman.
posted by Pants! at 10:04 PM on April 15, 2009

I don't particularly hate Texas, but I'll throw this out there as to why people are "hating" (what are you, 16?) on the state because of this: It's because people think that your governor represents your state when he speaks. SXSW, 88 cents on the dollar, whatever else defends Texas gets washed away by the fact that he's gently broaching the suggestion of secession. Even Ron fucking Paul wasn't that crazy.
posted by boo_radley at 10:06 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

ND¢: Can we just give this 5% of the population, white supremacist, libertarian, conservative, Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck worshippin', teabaggin', gun-lovin', sore losers like North Dakota or something?

No.
posted by zenon at 10:15 PM on April 15, 2009

"historically extremely privileged" wtf? let's harsh on all states that don't pay income tax?

No Texas is historically privileged because it was founded by rich white men as a slave holding commercial powerhouse, and into the 20th century it has continued to have undue influence in American politics because of all the oil money in the state.

Do you get pulled over by police more often simply because you are from Texas? do you get picked out more often at the airport for "random searches simply because you are from Texas? does the state tell you who you can and can't marry simply because you are from Texas?

Despite all that privilege, y'all keep electing evil evil people. Yet when other people get pissed off about it they are the ones with the problem.
posted by afu at 10:27 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Oh, Sherman was a national hero too.

"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
- General William T. Sherman
posted by afu at 10:31 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

But equivalents are easily found elsewhere.

All the places you mention are either cold, rainy, or in California, and those are instant disqualifications.
posted by spiderwire at 10:38 PM on April 15, 2009

When this thread is over, the Texan accent will be spoken only in Hell.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:44 PM on April 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

¡Viva Los Reconquistadors!
posted by YoBananaBoy at 10:52 PM on April 15, 2009

Back in the late '80s, I'd listen to that insanely deep-voiced dude on KUT on Friday nights ...

The late, absolutely great Dan Del Santo. I miss the Hell out of that voice. I was around the music scene in Austin in the late eighties/early nineties and I found it to be a whole lot of fun, really.

I also had the priveledge and good luck to do some freelance illustration work for The Texas Observer, which led to me meeting some rather extraodinary folks, including Molly Ivins, Lou Dubose, and Ronnie Dugger, and also led to me learning a lot about the inner workings of Texas politics, which are unique and frustrating beast. I was concurrently working for a market research firm that did some political polling, so I got an interesting dual perspective; incredible analysis on one side, and the opinions directly from the mouths of a select sample of voters on the other. There are definitely a lot of Republicans in Texas, but it's also the first I ever heard the term "Yella Dog Democrat." It's far from a unilateral mass of mouth breathing right-wing rednecks, though they form a very large and vocal minority.

I guess I can understand some of the LOLTXian hate. The worst of the stereotypical Texans are very loud, proud, and absolutely real, and I have had lots of negative experiences with them. There is a reason I said Texas is secretly awesome. But it's unfair to tar the entire state with the same brush, in the same way that it was unfair to characterize all USians as mouthbreathing right wing warmongers because George Bush was present.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:52 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Re: Austin

I lived there from 1994 to 2005 (age 17 to 28) and I think it is a great town. A great town, like many other great towns around the country & world. It's music scene is overrated, as there are a lot, lot, LOT of shitty bar bands and wankers. But, there were also some really great bands and musicians to come out of Austin (although a lot of them made it after they had moved out of town to NY or LA or SF). Still, always something to do on a weekend. It has good food (if not quite the sheer amount of 5-star joints as nearby Houston where I grew up), it has a lot of lovely outdoor attractions, a good art, theatre, and indie film scene, a generally well-read, smart, laid-back yet productive population, and a reasonable cost of living. UT has a number of world-class faculty and facilities, including one of the more impressive research libraries in the country -- maybe not quite Huntington or Newberry quality, but not far behind. It has a great deal of local flair and flavor, and many of my favorite places in the world to just hang out or watch movies or eat or drink coffee or listen to music are in Austin. SXSW is overrated and has gotten too bloated and unwieldy, but hey, it is still pretty impressive and many other cities don't have anything similar. Slacker is also a completely overrated movie. So, yes, it is not God's gift to the world, but, I think even taken out of Texas and put in any other state people would still love it and be drawn to it.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:54 PM on April 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ok, so the secret to keeping your awesome state awesome is to never elect politicians who will go on to be national stars. Only elect mediocre people. They do the job and leave with little fuss.

Illinois was on the top of the freakin world last year. But then the whole Blago/ Burris thing went down and well... I am of a mind to say Illinois is corrupt.

California is pretty cool. But you elect Ahnold die Goobernator? As an aside, stop moving to my state.

Texas. My god. DeLay, Bush, Perry. Cheney was actually from Texas as well dont forget. So uh. yeah.

Florida had another Bush and they had that 2000 thing.

New York has "Mr. 9/11 + x" as their Mayor of the Century

Minnesota has the wingnut of winguts, Michelle Bachmann.

Keep your politicians quiet and folks will remember you for better things than sleezy politicians. I am a little worried now with so many Washington peeps folding into the Obama cabinet.
posted by Glibpaxman at 10:56 PM on April 15, 2009

If Texas secedes, we need to get Puerto Rico in so that I don't have to buy a new flag.
posted by klangklangston at 11:07 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Jindal and Louisiana. But he's gone so often, to fundraisers out of state, apparently with the unstated/denied intent of running for prez in 2012 (really, I' not kidding), that he's barely remembered in Louisiana either.

Also mildly shocked at no mention of Kinky Friedman, whatsoever.
posted by raysmj at 11:10 PM on April 15, 2009

"Just as an aside, I know the people the rest of the country tends to hear about are the gun totin' racists and dipshits and stuff, but Texas is secretly awesome. It's full of enclaves of genuine weirdos, liberal rednecks, the ruggedest of rugged individuals. Like a plant of the desert, anyone who is a freak in Texas has to be a badass in order to survive in such a harsh climate, so if you have the courage and patience, you will find yourself partying with the strangest people you will ever know."

I love Texas as much as anyone who's never lived there can, but on the other hand, it's not like Texas is the only place where it's hard to be a freak, or where you get the desert freakazoids (been to Slab City, Ca.?), and California's freaks are badass because to be a freak here, you have to stand out against the background hum of freakdom. I know a Satanist chiropractor and he's not even a blip on the screen.
posted by klangklangston at 11:10 PM on April 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Also, you conveniently ignored the part of my post about how all the counties with the major cities went heavily to Obama.

Heavily? Come again? I wouldn't call less than 20,000 votes out of more than a million cast a sign of heavy favor. Incidentally, Harris county has seen considerable white flight for the last ten years or so, into Fort Bend and Montgomery, two of the fastest growing counties in Texas. Obama didn't do so hot in either of those.

-----

Oh, and Austin's OVER-FUCKING-RATED.

Eh, Austin's all right. It's been too damn crowded for a long time, but it's a good place. SxSW, however is completely over rated.

-----

It wasn't mentioned in the post, which tried to play up a "Texas secession" angle, but there have been a number of bills in state legislatures along these lines for a few months now. Texas is far from alone. This is from last week:

4/6: Alaska House of Representative passes joint resolution affirming state sovereignty.

4/7: North Dakota House of Representatives passes concurrent resolution affirming state sovereignty.

4/9: Indiana Senate passes Senate resolution claiming state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

4/9: Senate resolution introduced in Wisconsin Senate claiming state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

But I don't see a real desire for secession as driving any of this. This has far more to do with some citizens still having regard for State's rights and their desire to somehow check the growth of the federal government.
posted by BigSky at 11:27 PM on April 15, 2009

Calling Sherman a war criminal is dumb. He was a war criminal in the sense that virtually every single soldier, officer, and soldier who fought in a major war before the 20th century could be a war criminal; things that were acceptable, expected, and even in some cases encouraged are now considered war crimes. This is a good thing, but judging pre-20th century generals by 20th century standards renders the term "war criminal" meaningless.

It's like say that virtually every person that lived before the 20th century is an evil person because they were mostly bigots in some way (sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-other-religions, etc). But lumping everyone into that bucket is not useful. People have to be judged in the context of their time. A woman's suffragist did good even if she had attitudes we would today consider horribly racist. The people who marched with King did good even if many had attitudes we today would consider horribly homophobic.

Thomas Jefferson was a great man. And today he'd be considered a terribly evil man. Because today isn't the same as the time in which he lived.

People, including Sherman, have to be judged in context. And total war was considered par for the course until after the second world war. Consider: How many people were tried for destroying Tokyo or Dresden? If Sherman was a war criminal, so were massive numbers of Allied soldiers and officers, up to and including Roosevelt.
posted by Justinian at 11:31 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

In retrospect, say "soldier, officer, and soldier" might be slightly redundant. But only slightly.
posted by Justinian at 11:32 PM on April 15, 2009

I've heard Perry described as "George Bush, only stupid."
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:32 PM on April 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

The balls at night
Are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas!
posted by loquacious at 11:36 PM on April 15, 2009

It's interesting that the federal government doing things to help its citizens and, arguably, keep states afloat are seen as intrusions into "states rights" and get dumb-ass bills introduced into state legislatures by fucknut politicians, but stuff that is a much bigger danger to the sovereignty of any state, namely large (and vastly larger after Bush) federal military, law enforcement and intelligence gathering don't even blip the radar of the crowd that shouts about the former.

What are you basing this on?

From what I've seen, the critics of federal government expansion, namely small government conservatives and libertarians, are also consistently pointing out that when law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ordered to 'gear up' (e.g. War on Some Drugs, War on Some Terror), civil rights tend to erode. For instance if you look around you may see that some of the same voices criticizing the federal government over reaching its authority with respect to the rights of the states are also criticizing the Obama administration on their continuation of FISA and the continuing suspension of habeas corpus.
posted by BigSky at 12:14 AM on April 16, 2009

I think the thing that a lot of people who don't live in Texas don't realize is how utterly unmemorable most Texas governors are. I hear Rick Perry's name so infrequently I have an "Oh yeah, he's still governor..." moment every time.

That a man with a pedigree who claimed this state as his own became the living embodiment of the Peter Principle, with a not insignificant amount of help from the rest of you between these two shores, apparently makes it ok for a vapid hate-on.
posted by Cyrano at 12:23 AM on April 16, 2009

Maybe the dude should just emigrate if he is so unhappy with America instead of trying to drag his state out of the Union.
posted by Tashtego at 12:36 AM on April 16, 2009

Well, as a die-hard Yankee, I like Texas, and I've liked nearly every Texan I've met. The only real problem is that it's tough to get good pizza there. But not quite tough enough for them to deserve expulsion from the Union.
posted by XMLicious at 12:46 AM on April 16, 2009

John Smallberries wrote: I'm a native Texan, and I've long been sick of the dimwitted Texas-bashers who constantly crawl out of the MeFi woodwork to spout some idiocy or another about a large and diverse state.

