Heard the one about Texas?

There has been an almost universal reaction in the halls of Congress to Texas Gov.

[Taxpayer]

Texas: Business friendly, no income tax, castle doctrine and CCW permits, low crime, low unemployment, and no deficit.

And our President has chosen the Illinois model instead.

Someone is having a pretty good laugh.

[Ivory Dove]

Actually, Texans do have to pay federal income tax,
as well as sales tax on non-food items. El Paso,
Abilene and rural areas have a low crime rate.
And those who don't mind hunting and/fishing for
dinner or growing food plants in their yard can do
that (as long as code compliance of their particular
city doesn't dig up the plants).

[Marty]

Texas has no problem being part of our union when it involves accepting federal aid for disaster relief. Next time a hurricane slams into the Gulf coast, let's see if Perry's backs up his half-baked pompous talk with action.

[Brandon P]

The only places Perry's comments will hurt him are in the city centers (Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso) where he wouldn't do well anyway. I did find Cornyn's comments interesting; one will notice, however, that he did not find the remarks 'laughable' as all the Democrats quoted did. Most people don't 'get' Texas. I, for one, am glad of it.

[ejhickey]

What is the difference between secession and political self determination? Is treason even a crime that is prosecuted any more in light of the John Walker Lindh and Jonathan Pollard cases? Eeven if Texas seceded does anyone seriously think that President Obama would send in troops to bring Texas back into the Union as was done by Lincoln? In other words would Obama really start a 2nd Civil War?

Is secession a viable alternative for towns like Palatine who want to secede from Cook County?

I think the case for secession has more legal and political credibility than many people think.

[NoConservativePr opaganda]

Gov. Perry is a joke, just like most republicans have become.

Succession? Go for it. Texas can go back to Mexico & do the USA a favor.

Start your "tea bag" revolution.

[Conspiracy Man]

Brandon P wrote:

Most people don't 'get' Texas. I, for one, am glad of it.

I lived in Texas for about a year and I did not get it.

I took a job in a Texas town of +/- 20,000 people in 1996. I moved from a northern state to in a land surveyor's office in this Texas town. One day shortly after I took the job, I took a phone call from a person who wanted a survey so that she could get a loan against the property. I took her information and after I hung up the phone and began to write up the order, I began to tell the owner of the firm about the order. He asked where the subject property was located and I gave him the address. He immediately said, "that is in the black part of town, we don't do surveys in the BLACK PART OF TOWN". I was flabbergasted and said "what?" He tried to calm me down and thought that I thought that he was mad at me. He said, "you just moved here, but after a little while, you will get to learn where the black side of town is". He then told me to call the woman back and tell her that we could not do the work. I told him that I just would not do that. He then became angry, grabbed the order, got the phone number, and called her back himself, right in front of me. He told her that we would not do the survey. He then gave me a lecture about how horrible it would be if surveyors would survey black people's property - they would be able to get loans on their property and that was apparently unthinkable to him.

This happened in 1996, not 1896. I had never lived in the South, but I was stunned to learn that something like this would actually happen anywhere in this country. I did not have the money to quit on the spot, but I immediately began to save my money to move back to Illinois. My boss was an otherwise personable and rational guy, but he acted shocked to see that anyone would ever think of surveying black peoples' property.

[Conspiracy Man]

ALSO

I moved to this Texas town from a northern state and had never been to the town. I got the job over the phone. When I pulled into town that day, my car still had license plates from the northern state I had come from. After unhitching my car from the moving truck, I decided to take a drive around my new town that I had never before seen. As I was driving around, I was pulled over by a policeman. He got out of his car, walked up behind my car and smashed out the tail light of my car with his flashlight. He then approached me and asked why I thought he had pulled me over. I responded, "because I have a tail light out." He said "thats right, and if I ever catch you driving through the BLACK PART OF TOWN again, you will wish that I didn't".

I explained to him my situation and did not know where the BLACK PART OF TOWN was located. He was kind enough to describe the boundaries of the BLACK PART OF TOWN to me, and sent me away with a ticket for the tail light.

In addition, I was pulled over in that car with the northern plates 3 times in the first week. My boss told me that this would continue until I got Texas plates and he let me take time off of work to go and get new plates.

If I had not actually gone through all of this myself, nobody could have ever convinced me that stuff like this could happen in modern America.

[Conspiracy Man]

FINALLY-

Before I could get my plates changed, I had parked (after lunch) in a spot illegally for an afternoon while I was working. In that short period of time, I had received 12 parking tickets. I went to court to see if I could get some of them thrown out, and the judge told me that only one ticket per offense was allowed and he (nicely) threw out 11 of the tickets. The judge also told me to get Texas plates so that this would not happen again.

