Thursday, November 15, 2012

Thoughts on Secession in 2012



Dear Mr. President,

I understand that a number of folks in several states in our union are unhappy that you won reelection to the Presidency. These states have citizens who have signed petitions to secede from our nation’s union. I’d like to help you out here. The following is a suggestion for an address that you might offer to our nation on this topic. By all means, do feel free to have the folks in the black suits airdropped from black helicopters seize all television, cable, radio and Internet operating centers to ensure that each citizen in our citadel of freedom has the opportunity to watch, listen to and digest this message.

With Warm Regards and Unflinching Support,

Steven C. Solomon


To: President Barack Obama
Fr: SCS
Re: Go F^*k Off Texas
Dt: 11/15/2012

Please pass this on to your staff, Mr. President. I believe it is a dandy concept, at least a sketch of a speech that needs to be made.

“My fellow Americans, I interrupt this baseball game (Kathy Lee and Hoda, soap opera, idiots yammering on Fox News, etc and whatever) to bring you an important message. It has come to my attention that a number of folks in several states of America are sore about the fact that a guy with a funny name and is supposedly black or not and born in America or Kenya, is an atheist and Islamic, a transexual married to a man and a woman, and is a communist who wants to kill your grandmother is still President. Okay. That makes total sense. Nobody likes to lose a race of any kind. Now you want to secede from the United States of America

In any case, I will focus my remarks today on the state of Texas for the sake of simplicity. I understand that you folks in the red states require any help that I can provide in terms of focus and keeping things simple. I am, after all, the Chief Executive of Helping Explain the Obvious to Cranky Idiots. So, here goes!

Now, Texas, you can petition the Congress to secede. I’ll begin with the upsides of letting you do just that. Then I will move on to the counter argument.

Well, first, please write Uncle Sam a check for your portion of the national debt. We’d also like the roads, bridges, ports and airports we built back. Pack up the military bases and all the folks that work at and for them. You have an outstanding account regarding your citizens’ payments to Social Security, FICA and Medicare/Medicaid since the date of your declaration of secession. You need to settle up on that. Oh, and what about the bills due on support for your substandard and ill administrated systems of higher and K-12 education. Also, we want all the food back that we bought for your poor, as well as the medication for the disabled since you decided to break up our relationship.

Then there is the matter of subsidies to your oil and chemical industries. They might prefer to move their operations elsewhere in a more profitable economic climate. Mexico might look good. On the other hand, maybe Mexico would prefer to just buy the infrastructure and move their workers up your way. Yes, we know how much you’ve enjoyed that cheap labor, but now those guys will be your bosses.

Oh, you do get to keep the Alamo in this deal. Well, unless the new landlords tear it down to build condos for drug kingpins and former Latin American dictators. That will be your problem and the rest of your former nation will see about a trillion dollars returned to the Federal government. Yes, we downsized as you wished and are financially better for it.

Now, there is another way to scratch this itch that you have, this desire to reinstate the failed Republic of Texas. Let’s look to history as the issue presently on the table is not new. Indeed, it was settled by Congress, the Supreme Court, another tall, skinny guy with big ears in the Oval Office, and the most horrific war up to its point in history. Remember the Civil War? I’m a professor by training, so I’m going to give you a history lesson in terms that even folks challenged by a public system of education that teaches that Jesus rode around on dinosaurs and that the world is 6,659 years old can understand it.

So, forget about Honest Abe as the President. He’s a short order cook in this presentation. Picture old Gus at the Mope On Inn Diner. He knows how to whip up an omelet in a jiffy; a three egg omelet. He knows that you got to break the eggs to make that omelet.

The first egg is a vision that dates to the founders of this nation, The United States. Those folks back in 1776 had a concept for a nation that would be a democratic republic and span the entire continent to serve as a beacon of freedom for the entire globe. They saw the resurrection of an ideal not executed in two thousand years: free people sharing their commonwealth (think about that word) and collectively executing the will of the majority without trampling on the wishes of a minority.

The second egg is the notion that what this nation is about will never be altogether achieved but always strived for. We will always work toward that more perfect union that remains forever on the horizon as a goal. The nation had to be united and the our states indivisible lest we might as well have just thrown away that first egg.

The third egg was delivering the People’s franchise in those first two efforts. Everybody, every man and woman of whatever race, religion or no religion, wherever they came from on this planet or in this land had to have skin in the game. Else wise, those first two eggs got busted for nothing. Half a million folks would die in bloodshed beyond what any in Lincoln’s time could have yet imagined and half the nation would lay in utter ruin for no purpose. Thankfully, Lincoln was a fine short order cook.

So, Texas, here’s your omelet. Don’t worry about splashing it with pepper sauce. You can have extra onions if that pleases. Some folks like their’s with beans and tangy cheese. You can have it any way you want it, but you do have to sit with the other folks that amble into The Mope On Inn and abide by their chatter.

Thank you and good tidings to all in our United States.”