I'm not from Texas, but I've known a lot of Texans and they to a person are pompous assholes when it comes to the greatness of their state. And the vast majority of the state is filled with dumbfucks. Oklahoma exchanges dumbfucks with Texas like two sex partners with strains of AIDS, leaving us both with a large load of uber-dumbfucks.

That said, there are plenty of bright Texans. They've just been overwhelmed by the dumbfucks who have been breeding like mad for the last 30 years, creating new generations of dumbfucks each larger than the last.

I'm from Arkansas, and I long ago learned to deal with the "you're all dumb hicks..hurf durf" crowd. It dawned on me one day that a majority of my fellow Arkansans are in fact dumb hicks, and I may even be one myself. I still like the place, but that doesn't mean I have to get offended and start going on about how it's the greatest place ever to bless God's green Earth.

Face it, the majority of your fellow citizens are dumb cowboys. Embrace it. Work with it. Change your state.
posted by wierdo at 12:54 AM on April 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

But it's unfair to tar the entire state with the same brush, in the same way that it was unfair to characterize all USians as mouthbreathing right wing warmongers because George Bush was present.

Well, if people are going to elect George Bush and then this guy to their highest state post, what do they expect?
posted by rodgerd at 1:06 AM on April 16, 2009

It wasn't mentioned in the post, which tried to play up a "Texas secession" angle, but there have been a number of bills in state legislatures along these lines for a few months now. Texas is far from alone. This is from last week:

4/6: Alaska House of Representative passes joint resolution affirming state sovereignty.

4/7: North Dakota House of Representatives passes concurrent resolution affirming state sovereignty.

4/9: Indiana Senate passes Senate resolution claiming state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

4/9: Senate resolution introduced in Wisconsin Senate claiming state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

But I don't see a real desire for secession as driving any of this. This has far more to do with some citizens still having regard for State's rights and their desire to somehow check the growth of the federal government.

It is utterly strange that those same citizens were largely oblivious to the growth of the federal government between 2000 and 2008, and have only waken suddenly up to the "problem" since the removal vans came to the White House. And I guess that it is also completely coincidental that all the state legislatives you cite are strongly Republican.

State Rights^TM: Helping you ignore unpleasant election results since 1776.

(Caution: Doesn't apply to marijuana or gay marriage.)
posted by Skeptic at 1:47 AM on April 16, 2009 [8 favorites]

ND¢: Can we just give this 5% of the population, white supremacist, libertarian, conservative, Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck worshippin', teabaggin', gun-lovin', sore losers like North Dakota or something? They can all go there and be "real Americans" and can stop worrying about black helicopters and fascism and or socialism and elect Sarah Palin president and do away with taxes and science and education and have mandatory church services twice a day and go back to the dark ages and leave normal people the fuck alone.

Fuck no. North Dakota is one of the best states - beautiful, open, wild.

Give them some crappy state. Like, give them New York or the southern third of California.
posted by koeselitz at 3:05 AM on April 16, 2009

Everyone should pick up a copy of The Ayes of Texas. It is ostensibly sci-fi, but only in the very old school sense that sci-fi just meant cybernetic arms and rayguns. It is, without a doubt, the biggest masturbatory Texan secession fantasy put to paper. It's libertarian, self-congratulating, and if the words "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!" could be played on a steel guitar, that'd be soundtrack to this book. The cybernetic arms are far less fantasy than the political unreality of this book.

Fiction proves nothing, which is something of my point. Texas has this curious clause, secession, and it seems to serve like an ancient and neglected revolver sitting at the top of the linen closet. Every so often Texas gets drunk and het up about somethin', then takes it out and waves it around at a party, but nobody takes Texas seriously; we all know that the gun is unloaded and we can see that the mechanisms have long rusted shut.

Secession is fantasy, like that idea that you can be fifty, suddenly retire, buy a sporty new car, and suddenly become hot spit on the local dating circuit. We all know you won't go through with it, and it wouldn't work if you tried, but damned if we aren't tired of hearing you go on about it, too.
posted by adipocere at 3:38 AM on April 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yeah, this guy is wayyyyy over-the-top. But don't let that fool you into ignoring the basic emotion.

For whatever reason, there seems to be a growing movement of people in the country who honestly, sincerely believe that the US is one presidential order away from becoming totalitarian socialist state...if not already there and the truth is being hidden by a compliant media. Honest. I'm seeing/hearing it every day out here in flyover country.

And certain very well-funded entities are doing their best to egg this feeling on. Void of any real ideas to get the country moving again, conservatives have opted to simply foment anti-Obama hysteria, with their eyes on the next mid-terms. And make no mistake...the occasional prime-time chats Obama graces us with reach far fewer ears, and influence far fewer people, than does the daily, hourly shoutings from Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, O'Riley, FoxNews, etc. etc.

This shit will only get worse. And a whole lot weirder. And a whole, whole lot scarier.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:19 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime.

It most certainly is when you steal or destroy everything in your path, regardless of who owns it, when you do so.

I was thinking more of his wholesale slaughter of innocent Native Americans before and after the Civil War, myself.

As to the Texas-bashing -- maybe I am a little thin-skinned over it. I don't much care fore being branded a dumbfuck by strangers on the internet, but... whatever. They've got to live with the anger in their hearts, not me.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:41 AM on April 16, 2009

And certain very well-funded entities are doing their best to egg this feeling on.

Those entities have been at it for years. They figured out a long time ago that they could get a large number of people to vote against their own economic self interest if they convinced them that doing otherwise would turn this country into a godless gunless Communist gay hippie orgy. They figured out that if they lied loudly enough, and talked fast enough, they could convince people it was the fair and balanced truth.

I'm just hoping that between this teabaggin Tea Party idiocy, and shrill lunatics like Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry shooting their mouths off, the more moderate and thoughtful will wake up a bit, and push the loonies back off to the margins so that the grown-ups can take control of the public discourse again. Not counting on it, but hoping.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:49 AM on April 16, 2009

There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can secede from us there. My answer is bring it on.
posted by vivelame at 5:00 AM on April 16, 2009

When ever the Southern United States ( in this case Texas) winds up on the front page I know I'm going to hate Mefi. Please go ahead and show what a bunch of bigots you really are.

I'd just like to point out that Texas isn't the fucking South. They claim to be part of the South when it's convenient to do so, and deny Southern-ness when that's convenient, claiming instead to be part of the West or Southwest. When that stance also proves inconvenient, they instead start talking their "proud and independent republic" bullshit. Fact is, they're just Texas, for all the good and bad that that implies.

And for all you people applauding the idea of Texan secession... bitch please. All that land with all of its natural and man-made wealth, and you'd be willing to just give it away for nothing? Fuck that, people. SELL TEXAS BACK TO MEXICO.
posted by saladin at 5:10 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Well, Gov. Perry might be the first State politician to publicly utter the 'S' word. But all else aside, the State Sovereignty idea is not peculiar to Texas at this point.

In fact, the following states have passed or are in the process of passing similar resolutions asserting State sovereignty under the 10th Amendment(meaning that said bills have at least been introduced in the State legislature):

Wisconsin
Illinois
W. Virginia
N. Carolina
N. Dakota
Ohio
Nevada
Oregon
Alabama
Mississippi
Pennsylvania
Idaho
New Mexico
S. Dakota
Virginia
Kentucky
Alaska
Tennessee
Arkansas
Minnesota
S. Carolina
Georgia
Kansas
Texas
New Hampshire
Missouri
Iowa
Washington
Oklahoma

More info here.
posted by spirit72 at 5:25 AM on April 16, 2009

Also, the Treaty of Annexation, not the Constitution of the State of Texas, is what gives Texas the incontrovertible right of secession

You're correct that the Constitution of the State of Texas does not give Texas a right to secede.

You're incorrect, though, about the treaty of annexation. It doesn't give such a right either. It says no such thing.

This idea that Texas formally reserved the right to secede, and that the United States agreed, is merely a product of fevered Texan imaginations.

But don't take my word for it; take that of Snopes.

Hell, don't take Snopes' word, either. Take that of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Or read the treaty itself. It's not particularly long.
posted by Flunkie at 5:48 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

SELL TEXAS BACK TO MEXICO.

After all the love I've felt from my "fellow" Americans in this thread, I'm just about willing to take my chances. I don't care for Mexico's political or class structure, but it's still a absolutely fascinating and wonderful country. I've long-considered expatriating myself to there, anyway. I've got a wife who gets testy when it comes up for conversation, though, so I've had to demur.

DON'T MESS WITH NORTHERN COAHUILA AMIRITE!!
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:12 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Sherman is a war criminal-oaf

Dude. Take off the gray. The war is over. My ancestors did it. So can you.

More seriously, any nation that fights to preserve a property right extending to human lives has no basis for objection when that and other property rights are dismissed by an army created to defeat them in a war of their creation. The March to The Sea was not some orgy of mass slaughter or genocide. It was no different than what Sheridan did to my Virginia. Was it an incredibly harsh tactic on a mainly agricultural based society? Sure. Was it a war crime? No. It's this type of thinking that leads people to refer to the war as "The War of Northern Aggression," and applaud John Wilkes Booth and I would thank you to stop embarrassing the other descendants of Confederate veterans any further with such ludicrous talk.
posted by Atreides at 6:17 AM on April 16, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm from ~~Arkansas~~ South Carolina, and I long ago learned to deal with the "you're all dumb hicks..hurf durf" crowd. It dawned on me one day that a majority of my fellow ~~Arkansans~~ South Carolinans are in fact dumb hicks, and I may even be one myself. I still like the place, but that doesn't mean I have to get offended and start going on about how it's the greatest place ever to bless God's green Earth.

Amen, brother.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:28 AM on April 16, 2009

I'm not from Texas, but I've known a lot of Texans and they to a person are pompous assholes when it comes to the greatness of their state.

I think this is a big reason for the Anti-Texan backlash. Of course there are nice Texans, actually almost all the people from Texas have been great, yet, all the people from Texas *that I have met*are very, very, VERY proud of being from Texas.