After I got Texas plates, I was never bothered by the police again.

[Conspiracy Man]

One other thing-

The BLACK PART OF TOWN in that Texas town was literally a bunch of tar paper shacks with oil and chip roads. There were no curbs and gutters or sidewalks in these areas. My boss once told me that black people are too lazy to walk anywhere but down the middle of the streets. He said that the town council finally did something about the problem a few years earlier and made it illegal to walk on the roads. He laughed as he was telling me this, and said it gave the police a good reason to arrest troublemakers.

[Conspiracy Man]

My boss was a pillar of the community and was on the Chamber of Commerce and on the Planning and Zoning Committee. It was not like he was some backwoods hillbilly who had not caught up with the times.

I could not believe how openly racist people were in Texas. If they want to secede, we should make every effort to accomodate their wishes.

[NOTEX]

Tried to give Tx back to Mexico but they would not take it.

[greg]

Conspiracy Man wrote:

FINALLY-
Before I could get my plates changed, I had parked (after lunch) in a spot illegally for an afternoon while I was working. In that short period of time, I had received 12 parking tickets. I went to court to see if I could get some of them thrown out, and the judge told me that only one ticket per offense was allowed and he (nicely) threw out 11 of the tickets. The judge also told me to get Texas plates so that this would not happen again.
After I got Texas plates, I was never bothered by the police again.

i lived in the midland/odessa area and jasper for 5+ years. they're still fighting the civil war in their own little way. i always used to hear "you dam yankees came down here and freed all our rats" (boo hoo hoo, now you gotta work)!!!

[Conspiracy Man]

Susan in Buffalo Grove wrote:

<quoted text>
After reading this wonderful tidbit of info, I only have one question about Texas:
How soon are they leaving?[Can't be soon enough for me!]

I do not mean to portray all of Texas as conforming to my experiences in one small town. I do not pretend to have enough knowledge or experience with the state to be able to make such a blanket statement. All I am saying is that this stuff actually happened and I was shocked at how matter-of-factly it was taken by the people who were involved.

[Conspiracy Man]

greg wrote:

<quoted text> i lived in the midland/odessa area and jasper for 5+ years. they're still fighting the civil war in their own little way. i always used to hear "you dam yankees came down here and freed all our rats" (boo hoo hoo, now you gotta work)!!!

I heard stuff like that a lot. I was near the East Texas oilfields that were still feeling teh effect of the oil collapse in the 1980s. There was a popular bumper sticker that said "I DON'T CARE HOW YOU DID IT BACK UP NORTH". I was really surprised to find that the Civil was was actually still very much alive in the minds of people down there. I mean, up here it is kind of taken as a joke, but we really don't go around thinking about ways to gloat about our victory to the losing side. Many people (but cetainly not all of them) in Texas are still very self-conscious about the fact that they lost, but northerners do not really go around wearing it on our sleeves as a source of pride - we don't ever think about it. Many southerners seem to take the Civil War as a rabid football fan would take the fact that his team lost last year's Superbowl on a last-minute, controversial call. It is that fresh in their minds.

[Conspiracy Man]

There was also another bumper sticker that was given out by a local radio station. The words on the slogan were written in suck a way that "KKK" was highlighted and stuck out from the rest of the letters in the slogan. I can't remember the slogan, but it was innocent enough that the station could say that they were not trying to have anything to do with the KKK, but when you saw it, the first thing that would pop into your mind was "KKK". It was quite popular, and I could not believe that so many people would put it on their car.

[Olsor]

As someone who grew up in Illinois and now lives in Texas, I am glad when people don't judge the population of a state based on the words, actions, or prison sentences of their governors.

And Conspiracy Man is right... there are parts of Texas that still act like the Civil War was never fought. Just like there are still parts of Illinois where the Klan has a presence.

But it's just so much easier to stereotype, isn't it?

[Natural gas]

Time to secede now. No Debate.

[Natural gas]

Conspiracy Man,

I have lived all over this country from wisconsin to illinois ,california and Florida. Texas is by far the most livable, desirable place to live in this country. The people are very warm,considerate and helpful. I live in an upper middle class place that has no crime ,home invasions or burglaries are non existent.Yes there are rednecks but I have NEVER seen racism of any kind. Perhaps you surrounded yourself with a bunch of transplanted Northerners. If you like no state taxes, a good economy,friendly people and lots of good weather and oppurtunities Texas is for you,if not stay where you are an deal with High taxes,crime and miserable weather.If Texas does secede someday many people will travel down here to live a quality life.

[geno]

Why does it just have to be Texas. Why can't the people here in Chicago get mad about our political system? We of anyone should be speaking of revolution.