On Dissolving the Union

Did you hear? Texas and fourteen other states are pulling out of the Union. That’s what they’re saying on Facebook anyway. Upon closer examination, what has actually happened is that individuals from fifteen states have filed petitions with the Obama administration to withdraw from the United States of America. In Texas, it is one Micah H. from Arlington who has filed the petition. I don’t know him. Other states are Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon and New York. Notice that there are some solidly Democrat states in that list.


That should tell you how silly this is. Even if these petitions have the 25,000 signatures needed “for consideration” (I have little doubt they will), these states are a long way from being able to pull out of the Union. 15th largest economy in the world or not, even Texas would have a lot of issues to resolve before it could safely pull out. First, there is the issue of voter approval. There are nearly 26 million people living in Texas, so 25,000 signatures is just a small percentage of the majority needed to pull out. Most of the voters are still proud Americans, even if they don’t like the way the last election went. And many of those voters get their income from Federal Government contracts or from businesses that have built up around companies getting money from those contracts. Every large population area in Texas would take a major blow economically and would likely lose many of its residents, if Texas were to pull out of the Union.


Second, what would Texas do to defend itself? In time, yes, it would be able to put together a military, but it could take several years. It is a very large border that Texas would have to defend.


I could go on, but the point is that Obama will be out of office before Texas could be ready to pull out of the Union. And pulling out doesn’t really solve the problem. The problem isn’t the people who are being elected (not completely anyway), the problem is the people who are electing them. We seem to have forgotten that is is “We the people” who are the government of the United States. Splitting up the Union doesn’t do anything to convince the voters to make the right decisions.

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