Excessive pride is enough of a meme that it has become a stereotype of a Texan, the way New Yorkers being rude is a stereotype (obviously there are nice people from New York, and obviously not everyone from Texas is like that.)

To wit: Texas is great, really, love everything but the weather, love Austin, love the bat bridge - hill country, Big Bend, padre island, but jeez, so are other places and other people are just as proud of where they are from. Stop trying to tell me constantly how you're "Texas-this, and Texas-that."
posted by xetere at 6:33 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

When I lived in Arkansas I had friends who loved to rag on me for being from California. They figured that places like Hollywood and San Francisco were representative of the whole state, not realizing that huge geographic areas there could just as easily be in Texas or Oklahoma, culturally speaking (and of course their ideas of Hollywood and San Francisco were cartoonish, at best, driven merely by a shallow reading of various sensationalist news reports.)

It's the same with pretty much any state. Beautiful places, good people for the most part. There's just a lot of idiots running around everywhere, and far too many two-bit pols such as Perry. Texas should be able to do better than the likes of him, since we know that it's capable of producing wonderful people like Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, and so many others.

Texas just needs to get in touch with and embrace its better nature, but that applies in one degree or another to every other state in the union.
posted by metagnathous at 6:36 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

And that's all that happened kids, well that and BURNING ATLANTA TO THE GROUND.

it was rush hour and he was caught in traffic
posted by pyramid termite at 6:36 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Alright, Texas, you've had your wild night. Now hush and get back to work.

Secession, really? Let's talk over in this corner...

Hey, it's just you and me now, and lets be honest, your ass isn't going anywhere, even if you wanted to and we both know you don't. So yeah, raise a little hell if you like, call out us feds, etc, etc, whatever, wave your State's Rights flag, yada, yada. That's fine. But I just want to remind you what the Civil War did this to country and what side lost and they were bigger than your sorry ass, mmm'kay? Now you run along back to rally, but don't you ever forget in the back of your mind who you belong to, for good or ill, because it's in your best interests, so quit saying stupid shit. Or at least stupid shit about this subject.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:57 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

A note to njbradburn:

I did not intend to characterize Texans, as a group, as semi-literate knuckle draggers. However, I will freely, and in good conscience, characterize anyone who responds to this naked appeal to racism, this sour grapes faux-populist potentially destructive rabble-rousing, as a semi-literate knuckle dragger. It's not about taxes at all, it's about racism, and it infuriates me that a guy like Perry has the gall to say such things at such a time (or at any time really), and I am deeply distressed, but not surprised, that certain segments of the population, in Texas and other places, choose to continue this grand self-delusion that everything bad that ever happens is because of the democrats, and never the fault of the ruinous non-policies of the failed Bush presidency, or the decade and a half of winner-take-all political folly in the House and Senate. And now that the President of the United States is a black man, these semi-literate knuckle draggers in Texas, in Delaware, in Boston, in Iowa, are dressing up their visceral hatred for all blacks in the clothes of concerns over taxation (interestingly, "Tax Freedom Day" came earlier this year than it has in the last 40 years, Reagan Revolution era notwithstanding). That irritates the living hell out of me, and I don't mind telling you.
posted by Mister_A at 7:01 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

What's with all this Texas hate?

I respectfully suggest that this post, about the ass-hat Governor of Texas talking about seceding from the United States, is not the best place to defend the honor of Texas.

If you really feel crucified by Texas-hating in Metafilter, how about a nice post in the blue about something good from Texas? Say, bluebonnets in spring. Or the legacy of Barbara Jordan. Or notes from the barbeque trail. Maybe something about Tejano culture? Or all the fantastic modern art in Houston? Hell, I'd even enjoy a post about the history and future of Midland/Odessa.
posted by Nelson at 7:24 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

If they'd have done it 10 years ago, it might have been a good thing.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:27 AM on April 16, 2009

I don't know much about Sherman's history with Native Americans after the war. I saw the wikipedia entry, with its extremely poor sourcing--letters cited as "seemingly" from Sherman, a link to a "particularly harsh" account of his treatment of Indians that came from the ultra-conservative libertarian "Independent" Institute, the most pathetically generic and silly name for a think tank that I have ever heard. The wiki entry isn't even worth a link.

Sorry, I retract the "before" part -- I totally mixed him up in my mind with Andrew Jackson due to a total synaptic mis-firing.

However, RE Sherman --From his wikipedia entry: Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the Army (1869–83). As such, he was responsible for the conduct of the Indian Wars in the western United States.

This was an esprecially massacre-filled era of american history, and he was the man at the helm. Let's quote him, shall we: "[w]e must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children." He meant business, and saw to it to that this came to pass. The slaughter was too widespread for me to detail it event-by-event in this comment, but it's pretty well documented history.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:27 AM on April 16, 2009

You know, the strangest thing about the American Civil War is how out-of-nowhere it seemed. I've only read breezy accounts of the time period, but it seemed like the Southern States had a collective panic attack. Or hissy fit. Or something. You can talk about States Rights-vs-Federal Power, the expansion of the executive, and the bomb-under-the-table nature of some of Consitutional Compromises, but every history I've read has the Civil War just happening, surprising everyone, like a cloudburst.
posted by The Whelk at 7:34 AM on April 16, 2009

Fuck no. North Dakota is one of the best states - beautiful, open, wild.

Give them some crappy state. Like, give them New York or the southern third of California.

Actually, parts of upstate New York are already very red-state territory. The reason the state as a whole goes blue in elections is because there are just so damn many of us living in New York City.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:46 AM on April 16, 2009

"From what I've seen, the critics of federal government expansion, namely small government conservatives and libertarians, are also consistently pointing out that when law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ordered to 'gear up' (e.g. War on Some Drugs, War on Some Terror), civil rights tend to erode. For instance if you look around you may see that some of the same voices criticizing the federal government over reaching its authority with respect to the rights of the states are also criticizing the Obama administration on their continuation of FISA and the continuing suspension of habeas corpus."

Really? Rick Perry's opposed FISA and the War on Drugs?

Or was that in Indiana?

I like the 9th and 10th, and think they're an important counterweight to the necessity of a robust federal government. But don't tell me that the elected officials who invoke "states' rights" aren't pandering crypto-racists or that they have a coherent Liberal philosophy, because that's bullshit you're peddling to avoid having to stand with these cocksmears.
posted by klangklangston at 7:50 AM on April 16, 2009

You know, I really can't stand Texas. I just hate it. I try to think about what good it does... and I honestly cannot think of one good thing this state has done. It's hot, muggy, sweaty. The people there are all racist hick cowboys. They'll put almost anyone to death over anything. They all carry guns. They have elected to tons of right winged assholes. They all pretend to be religious, God loving, patriotic people but when the cards are laid down, they fold. Fucking hypocrites. I'm throw republicans under the bus here too! They are the ones that got their supporters in such a frenzy. You cannot rule by fear mongering and not expect people to get desperate when their ultimate answer is false. You cannot use a bunch of un-educated, religious types for votes. Then tell them that you are the answer and that the other party will bring the end of the world if you do not get elected and NOT expect this type of crap to happen. GRRRR angry frustrated rant in 3 2 1

A - Stupid dumb ass republicans, QUIT WHINING THAT YOU LOST. Admit that Bush was a horrible president and fucked this country up good, just like everything else he touches. Quit blaming Clinton as well. Your party was in control when this shit went down, now man up GOD!

B - Quit fucking rallying up these religious moronic sheep. They are too stupid to look at both views and choose the best one for themselves. You have ruled them by fear for too long. Now you are not there and they are panicking. Tell them to do the truly patriotic thing and support your country. Also HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'm glad you lost your tax breaks. It sucks owing a government that you don't like tons of cash... Isn't it? So quit your lame tea parties already.

C - Put duct tape over Palin mouth and DONT let her run for anything that involves the National Government AGAIN!

D - For the Sheep: first breathe through your noses, secondly quit acting like you are God loving Americans. You use your religious when it is convenient for you. You also like to rub it in peoples' faces. How about you remove the plank from your own eye first?

E - Almost done.... You stupid Texas morons. Quit this secede bullshit, pay your taxes, and quit being the republican party's prison bitch. Lastly instead of Don't mess with Texas... How about DON'T MESS WITH AMERICA!

THAT IS ALL!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:59 AM on April 16, 2009

"Don't Mess With Texas" started as an exhortation for her residents to stop littering and better preserve the land. It's a beautiful message when you realize where it came from. It's really sad that got twisted into such ugly macho posturing.
posted by explosion at 8:12 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Devils Rancher: You wanna quote from the wikipedia entry with the pathetically poor sourcing and the inside-the-article link to "history" as written by an economist (for gosh sakes) in a non-peer reviewed article on a conservative libertarian, generic sounding think tank's website, by all means go ahead.

Are you saying there's no definitive proof that Sherman was at the helm of the American Army between 1869 and 1883? I seriously thought that this was a well-enough documented part of our history that I wouldn't have to source it through links to assert widely known facts, but in case you Google is broken, here's a link from that Librul bastion of commie propaganda PBS.

Use that as a jumping-off point to educate yourself as to the eradication policy that Sherman's and Sheridan's army undertook, quite successfully, towards the unsettled native population west of the Mississippi. Or maybe you could, you know, read a book.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:21 AM on April 16, 2009

Gawd ... where is dear Molly Ivins when we need her most ... Governor "Good Hair" indeed.

What a jerk.

Sorry but this is the Texas I DO NOT MISS!
posted by aldus_manutius at 8:33 AM on April 16, 2009

U.S. out of Vermont!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:36 AM on April 16, 2009

Are any of those Vermont secessionists the governor of Vermont?

And if so, did they win election to that office by a margin of almost twenty percent?
posted by Flunkie at 8:49 AM on April 16, 2009

The people there are all racist hick cowboys.

Mastercheddar, you are either a very deliberate provocateur, or you are trapped into thinking like a hick.

A Hick is someone who thinks they know it all about something, but is actually naive, ignorant,
and unwilling to explore the possibility of something outside of their little fence.

Funny you would talk about the "sheep" of the masses, but still find time to spout two-dimensional generalizations.

As someone who was born and raised in Texas (and left after 25 years for New England, I can say that I know scientists, doctors, gays and lesbians, musicians, writers, architects, businesspeople, laypeople, painters and dancers and singers, archivists, academics, etc. who were also born and raised in Texas.

And yes, there are hicks and cowboys and racists.

But you know, there are hicks and cowboys and racists EVERYWHERE.

How much time have you spent in Texas, getting to know the place, the people, the sentiments of the culture?

