While walking through the Breezeway, I heard somebody ask his friend outside of the Rat, “Hey, did you hear about Texas trying to secede from the U.S.?”
His friend slurred out the response, “Good. We should secede from Obama’s socialist country.”
It took me a while to wrap my head around this exchange of stupidity, because admittedly, this was the first I had ever heard of it.
What the two students were talking about is a petition on the White House’s “We The People” website where anybody can start an initiative, and if it gains more than 25,000 electronic signatures, the White House has to release an official response to it.
The petition to “peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government” has gained more than 114,000 signatures, making it by far the most successful petition on the site.
Too many people have been watching the new “Lincoln” movie, because secession is in the air. There have been petitions filed from all 50 states to secede, and in response to the original Texas petition, Austin and El Paso have asked to secede from Texas.
Allow this to be an open letter to anyone who has supported the petition: Don’t let the door hit you on your way out. If you think that you’re better off on your own, then prove us all wrong. To the rest of the country you look insane. Asking to secede from the U.S. because Mitt Romney wasn’t elected is like trying to emancipate yourself from your parents because you didn’t get a pony for your birthday.
Supporters of the petition point to its 114,000 signatures as a reason for legitimacy. But again, anyone can start a petition on this website for absolutely anything. The petition states that Texas maintains a balanced budget, and that if Texas was an independent entity, it would have the 15th largest economy in the world.
If anyone honestly believes Texas’ economy could succeed without the backing of the U.S. government, they need to get their heads checked.
Texas should be honored to be part of this nation. We are the greatest nation on Earth, and we will continue to be for a long time to come. We are the superpower. You know the saying, “When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold?” Nobody has ever said that about Texas.
And if those in Texas are expecting some great plea from the country of, “no, please baby, don’t go,” they shouldn’t hold their breath.
So to all of those in the great state of Texas who have to share their state limits with such morons, I’m sorry. And to anyone signing the petition, please feel free to leave whenever you’d like.
Robert Pursell is a senior majoring in journalism.