I always think nothing could surprise me anymore, but they keep surprising me.

I think it's a great idea.  They'd be like a DMZ between us and Mexico.
We can work out a deal with Chavez for the oil and look @ all of the crooks we'd be dumping in the meantime.  Spooks, bullies and swagger.

Read the threads on Red State or Free Republic. The comments vary from the minimalist, Texas has this right based on x, y and z. Or the Union isn't a suicide pact. Many non-Texans urge Texas to do it and they'll move or suggest that if Texas does secede then surely LA, SC, GA etc will follow. I haven't looked at it but there's a story on the Georgia Senate voting on or considering some secessionist manifesto.

To be blunt, we are already self-sorting. There has been a tendency over the past 20-30 years to move locals that fit our mindset better. Thus for example gays have flocked out of their small towns and small cities first to NY, SF, LA and Chicago but now even to smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Memphis. But even within a city, there has been self-sorting some of it obviously from economic necessity. In SF for example lesbians have found themselves priced out of the Castro and first gravitated over to Noe Valley but as that has gotten more expensive, Bernal Heights has become increasingly lesbian. The Mission especially along the Valencia corridor has become an bohemian artist enclave. These patterns of migration, a semi-conscious self-sort are fundamentally changing the country. No doubt the Mid-Atlantic, the Northeast and the Mid-West have been the biggest net losers of population since 1970. While at first the South's population gains gave the GOP increasing clout, the demographic patterns of migration plus the impact of immigration are on the cusp of changing the politics of a number of states like VA, NC and CO.

One of the more interesting things about Texas is its level of "stickiness". Texas has the highest proportion of native born residents still living in-state past the age of 18. 78.3%. Alaska not surprising has the lowest (DC is lower but it is not a state) at 28.2%.

The self-sort is down almost to the level of block. We are more like our neighbors than not. We tend to vote almost identically and we buy the same products. All very convenient if you want to make predictions on behavior. Look at Prop 8 voting patterns just within SF and it just astounds you. No area was 50% v 50%. The numbers were overwhelming in one direction or another.

Probably worth exploring in post.  

This whole thing is devilishly funny and profoundly sad at the same time.

I'm left scratching my head at the obscene paradox and hypocrisy of their positions, but more than that-- I'm baffled by the sheer absence  of alternative, moderate voices of sensible conservatives to challenge the hardening narrative.  They must know that (a) this is not the way to regain electoral advantage, (b) this is just nuts.  In the spirit of teabagging, I ask-- don't they have the balls for the necessary intraparty civil war?  (Talk about fascism.)

as

   "You can't convince me that the founding fathers wouldn't allow you to secede. The constitution is not a suicide pact. ... [States] have a right to back out."

sure doesn't sound like a Lincoln Republican. Leave it to Obama to play the Lincoln role in this crazy GOP re-enactment

Oh, just go.

I'm sick of the Southren states threatening to run away from home if they don't get their way, their pouting pity parties that have gone on for over 150 tyears.

Yeah, yeah, lots of blues live there too and yadda yadda.

But I'm sick of blue state taxes supporting racism and militias and every other stupidity imaginable.

The South held the Democrats in their thrall until they upped and went Republican and bullied the rest of the country with their backward values for waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

Now they're the back rump of beyond with no power and their threats are empty, so I suggest we say "Bye!" and pack them a lunch.

They'll be home by dinner with an apology.

If the loyalty of Texas is in doubt, national security would require that we close all DoD bases there like Fort Hood, and suspend all defense contractor spending there.

The majority of my fellow Texans are ignorant or they would not have elected Bush and Perry as governors; but hey Bush was also elected by an almost majority to be president. Texans however are not stupid enough to try to succeed merely because of all the military bases and forts.

As most Texas high school graduates, those who did not drop out at 16 to work the farm and lately to pursue a life of crime, have been taught in civics classes that the Republic of Texas reserved the privilege to split  into 5 states when it was admitted into the US by a joint resolution of Congress.  I have never had access to study the joint resolution or documentation by the republic when it requested and accepted annexation.  The question must be, what were the details of the provision for splitting the state into two or more states.

After the Civil War, Texas along with other confederate states was granted statehood and adopted new constitutions.  

Does Texas being readmitted supersede  the original joint resolution that originally admitted Texas to the US?  This would obviously be a matter to be settled by courts.

And finally, the joke book Texas Brags (subtitled, The Joke's On Texas) claims that Texas could never be split, because none of the resulting states would ever give up the right to contain the Alamo within its borders.
Does any other state actually have its own joke book!
   

I've provided some commentary about this insanity: http://natchgreyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/ governor-perrys-secessionist-talk.html

But, overall I think that The Hill is right, this might be a stunt to pull support from Sen. Hutchinson's bid for Gov.  I doubt it'll work, considering he's proposing treason.