So small.
posted by gcbv at 8:57 AM on April 16, 2009 [5 favorites]

But you know, there are hicks and cowboys and racists EVERYWHERE.

How much time have you spent in Texas, getting to know the place, the people, the sentiments of the culture?

So small.

Thank you. And from a resident of Bah Hahbah, no less. :-)
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:05 AM on April 16, 2009

Hey, now that the thread's died down a little - can any of our Texans educate me a little about Kinky Friedman's campaign? I mean, I know he's a state treasure and everything, I've read his stuff, eaten his salsa, but.... If I'm understanding this right, if the votes for the guy who ran on the "How Hard Can It Be?" ticket had gone to the Democrat instead, Rick Perry would have been out on his ass back in '06. I know Kinky Freidman's cool, no one's questioning the Kinky Friedman, but... is he doing it just for the lulz? 50% for the lulz?

I'd call it a 60/40 lulz/not lulz split. It was totally on a lark the first time, and he got more serious as it became possible he could win. He's a reactionary iconoclast who's a bit backwards sometimes, but he's not a goddam idiot, which means he'd probably make a better gov. than Perry, but I have my doubts as to whether the state Democratic party will actually get behind him if he runs as a Dem. He's a big snowball, but he's still in hell, chance-wise, I think.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:12 AM on April 16, 2009

Yup, as a semi-sane Texan you basically have to deal with the fact that a lot of the people around you, most of 'em in fact, are basically knuckle dragging racist assholes.

There's a joke that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh on one end, Philadelphia on the other and Arkansas in between. And its true, but its missing the point. ANYWHERE outside a big city is basically Arkansas. Look at California, go outside the cities and you're in a Republican wonderland. Same for New York. Texas just doesn't have enough cities to balance the rural asshole vote is all.

And yeah, let's not pretend that this teaparty, secessionist, bullshit is anything but crypto-racism.

The good news is that Rick Perry is going to be replaced by Kay Bailey Hutchison. The bad news is that then we'll have Kay Bailey Hutchison as governor. The Democratic candidate has zero chance of victory.

ormondsacker : He's in it for the lulz. Texas has a long history of people running remarkably successful (expressed as a percentage of the vote, if not actual victory) joke campaigns for governor. Bubbles Cash, one time stripper and pornstar, ran and got something like 6% of the vote back in the 1980's. Its a thing to do if you're bored, want a boost to your flagging career, or just want some lulz.

Given that the position of governor in Texas is basically purely ornamental, it really doesn't matter who we have except for the embarrassment potential (as Perry just amply demonstrated). If we abolished the position the state would chug along just fine. Lt Gov carries some power, but the governor is just an empty suit.
posted by sotonohito at 9:15 AM on April 16, 2009

Metafilter: Hating America is our job!
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 9:15 AM on April 16, 2009

People, including Sherman, have to be judged in context.

And the context is that Sherman destroyed things just to destroy them, not to serve some greater strategic purpose. You can't even say that about Dresden or Tokyo. I guarantee you that today's preferred high-school history curriculum would decry, as a war criminal, a hypothetical Georgian general who conducted a similar march from Cincinnati to Cleveland.

But the North won (and ultimately, that was a good thing), so Sherman gets a free pass.

Dude. Take off the gray. The war is over. My ancestors did it. So can you.

You have no clue what you're talking about.
posted by oaf at 9:30 AM on April 16, 2009

I like the 9th and 10th, and think they're an important counterweight to the necessity of a robust federal government. But don't tell me that the elected officials who invoke "states' rights" aren't pandering crypto-racists or that they have a coherent Liberal philosophy, because that's bullshit you're peddling to avoid having to stand with these cocksmears.

'Elected officials' is not who I was referring to. I'm thinking of Paleo-Conservative and Libertarian political organizations and periodicals. Take a look at the archives of the Tenth Amendment Center. On a related note, I'm not seeing any evidence for these accusations of "crypto-racism" (whatever that might mean), beyond this coming to some of you all's attention after the Inauguration. A number of these bills were in the legislature prior to the election. And while the Tenth Amendment Center is a pretty new organization, January 2007 is a bit early for Barack Obama's Presidency to have been a motivating factor.
posted by BigSky at 9:44 AM on April 16, 2009

People, including Sherman, have to be judged in context.
And the context is that Sherman destroyed things just to destroy them, not to serve some greater strategic purpose. You can't even say that about Dresden or Tokyo.

Actually, Sherman was quite clear both in his memoirs and in his letters during the Civil War that his destruction was intended to serve his main goal, which was crushing the will of the Southern people to continue fighting.

You can certainly argue that it was horrible, but pretending that he was doing it for no particular strategic purpose -- especially when you compare it with regards to this unfavorably to Dresden and Tokyo -- is either revisionist or uninformed, and in either case is wrong.
posted by Flunkie at 9:44 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

The closest I've been to Texas was the Houston airport, and I've only every known one authentic Texan, but he introduced me to Texas-style country music and was a real stand-up dude, so I'm cool with Texas.
posted by sciurus at 9:54 AM on April 16, 2009

And the context is that Sherman destroyed things just to destroy them, not to serve some greater strategic purpose.

There is, in fact, a clear strategic purpose in the "scorched earth" concept of total war. It's worth noting that Sherman sought and received the approval of Grant and Lincoln for the March to the Sea. By destroying the South's ability to make war, the Savannah Campaign almost certainly caused the war to end more quickly.
posted by me & my monkey at 9:57 AM on April 16, 2009

How much time have you spent in Texas, getting to know the place, the people, the sentiments of the culture?

As a lifelong Texan and current employee of a university where undergrads will soon be bringing guns into my classroom, I can only say—fuck this shitty state. Ten years ago I may have been able to work up some indignation at the Texas-bashing, but at this point fuck it—we deserve whatever you can dish out.

But you know, there are hicks and cowboys and racists EVERYWHERE.

And where those people make the rules—fuck those places too.

Seriously, Austin can be comfortable enough, but if you think it's a particularly progressive city you probably need to get out more.
posted by dickymilk at 10:06 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

By destroying the South's ability to make war, the Savannah Campaign almost certainly caused the war to end more quickly.

Destroying war-making capabilities is fine. Destroying the individual farms of people who are committing the abhorrent act of trying to feed themselves is not. Given that the large ordnance available in World War II was not available in 1864, each individual act of destruction (factory destroyed, crop burned, livestock eaten, Sherman's bowtie tied) was a choice made. It's easier to avoid collateral damage when you can't possibly use giant bombs because they haven't been invented yet.
posted by oaf at 10:28 AM on April 16, 2009

OK, Wikipedia thinks they're neckties. I'll go with that.
posted by oaf at 10:29 AM on April 16, 2009

Destroying war-making capabilities is fine. Destroying the individual farms of people who are committing the abhorrent act of trying to feed themselves is not.

Where do you think Confederate troops got their food, if not from those individual farms? The Shenandoah Valley was called the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy" for a reason, you know.
posted by me & my monkey at 10:55 AM on April 16, 2009

Hey Texas, get the hell offa mah propatee...
posted by symbioid at 10:56 AM on April 16, 2009

Devils Rancher: No, I was talking about your quotes from an article of a dubious sourcing, that you quoted despite my note as to the dubious nature of the sourcing.
posted by raysmj at 11:02 AM on April 16, 2009

And I know that the South wasn't exactly pro-Native Ameican, having grown up in an area near where the Trail of Tears began for the Choctaw, so I don't get the relevance of all this anyway. Oh, the North was bad to Indians! Yeah, the country's done lots of bad shit, still does. In some parts of the world today, I'm sure the US flag looks as menacing to some peoples as the Confederate flag does to blacks--this just for relatively recent acts. But national screw ups do not make talk of secession right, by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, why is an economist on a conservative website writing all this bad stuff about Sherman? 'Cause he's a Native American history enthusiast, wants to give half the land back to the Indians? Does he want to give most of Texas back to Mexico too? Doubt it!!
posted by raysmj at 11:08 AM on April 16, 2009

atlanta burned, sherman marched to the sea, the south lost, quit whining and get over it, it happened 145 years ago

i cannot believe people still are sniveling about this
posted by pyramid termite at 11:18 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

You know who the federal govt. was defending (and clearing the way for) in Texas after the Civil War? White Texans. This brought the white people of the North and Texas back together again.
posted by raysmj at 11:18 AM on April 16, 2009

Oh please, oh please, oh please...
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:28 AM on April 16, 2009

From what I've seen, the critics of federal government expansion, namely small government conservatives and libertarians, are also consistently pointing out that when law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ordered to 'gear up' (e.g. War on Some Drugs, War on Some Terror), civil rights tend to erode.

Ah, yes, I remember when Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Michele Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Michael Savage all got together to organize protests against Bush's expansion of executive power and denounced the Wars on Drugs & Terror.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:34 AM on April 16, 2009

Anyway, why is an economist on a conservative website writing all this bad stuff about Sherman?

I seriously have no idea, but the dubious sourcing on wikipedia doesn't make it not-true, and contextually, I was responding to the people calling him a war criminal, which he is. Regardless of what some nutjob thinks we should do now, those things did happen, and Sherman was responsible for setting in place a policy of brutal extermination.

And if I sound all axe-grindy, well, that's because some of these people were my great-great grandmother's cousins. There are many more examples to be had. Seriously -- read you some history.

There is a Texas link, as well, known as The Red River War. Here's an especially Good Book about that campaign.

I'll quit now.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:35 AM on April 16, 2009

Ah, yes, I remember when Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Michele Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Michael Savage all got together to organize protests against Bush's expansion of executive power and denounced the Wars on Drugs & Terror.

To be fair, Rush did engage in civil disobedience to protest the War on Drugs.
posted by ND¢ at 11:44 AM on April 16, 2009 [4 favorites]

Wakka Wakka!
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:48 AM on April 16, 2009

Dear Hair Perry,

I require relocation reimbursement.

Signed,
A talented and hard-working employee that contributes to your tax base.

PS You really are a fucking moron.
posted by Jade5454 at 11:51 AM on April 16, 2009

Are any of those Vermont secessionists the governor of Vermont?

And if so, did they win election to that office by a margin of almost twenty percent?

There's this thing called a "joke."
posted by Chrysostom at 11:59 AM on April 16, 2009

To be fair, Rush did engage in civil disobedience to protest the War on Drugs.

I realize this was a joke, but breaking the law isn't the same as civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is when you flagrantly violate the law in full public view with the intent of forcing the police to publcly decide whether to arrest you or not.

Traveling to a place notorious for underage sex tourism with a bottle of Viagra in someone else's name isn't civil disobedience.
posted by Justinian at 12:00 PM on April 16, 2009

Man. All this Texas hate. You know, I'm pretty sure it was a bunch of Californians who passed prop 8. Fuck California and its red-state, conservative, anti-gay attitudes. I hope it falls off into the ocean and everybody there drowns and then this country will be so much more Democrat.

o_O
posted by nushustu at 12:05 PM on April 16, 2009

No, you only took a direct quote out of the article after I pointed out how unreliable it was. You also didn't address what the point of all this was, in the context of a discussion about secession, so I'll quite too. I'm so glad you give a rat's ass about your long-lost fifth cousins once removed who were Native Americans.

Dude. What is your problem? I've tried to clarify what I meant, provided supporting links, and I backtracked where I had been factually incorrect (I.E. Sherman's experience prior to the Civil war) The quote I pasted from the wiki ("[w]e must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.") appears to have plenty of supporting verification besides The Independent Institute, whoever they are. Just because they said he said it doesn't make it untrue. He espoused a policy of extermination of women and children. That is a war crime. That's all I was tying to say. Can you not understand that? Or can you explain to me where I have ben factually incorrect in this regard?

And I'm truly sorry for you if you don't give a rat's ass about genocide. It can't be undone, but it mustn't be excused, or forgotten. I thought a note about my particular passion on this subject might shed some light on same -- meant again, for your elucidation, but used instead as grounds for a shitty insult. Was it really necessary to be that unpleasant about it?
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:05 PM on April 16, 2009

Are any of those Vermont secessionists the governor of Vermont?

And if so, did they win election to that office by a margin of almost twenty percent?
There's this thing called a "joke."

OK. There's also this thing called a "false equivalence", and I'm glad to hear that your post was the former and not the latter.
posted by Flunkie at 12:12 PM on April 16, 2009

And the context is that Sherman destroyed things just to destroy them, not to serve some greater strategic purpose.

Incredible. As pointed out above, and to add my voice to it, Sherman did not just destroy stuff for the sake of destroying it. More so, it's been shown that even the March to the Sea has been exaggerated in terms of destruction, with people claiming to be victims some fifty miles away from where the Union troops passed through.

The strategy, the grand strategy, was to break the will of the Southern people to make war. This meant destroying the crops that might feed the war machine, taking the livestock for the same purposes or any that could be used for labor. This meant making the people at home want an end to the war, to withdraw their support to the actions of the Confederate government. This was all accomplished by the march to the sea.

The Confederate military could be considered nearly as bad, by requisitioning the livestock, supplies, and what not from Southerners to sustain the war effort. They could be considered just as bad toward leaving farmers without the means to subsist. Their hogs were taken and paid for (with worthless Confederate script), their horses and mules for plowing, were taken for the military uses. Heck, Richmond burned because of idiot Confederate officials setting fire to documents to keep them out of Union hands, and the burning of Columbia, often blamed on Sherman, was most likely again the accident of foolish Confederates trying to keep materiel out of the hands of Yankees.

I'm sorry, Oaf, but the way you're speaking of and referring to Sherman is as if he's still the great devil that not a few number of Southern schools raised their children to believe him to be. Pick up any of the recent major scholarship on him and his march, and this image will be quickly banished. Sure, there may be a few non-academic writers out there who may still wave the flag, but they represent a small and distinct minority. Now if you still want to argue otherwise, its your prerogative, but you're doing so against the weight of academia and history.
posted by Atreides at 12:17 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty much not interested in the "rights" of people who support slavery.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:37 PM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

He espoused a policy of extermination of women and children.

Correction: Confederate women and children. This makes them not real people but instead a treacherous race of subhuman rat-people. Think of them as nineteenth-century C.H.U.D.s.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:48 PM on April 16, 2009

Ah, yes, I remember when Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Michele Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Michael Savage all got together to organize protests against Bush's expansion of executive power and denounced the Wars on Drugs & Terror.

What do those media personalities have to do with anything? The only one who comes close to being a small government conservative is Glenn Beck and he has a strong authoritarian tilt to him. An accurate list of small government conservatives and libertarians would include the Cato Institute, Robert Higgs, Ron Paul, Joe Sobran, lewrockwell.com, mises.org and William Buckley.
posted by BigSky at 12:51 PM on April 16, 2009

Correction: Confederate women and children. This makes them not real people but instead a treacherous race of subhuman rat-people. Think of them as nineteenth-century C.H.U.D.s.

I've only read one in depth book about the Civil War, so I really wasn't addressing that. At least, I don't think he had any shot in their sleep. The point I was trying to get across was that even if he wasn't a war criminal due to his adventures during the Civil War, he was a war criminal due to his adventures during the Indian war that followed it. It's waaay of topic i know. Sorry I got so worked up, but the denial is kinda strange.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:55 PM on April 16, 2009

Correction: Confederate women and children.

Correction: Sioux women and children.

In any case, regardless of what Sherman wrote, in terms of actions he did not, in fact, try to exterminate the Sioux. They were simultaneously threatened and bribed into giving up a lot of land (particularly the Black Hills). Yeah, there was a big stick hiding behind any carrots, but that's still a far cry from extermination.

Smallpox did most of the actual extermination, but urban legends to the contrary that was virtually all accidental and inevitable once white Europeans showed up.
posted by Justinian at 12:56 PM on April 16, 2009

And I know that the South wasn't exactly pro-Native Ameican, having grown up in an area near where the Trail of Tears began for the Choctaw, so I don't get the relevance of all this anyway.

Some Native Americans were pro-South, including the Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole, Catawba, and Creek (most tribes fought for the Union; some split between both sides). Stand Watie, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, was the last Confederate general to surrender.

Ely Parker, of the Seneca nation, wrote the surrender terms at Appomattox. Robert E. Lee said to Parker, "I am glad to see one real American here," and Parker replied, "We are all Americans."

Although the American Indian Wars ramped up after the Civil War, the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the 1862 Dakota War happened during the war.

In early December, 303 Sioux prisoners were convicted of murder and rape by military tribunals and sentenced to death. Some trials lasted less than 5 minutes, and the proceedings neither were explained to the defendants, nor were the Sioux represented in court. President Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed the trial records, and he attempted to distinguish between those who had engaged in warfare against the United States versus those who had committed the crimes of rape and murder against civilians.
...
Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 264 prisoners and allowed the execution of 39 others. One of the 39 condemned prisoners was granted a reprieve. The 38 remaining prisoners were executed by hanging [simultaneously, on a giant scaffold] on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota, in what remains the largest mass execution in American history.

Think of them as nineteenth-century C.H.U.D.s.
Confederate humanoid underground dwellers?
posted by kirkaracha at 12:57 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

To all those saying that all Texans are like X because every one I've met is like X ... uh, biased anecdotal evidence much?

Texas sucks -- more so than many states, less so than some states. Texans suck -- about as much as people from every other state. I no longer live in Texas and I don't plan to move back, but I would for the right job in the right location. I'd rather live there than in the Dakotas or Idaho or Nebraska or something, but there are many other places I'd rather live than Texas.

Texas will not secede (SECEDE, people, not SUCCEED), nor will any other state. Yes, a small group of wingnuts has a particularly strong history of being annoying about this topic, but so does Alaska -- the latter just has fewer people to make noise about it. Even if through some magical and near impossible series of events it managed to do so, it would be terrible both for Texas and for the US, crashing the economies of both.

Does that pretty much settle the issue?
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:00 PM on April 16, 2009

I should add that Richmond VA was burned, not by the evil northerners, but by the retreating Confederates. However, I dare you to take a tour of historic Richmond and determine that fact by listening to the tour guide, the passive voice suddenly sneaks in when they discuss that event. Richmond "was burned", they'll tell you, "as the Northern forces advanced", the phrase "by retreating Confederate forces" is conspicuously absent. Ask around Richmond and you'll find that most people who live there are quite certain that Richmond was burned by the nasty Northerners.

The fact is that, during that era, armies tended to burn cities down as a standard tactic, and it was practiced by both sides. Of course, thanks to the technological superiority [1] of people not shackled to the evil and degenerate practice of slavery the Confederate scum didn't get a chance to burn many American cities. But do you really think Jackson et al wouldn't have burned Pittsburgh, or New York if they had a chance?

And, while it doesn't excuse brutality on the part of the liberators, I do find the whining by pro-Confederate apologists to be bitterly amusing. You're complaining because the mean pro-freedom forces didn't treat the slave raping degenerates you so revere in a completely civilized and polite fashion? Horrors! Someone fetch the fainting couch....

As for Sherman and the Indians, yes, he, like pretty much every other American military professional of the time, did some damn evil shit. Of course, shouldn't a lot of the blame go to the civilians in government who actually engineered the genocide? Yes, those who carried it out deserve a lot of blame, but its the people who came up with the plan who are most at fault I'd argue.

[1] Cyrus McCormick, unsung hero of America, and his reaper allowed loyal American citizens to leave the farm and counterattack the forces of evil, while said forces were still getting in the harvest.
posted by sotonohito at 1:04 PM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

BigSky: my comment was in response to the implicit assertion that protests against Govt. expansion have been organized by/most vocally propagated by so-called small government libertarians.

The current "populist" movement is a farce; the assertion of individual/states' rights against the big bad scary fed is a canard that covers up the partisan, racist, classist, and fundamentalist fervor being whipped up by the Republican elites to try to deadlock the Democrats and turn the Obama admin into a Bush level failure. None of the people or groups behind it give a shit about "small govt," unless you mean a govt. that serves as the personal army and bank for the wealthy (and keeps homos from kissin on each other).
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:06 PM on April 16, 2009

Would it make all you Texans feel better if I said I hated California and New York just as much? (OK, maybe not just as much -- but they do most certainly annoy the hell out of me).

Here, let's drink some Haterade together :)
posted by symbioid at 1:09 PM on April 16, 2009

The current "populist" movement is a farce; the assertion of individual/states' rights against the big bad scary fed is a canard that covers up the partisan, racist, classist, and fundamentalist fervor being whipped up by the Republican elites to try to deadlock the Democrats and turn the Obama admin into a Bush level failure. None of the people or groups behind it give a shit about "small govt," unless you mean a govt. that serves as the personal army and bank for the wealthy (and keeps homos from kissin on each other).

And you know this, how? I would appreciate some evidence beyond the common MeFi claim of "When they say 'Socialist', they are trying to besmirch the Obama administration"; a few of us find that less than convincing.
posted by BigSky at 1:23 PM on April 16, 2009

Being as libertarians tend to refer to anything they don't like as "socialist", I don't know why anybody should give two tugs of a dead dog's cock what you think or find convincing, BigSky.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:45 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

BigSky: First off, anyone who has a clue about what "socialism" really means understands that it is being bandied about by people who have no idea what they are talking about. And why don't you prove that the Tea Parties and such actually ARE organic, grassroots, populist uprisings? I'm not saying that there aren't average people who are part of these things who don't believe in principles of individual rights, small government, etc. I'm saying that these "protests" have been and are being organized not by "the people" but by the conservative powerbrokers as part of their desire to whip up hysteria against Obama and deadlock him the same way they tried to deadlock Clinton. I mean, is it that hard to figure that out, when "chicagoteaparty.com" or whatever it was had been bought months before the "spontaneous" uprising after Santelli's (scripted and planned) outburst? When Fox News has a section of their website devoted to the "movement"? When their commentators are SPEAKING at the fucking meetings? When the freaking chair of the RNC is encouraging people to send "virtual teabags"? When these "average joes" are purchasing millions of dollars in tea to protest how financially strapped they are? When the people decrying Obama's "fascism" on TV and radio are the ones who supported Guatanamo Bay, Bush's executive privilege, Cheney's extra-governmental status and his refusal to release his Energy committee meetings, Alberto Gonzales's partisan purge of the DOJ, no-questions-asked unilateral invasion of Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, no-bid contracts, water-boarding, the militarizing of the US police, the Bush Admin's doctoring of CIA intelligence, the outing of Valerie Plame, a federal marriage amendment, a federal flag-burning amendment...

I mean, christ dude, just search MeFi's front pages over the last couple of months, you'll find plenty of evidence.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:56 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

ER, that should have said "I'm not saying that there aren't average people who are part of these things who DO believe in the principles of..."
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:57 PM on April 16, 2009

The fact is that, during that era, armies tended to burn cities down as a standard tactic, and it was practiced by both sides. Of course, thanks to the technological superiority [1] of people not shackled to the evil and degenerate practice of slavery the Confederate scum didn't get a chance to burn many American cities. But do you really think Jackson et al wouldn't have burned Pittsburgh, or New York if they had a chance?

No, not really. The tactic of "Total War" really wasn't common until the last full year of the war, and more as an means to simply end it sooner by crushing the will of the nation. To my knowledge, Jackson never discussed adopting the strategy, as by the time of his death, I think everyone simply believed a military tactical victory could end things (i.e. win at Gettysburg). Now, after the tactics had begun to be used against the South, it's feasible that the Confederates, given the opportunity would have replied in kind. But it's a bit of a generalization to just throw a blanket statement out there.

Lastly...

Confederate scum...C.H.U.D...etc

Lay off my ancestors!
posted by Atreides at 2:22 PM on April 16, 2009

BigSky: You've never heard of States' Rights being used as crypto-racist code? Whatever.

To the conversation about burning cities: It was a not-uncommon Napoleonic tactic, and the US Civil War was the last great Napoleonic conflict (to disastrous results due to the advances in technology).
posted by klangklangston at 2:54 PM on April 16, 2009

Atreides I'm not a US historian, but I can say that the tactic of burning a city to deny it to the opposition, or as a weapon during house to house fighting, predates the US Civil War by a long time. In 1467, during the Onin War, Kyoto was burned to its foundations. No one really knows who set the first fires, but arson was used by both sides to flush out enemy positions, cut off access to key areas, and eventually to deny the city to the "victorious" side [1].

As I said, I'm not a US historian, maybe there is evidence that the Confederate generals discussed and declined such tactics, but burning cities either by accident or deliberately is quite common in the history of warfare in general. Which doesn't make it a good thing, but it does put Sherman's actions in Atlanta into their proper perspective.

Hell, for that matter we do the same thing in the modern era. The Allied firebombing of Japan and Germany springs to mind. Tokyo, Dresden, they were leveled as completely, or possibly more completely, than Atlanta was.

Cities are where you find the main productivity of a nation, thus they're obvious targets in war. If you can't capture and occupy a city it makes military sense (if not humanitarian sense) to deny it to the enemy even if it means burning it. That's part of the reason why I don't like war, it tends to push aside other considerations for the main consideration of winning.

As for "Confederate scum", I stand by it. Anyone who chooses to fight in the defense of a nation specifically dedicated to slavery in the face of forced abolition is scum. The term covers some of my own ancestors, and I think its accurate. I reserve my pity for those who had no choice: slaves, children, and most women. They were dragged into a mess not of their making, and mostly they were the ones who suffered the most.

It made good military sense to burn the fields and thus put a pinch in the Confederate supply lines. But, while such things undoubtedly put a crimp in the supply lines, its never the soldiers who starve first. They go hungry eventually, but as a rule only after they've taken the food from the civilians at gunpoint. I have no pity for the scum who signed up to fight for the rights of rich degenerates to own slaves, but I do feel sorry for the children, the slaves, the women, who went hungry, and starved, because of Sherman's tactics.

[1] In scare quotes because the "winning" side was basically a spent force and fell to other enemies very soon after the battle at Kyoto.
posted by sotonohito at 2:58 PM on April 16, 2009

Here's the thing about Texas. The majority of its land mass is made up of tiny shithole towns full of ignorant shitkickers who have never been outside of a 25-mile radius around their hometown and have never met anyone who isn't exactly like them,

This is pretty much true of a good portion of the world. And most of the reason for this is NOT THEIR FAULT. You try traveling when you are shit poor and you have zero exposure to a decent education.
posted by spicynuts at 3:06 PM on April 16, 2009

"Texas gets $.88 back per dollar taxed
New York gets $.79 back.
California gets. $.78 back.
Illinois gets $.74 back."

"the following states have passed or are in the process of passing similar resolutions asserting State sovereignty..."

I used to joke - completely joke - that Illinois should secede. But there is something to resisting oppressive policies. We're one of the most fertile states in the country, and yet we import food. Now when gas was cheap that might have made some sense. As it is, it's dumb not to allow production to be local.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:09 PM on April 16, 2009

"I can say that the tactic of burning a city to deny it to the opposition, or as a weapon during house to house fighting, predates the US Civil War by a long time."

Yeah. It's why we have potatoes.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:10 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

The "quote" from Gen. Sherman that someone up there found via a Google search all over the place (really?) appears to come from a book by Gen. Amstrong Custer--and it's said to be from Sherman to Grant. You can find the book online. The page number from this very old book does not correspond to the page number listed in the wikipedia bibliography. It's a poorly, poorly sourced article.

Interesting info about the Choctaw, meanwhile, but one of the wiki sources is a dead link and another sounds like a trivia book, the others I don't have access to. Doesn't surprise me that the truth would be rather complex, likely much more so than as seen in the article. Entertaining info all the same.

As for the Dakota battles ... Uh, why would southerners be particularly concerned with the settlement of the Dakotas in the first place? Southerns generally continued south to the southwest if they resettled. Relevance? What's interesting about that is that it shows again that the North fought the war with one hand, more or less.
posted by raysmj at 3:31 PM on April 16, 2009

I've known a lot of Texans and they to a person are pompous assholes when it comes to the greatness of their state.

Not all of us are like that. Some of us hate that tendency too, you know. My daughter goes to Robert E. Lee Elementary School (she looked a bit crestfallen when I told her who he was). Recently they had a program / play thing that I went to, and it was all about Texas History and Texas Pride and on and on and on. Nationalistic songs, dancing, skits, shouting, it was ludicrous and to me, rather disgusting. And of COURSE there was zero mention of slavery. I wonder how the black kids in her grade felt about that.

I'm stuck here for 8 more years. It sucks, but at least I'm lucky enough to be in Austin.
posted by marble at 4:25 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Uh, why would southerners be particularly concerned with the settlement of the Dakotas in the first place?

Because trying to maintain a balance of slave states and free states as states were created out of the Louisiana Purchase was a major political battle for decades leading up to the Civil War. See the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Wilmot Proviso (1846), the Compromise of 1850, and the Nebraska-Kansas Act (1854).

Interesting info about the Choctaw, meanwhile, but one of the wiki sources is a dead link and another sounds like a trivia book, the others I don't have access to.

Try choctawindian.com, "The Choctaw sided with the Confederates during the Civil war." More info from the Oklahoma Historical Society.

What's interesting about that is that it shows again that the North fought the war with one hand, more or less.

In addition to continuing the Indian Wars, the North was adding new states and completing the transcontinental railroad.

According to the 1860 Census (cited in pp. 701-702 of this book), Northern states and territories had a total population of 19,034,434 (18,810,123 whites, 225,973 free negroes, and 64 slaves). The Border states and territories had a total population of 3,305,557 (2,743,728 whites, 128,243 free negroes, and 432,586 slaves). The Southern (seceded) states had a total population of 9,103,332 (5,449,462 whites, 132,760 free negroes, and 3,521,110 slaves).

Also, immigration dipped during the first year or two of the war, then rose for the last several years, while the blockade would've cut off any immigration to the South (and there wasn't much to begin with).
posted by kirkaracha at 4:32 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sotonohito, you're right, you're not an American historian. Burning cities was not common fair in the American Civil War until, as I stated above near the end of the war. Even then, it was really the exception and more often the accident. The Union occupied New Orleans for years and never put a torch to the town. Though, it did pass outrageous edicts like forcing women to be accompanied at all times, otherwise comparing them to prostitutes (they hated General Butler). I'm not disputing the burning of cities in the modern era or in 12th century Japan (mental note: don't build your castles out of wood).

I do take offense at the blanket accusation that all white men in the Confederacy are "scum." While you can make a generalization that "they all fought to preserve slavery" and while it's technically correct, it's also disingenuous. You have to separate the political-economic reasons for why the war was fought (slavery) from the individual personal reasons for why men fought. There certainly were men who expressly went to war to keep slaves, but there were men who fought for other reasons, albeit some of them misguided. I'm quite happy the Confederacy lost, but I do feel the need to at least state that it's an insulting gesture to label, as a whole, an entire generation of men, scum.
posted by Atreides at 4:53 PM on April 16, 2009

The "quote" from Gen. Sherman that someone up there found via a Google search all over the place (really?) appears to come from a book by Gen. Amstrong Custer--and it's said to be from Sherman to Grant. You can find the book online. The page number from this very old book does not correspond to the page number listed in the wikipedia bibliography. It's a poorly, poorly sourced article.

Okay, the wikipedia article itself is poorly sourced. You win that. However, the quote attributed to Sherman appears in quite a few other sources other than the Wikipedia link.

I just did a google search for we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux without the quotes this time, and got back 2,660 results. I perused quite a few of these, (+/- 25 -- a good number of which were google book results for histories written by PHD's and published by the University of Oklahoma Press, who seem to have an extensive history of publication as regards Native American history and affairs) and none of them attributed it to being from a book by Custer, and none of them call its authenticity into question, so far. (I have seen two sources suggest it was a telegram, but have not been able to trace it to a direct source document)

I must therefore posit that your Google is broken.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:00 PM on April 16, 2009

It most certainly is when you steal or destroy everything in your path, regardless of who owns it, when you do so.

War is destruction. Perhaps you feel he should have played nicey nice with persons who have committed treason because they did not like the fact that someone who opposed their owning of human beings as chattel goods was elected to the highest office of the land.I guess it was therefore wrong to destroy the railroads, factories and foodstuffs that fed an army of traitorous slavers.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:29 PM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Atreides wrote I do take offense at the blanket accusation that all white men in the Confederacy are "scum."

As would I, which is why I didn't. I stated that all Confederate soldiers and their supporters were scum. There were many people, including white men, in the Confederate states who were opposed to the whole thing.

To take an example from my figurative back yard, here in Texas a number of white men were hanged in Gainesville following a kangaroo court for the dreadful crime of opposing the Confederate draft, and a reign of terror followed during which dozens more were lynched by random Confederate soldiers. Today there is a monument to the Confederacy in Gainesville, and virtually no one there is even aware of their town's proud history of loyalty to America and defiance to the forces of evil.

So, no, I don't say that all white men in the Confederacy were scum. Merely those who supported the CSA or fought on its behalf.

How is it possible to see someone who is willing to take up arms in order to defend the only nation in all history founded explicitly to preserve slavery in the face of looming abolition as anything but scum?
posted by sotonohito at 6:17 PM on April 16, 2009

How is it possible to see someone who is willing to take up arms in order to defend the only nation in all history founded explicitly to preserve slavery in the face of looming abolition as anything but scum?

First, at best the propaganda of the Confederacy might be the only real assertion that abolition was looming at the outset of the war. Emancipation of the slaves wasn't even a significant goal of the Union until the war was well under way. The war was fought over slavery, and anyone who wants to scream that it was about state rights, is right...but that right is slavery. Regardless, you appear to have missed this portion of my prior post:

You have to separate the political-economic reasons for why the war was fought (slavery) from the individual personal reasons for why men fought. There certainly were men who expressly went to war to keep slaves, but there were men who fought for other reasons, albeit some of them misguided.

Again, while the war was fought for slavery on the grand scheme, it's rash to simply state every Confederate soldier was fighting on that premise, or that premise alone. The majority of the population didn't own slaves. At best, then, they could be deemed to be fighting for the opportunity to one day own slaves. Even then it'd be ridiculous to assert that even the majority of those individuals were fighting just for that opportunity. Noted Civil War scholar James McPherson even wrote a book on the topic, addressing both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, based on the examination of hundreds of letters and diaries from the soldiers in the conflict.

I just recommend learning more about the men you're so quick to judge before making such judgments. Then again, if you don't care, that's your priority.
posted by Atreides at 7:00 PM on April 16, 2009

The one thing the Confederacy did for the tribes of Indian Territory that the US never would... go to this wiki page on the First Confederate Congress, and scroll down to the last two delegates.

Of course, I also have my Debo on the shelf here, who quotes a letter from Confederate Indian Commissioner Albert Pike to Jefferson Davis, shortly after the treaty was signed. Pike says that the terms of said treaty may seem absurdly generous with the Congressional delegation and everything, but if he, Davis, could see the beauty and fertility of the land available once the Confederacy pacifies the Indians and frees up the land for white settlers...
posted by ormondsacker at 7:54 PM on April 16, 2009

It seems instructive that few states were willing to secede until shots were already being fired in South Carolina. Perhaps it was more a show of regional solidarity than anything particularly related to slaves.

And personally? I think states should have the right to secede, although it should require a high bar. They'd be dumb for doing so, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed. A people should have the right of self determination.

Hell, sections of states should also be allowed to become new states or be annexed into other states if they so choose. I just don't see what's so great about the seemingly permanent nature of our political boundaries.
posted by wierdo at 8:09 PM on April 16, 2009

A prominent person recently did and said some stupid things. Come to think of it, here is a list of other people also from the same place who have done and said some stupid and bad things too. Obviously this is attributable to the fact that they are all from the same place, so thererfore that place is thoroughly bad. Since you are also from there, you are also stupid and you suck and the place you love sucks. As a matter of fact, it sucks so bad even your ancestors sucked, even worse than you do as incredible and hard to believe as that is. Your ancestors sucked so bad they are burning in Hell at this very moment. Additionally, everyone I've ever met or heard of who comes from the place you love sucked and was stupid. The good things from there are the the exception to the rule, and they are overrated anyway. Besides, there are better good things elsewhere. Your feeble attempts at self defense are pitiful and futile. As I have demonstrated with this irrefutable evidence, my intense hatred of you and your suckhole and everyone who has ever been associated with it is well earned and completely justified.

THAT IS ALL
posted by Daddy-O at 9:31 PM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Did I mention that you suck?
posted by Daddy-O at 9:33 PM on April 16, 2009

First off, anyone who has a clue about what "socialism" really means understands that it is being bandied about by people who have no idea what they are talking about.

The idea that 'socialism', or any word for that matter, actually means something specific and essential is a fallacy. The meaning of a word is its usage, which shifts from context to context. When TARP is called a 'socialist' program, it is a means of criticizing government bailouts of private industry, as in "privatize the profits, socialize the loss". The criticism that Obama is pursuing a socialist agenda is partly referring to his willingness to bailout private industry and partly to his desire to expand the social safety net. There's nothing in either of these usages that implies the speakers "have no idea what they are talking about". Socialist states have larger safety nets than the U.S. and the state run industries pass their losses on to the taxpayer. The connections seem clear and fair to me.

And why don't you prove that the Tea Parties and such actually ARE organic, grassroots, populist uprisings?

Huh? I'm saying that I have no reason to doubt that things are as they seem. You claim they are otherwise, and when I ask for evidence you tell me to prove that things are as they seem. You know that's completely ass-backwards, right? On top of that minor point, I didn't make any claims about the Tea Parties at all, only that it seems reasonable to take the claims of those pushing for state sovereignty at face value. As far as the Tea Parties go, most of your evidence is more soberly interpreted as Fox and its idiotic commentators acting out of their own self interest and the Republicans desperately trying to adjust to new circumstances. I'm not seeing any puppet master here. If you want to show that, you need this caliber of evidence.
posted by BigSky at 9:36 PM on April 16, 2009

It seems instructive that few states were willing to secede until shots were already being fired in South Carolina.

Most of the states seceded well before Fort Sumter. South Carolina seceded in December 1860. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana seceded in January 1861. Texas seceded in February. The southern part of New Mexico territory (which included Arizona at the time) seceded in March.

Virginia seceded in April 1861 after the April 15 attack on Fort Sumter. Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina seceded in May.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:34 PM on April 16, 2009

I'm pretty much not interested in the "rights" of people who support slavery.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:37 PM on April 16 [2 favorites +] [!]

He espoused a policy of extermination of women and children.

Correction: Confederate women and children. This makes them not real people but instead a treacherous race of subhuman rat-people. Think of them as nineteenth-century C.H.U.D.s.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 1:48 PM on April 16 [+] [!]

What a couple of disgusting hypocrites.
posted by Snyder at 10:48 PM on April 16, 2009

What a couple of disgusting hypocrites.

Your liberal sensibilities and self-righteousness are more important to you than the essential human rights of human beings who were and are owned as property. Supporters of slavery do not have a different opinion which we can all argue about in a dignified way and pretend we're all decent people while we deep-down believe that we're really the better party. They were and are monsters, undeserving of moral consideration.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:22 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Snyder I could be wrong, but I think Optimus Chyme was being snide towards us more bloodthirsty anti-Confederate types.
posted by sotonohito at 10:01 AM on April 17, 2009

The idea that 'socialism', or any word for that matter, actually means something specific and essential is a fallacy. The meaning of a word is its usage, which shifts from context to context.

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'

posted by Chrysostom at 11:21 AM on April 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

wierdo And personally? I think states should have the right to secede, although it should require a high bar. They'd be dumb for doing so, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed. A people should have the right of self determination.
Hell, sections of states should also be allowed to become new states or be annexed into other states if they so choose. I just don't see what's so great about the seemingly permanent nature of our political boundaries.

I couldn't agree more. I have no love for modern-day "Confederates" who bandy battle flags on their pick-ups, and no sympathy for the idea of slavery. That war did set in place a huge precedent for the role of the Federal Government dictating to the states that has only ever increased in pace ever since. Frankly, at this point, the whole notion of states as individual political entities seems outdated.
posted by paisley henosis at 2:16 PM on April 17, 2009

My uber-liberal pacifist aunt and uncle moved to Richardson about fifteen years ago, and now they're encouraging their son to join the military.

An old friend of mine who voted Nader in 2000 moved to Austin, and now complains about how people who are stupid and lazy can get something to eat.

My brother moved to Dallas for school, and came back talking about how MLK, Jr. wanted black people to enslave and rule over white people.

So, uh, fuck Texas.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:58 PM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

hillabeans I live in Amarillo TX, and have for most of my life.

I like the weather and the scenery here, its a bit on the barren side for some people but I like it.

But I couldn't stand living anywhere smaller than Amarillo, and Amarillo is pretty damn small (circa 200k). I used to have a job that required me to drive all over the Panhandle, so I've spent a fair amount of time in the smaller places. And the word "shithole" was coined to describe them.

According to the Texas State Demographer [1] 50% of the towns with a population under 1,000 will completely vanish in the next twenty years, and it isn't hard to see why. Life there sucks to a degree that is difficult to exaggerate. Jobs are scarce, and what few jobs exist pay shit. You've got to drive to "the big city", that'd be Amarillo, to buy any tech, or any "exotic" groceries like ramen or white rice. And the social attitudes there are Neanderthal. It was, let us not forget, small town Tulia TX that gave us one of the most obscenely crooked "drug investigations" in recent history, one that resulted in around 1/3 of all black men in Tulia being arrested, and imprisoned, on trumped up drug charges. And their white neighbors knew damn well they were framed, and voted to re-elect the thugs who put them behind bars after the lies and fraud were brought to light.

So, yeah, the majority of the land mass *IS* made up of tiny shithole towns full of ignorant shitkickers.

I can't blame the ignorant shitkickers as much as I'd like, crushing poverty coupled with one of the worst education systems in America doesn't exactly contribute to a well rounded personality. But regardless of the cause, its the truth that the small towns in Texas are vile shitholes that are hemorrhaging population to the bigger towns as people there realize just how lousy life in small town Texas really is.

[1] And wouldn't that be a cool job?
posted by sotonohito at 7:02 PM on April 17, 2009

So, uh, fuck Texas.

Where do you live? I know people from there who suck. So fuck that place, the place where you live.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:18 PM on April 17, 2009

The meaning of a word is its usage, which shifts from context to context.

Sure. Like "torture" and "slam dunk."
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:39 PM on April 17, 2009

So, yeah, the majority of the land mass *IS* made up of tiny shithole towns full of ignorant shitkickers.

I can't blame the ignorant shitkickers as much as I'd like, crushing poverty coupled with one of the worst education systems in America doesn't exactly contribute to a well rounded personality. But regardless of the cause, its the truth that the small towns in Texas are vile shitholes that are hemorrhaging population to the bigger towns as people there realize just how lousy life in small town Texas really is.

I've been chewing on this piece of cud for about two days, now, and I think I'm done ruminating. You have a point as regards our education system, and the short end of the stick that small-town folks get, there. I agree to that extent with your comment. I can't abide by the notion that they're "shithole towns full of ignorant shitkickers," as originally posted way up there towards the top of the thread.

The only one of these towns I've done any even short-term living in is Utopia, so I'm not utterly qualified to give the definitive statement on small-town Texas life, but I just can't for the life of me find them all to be that objectionable. Life may be difficult and dull compared to city life, but I've met quite a few people who have tried both and prefer small-town living, and I have not found their position unreasonable. Sure, there's a few places I haven't cared for (mostly the mid-size towns -- Fort Stockton, Midland/Odessa, Longview, Temple, College Station, Waco and a lot of the exurbs), but I'm just going to list a few places in Texas that I've spent time in, just absolutely love, and have met fine people in -- just to get it off my chest.

Tyler. LaGrange. Bastrop. Gonzales. Lockhart. Luling. Goliad. Victoria. Leaky. Vanderpool. Rocksprings. Sabinal. Fort Davis. Marfa. Marathon. Alpine. Llano. San Saba. Johnson City. Fredericksbug. Kerrville. Mason. Harper. Burnet. Brackettville. Camp Wood. Medina. Kendalia. Port Aransas. Rockport. Sinton. Galveston. Hempstead. Brenham. Elgin. Waxahachie. Corsicana. Hillsboro. Hamilton. Hico. Stephenville. Blanco. Bandera. Boerne. Wimbereley. Sandersen. Balmorhea. Sonora. Ozona.

I could go on and write a paragraph, or perhaps a book, on how I slowly came to love rural Texas after moving here from San Francisco in my teens, but I'm getting a rite strong hankerin' to go on a drive, and I can't afford the gas.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:03 PM on April 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Has anyone on this board even been to Texas besides those who flocked away in bitterness?

We didn't flock away in bitterness. We flocked away in shame.
posted by greekphilosophy at 10:58 PM on April 17, 2009

Dallas Morning News:

House members virtually wiped out Gov. Rick Perry's office budget Friday in order to help veterans and the mentally ill.

With little debate, the House on a voice vote approved erasing 96 percent of the nearly $24 million that budget writers had recommended for Perry's office operation over the next two years.

Some Democrats cast the House's move as a rebuke of the governor's recent comments about Texas seceding from the Union.

"That's the headline: 'Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget,'" said Appropriations Committee vice chairman Richard Raymond, D-Laredo.

Some Republicans disagree with that assessment, and I'm sure much of the money will be restored to the governor's budget eventually. Still, I loved seeing this. Texas truly has the best legislature money can buy.
posted by grouse at 6:31 PM on April 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is somewhat of a double edged-sword, however, because it effectively means that only wealthy persons need attempt to run for office.

There is a third edge to that sword, called corruption. But then, when you figure that absent a special session, they're only here to plague us for 100 days every two years, it's not that bad of a deal. They can go home to their car dealerships, law offices, etc. for over a year & a half between sessions, so it's not like they've got to live on that.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:40 PM on April 18, 2009

The criticism that Obama is pursuing a socialist agenda is partly referring to his willingness to bailout private industry and partly to his desire to expand the social safety net. There's nothing in either of these usages that implies the speakers "have no idea what they are talking about". Socialist states have larger safety nets than the U.S. and the state run industries pass their losses on to the taxpayer. The connections seem clear and fair to me.

You confuse "socialist" with "human."

Good humans care for their neighbour.

When the world was much, much less populated, this meant that if your neighbour hurt himself, you'd do what you could to ensure he could survive the loss of productivity — tend his cows, collect the eggs, share what you could. For most of history for most of humanity, we lived in small communities where we all had to pull together or die together.

We live in very large societies now, and we have jobs that are no longer directly related to our food sources. We can't go collect the neighbours eggs for him: there are no chickens over there. Heck, most of the time we don't really know our neighbours. Yet the same rule applies: we either pull together or die together. The world has nukes now.

Instead of our safety net being provided by proximate neighbours, we must ensure that our neighbour has access to a health and welfare safety through other means.

Now we could argue about whether the bank bailout qualifies as some sort of socialist botchup, I've no problem with that. But to throw the "social safety net" into the same category is to say that you do not care for your neighbour. And good humans do care for their neighbour — even if that neighbour is a stranger a thousand miles away, because that stranger is a fellow citizen. We pull together or die together as a country.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:24 PM on April 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Flunkie: "You people of the South don't know what you are doing." - William Tecumseh Sherman

oaf: So quoting war criminals is cool now?

Ironmouth: War criminal? Destroying the war-making power of criminal, slave-holding traitors and freeing their slaves isn't a war crime. Only in the feverish imaginations of the"Confederates in the Attic" crowd.

nola: And that's all that happened kids, well that and BURNING ATLANTA TO THE GROUND...

You are all missing the point. Sherman was a hero because he saved lives. He killed almost no one in his march - he didn't have to - and that was his supreme value as a commander.

My great-great-great-grandfather, General James Johnston of Virginia, was a Southern general during the civil war. At the armistice, he met William Sherman, who he'd long admired and wanted the chance to talk with. He told Sherman what he thought: that Sherman had done something admirable and beautiful by finding and pursuing a way to win the civil war without simply inflicting massive casualties. You may buy into the Gone With The Wind hysteria if you like, and I appreciate that some people just admire and value Southern architecture, but the fact of the matter is that leaving the principal wealth of the South - namely, its people - intact while bringing the conflict to an end was an act of supreme mercy.

Sherman and General Johnston became fast friends; so much so that when, some time later, Sherman died, Johnston, against the wishes of his family, insisted on acting as a pallbearer at Sherman's funeral. In an odd twist of fate, it rained at Sherman's funeral, and James Johnston contracted pneumonia and died. I don't believe in calling acts of god 'punishments,' but you can imagine what was said about him.

In any case, seeing William Tecumseh Sherman either as a righteous soldier valiantly killing traitors or as a horrible butcher slaughtering innocents misses the point of his strategy. Anyone intelligent - Sherman was - knew at that point of the war that arguments about who was 'righteous' or 'innocent' meant very, very little; both sides, deep down, had once loved each other; they were countrymen. What mattered most was ending the quarrel, and burning down every structure he saw slowly and methodically was a brilliant way to do so quickly without causing massive casualties. Anyone who thinks that Sherman was a butcher ought to compare his body counts to, say, the battle of Gettysburg or the battle of Antietam; they're miniscule in comparison. It's really quite shocking that he so quickly came up with a way to make these men stop fighting.
posted by koeselitz at 8:32 AM on April 19, 2009 [6 favorites]

Your liberal sensibilities and self-righteousness are more important to you than the essential human rights of human beings who were and are owned as property. Supporters of slavery do not have a different opinion which we can all argue about in a dignified way and pretend we're all decent people while we deep-down believe that we're really the better party. They were and are monsters, undeserving of moral consideration.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:22 AM on April 17 [1 favorite +] [!]

This means you believe in an invasion and total war against Mauritania, right?

Your desire to jerk off to war porn are more important to you than any desire for human rights moral consideration you pay lip service to. You spend more time in finding people you can feel morally superior to so you can dream of killing, raping, and plundering from them then you do actually thinking about what "moral consideration" means or thinking about ramifications of your actions, or even what effective actions might be. You've absorbed no knowledge or empathy on human suffering because you're so god-damned rapturous about the idea of inflicting it, making you a cousin of those who advocate the torture and wholesale destruction of terrorists and Islamists, people who believe in treating 50% of humanity like chattel, because those to "...are monsters, undeserving of moral consideration."
posted by Snyder at 11:37 AM on April 19, 2009

In any case, seeing William Tecumseh Sherman either as a righteous soldier valiantly killing traitors or as a horrible butcher slaughtering innocents misses the point of his strategy. Anyone intelligent - Sherman was - knew at that point of the war that arguments about who was 'righteous' or 'innocent' meant very, very little; both sides, deep down, had once loved each other; they were countrymen. What mattered most was ending the quarrel, and burning down every structure he saw slowly and methodically was a brilliant way to do so quickly without causing massive casualties.

I think that's a great point. Sherman didn't appear to be interested in satiating the bloodlust of the idle, but in winning a war, and there, you do what you must, no more, and certainly no less. Sherman made no bones about the horror of war, but he pursued it, not to satisfy some notion of his moral superiority bringing righteous vengeance to subhumans, but to win a war. With all the quoting of Sherman, I'll contribute this:

"I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting - its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers. You, too, have seen these things, and I know you are also tired of the war, and are willing to let the civil tribunals resume their place. And, so far as I know, all the fighting men of our army want peace; and it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."
posted by Snyder at 11:57 AM on April 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

Snyder, buddy, take a step back from the computer and see a shrink. You have some pretty serious projection and rage issues going, and that simply isn't helpful.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2009

Oh please. Concern troll elsewhere.
posted by Snyder at 2:37 PM on April 19, 2009

Houston, We Have a Solution
posted by dersins at 4:07 PM on April 23, 2009

Texas is only 6000 years old!
posted by homunculus at 10:56 AM on May 6, 2009

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