Via the AP: Gov. Rick Perry: Texas Could Secede, Leave Union
“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”
Look, I am a proud ex-pat Texan who understands the bravado that comes with being a Texan, especially when it comes to pride over the state’s one-time status as the Republic. Further, I don’t think that Perry is actually suggesting secession. Having said all of that: this is careless, pandering, silly-talk.
Perry has already engaged in posturing over stimulus funds and is getting ready for a very serious primary challenge from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The Dallas Morning News also reported the quote (Thousands show up for Dallas ‘tea party’; Rick Perry fires up rallies) and also noted the following:
“They’re overturning the rights we had one by one, making choices that would leave our founding fathers scratching their heads,” he said.Perry recalled a line by Sam Houston: “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression.”
What rights? Some specificity, please.
Such rhetoric, especially the bit about “overturning the rights we had one by one” fits exactly what I was talking about yesterday when I said the Tea Parties are Talk Radio made manifest and how that is infecting the Republican Party writ large. One expects the drive time radio guy to rant about such things, not the Governor of the second largest state in the union.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:23 am
It strikes me that this is part of the new “politics of the vague,” pioneered by George Lakoff and used to great success by Barack Obama.
Rather than having positions and a platform, Obama demonstrated that debates can be framed solely with single words and sentence fragments. By using “hope,” “change,” and “yes, we can” as if they were political positions, Obama allowed voters to project upon those words whatever they wished. Hope for what? Change to what? Yes we can do what? If Obama had clearly articulated what it was he was representing, he would have lost a great deal of the electorate (though perhaps not the election, depending).
In this new politics of the vague, specificity is undesirable. If the next Republican presidential candidate has any sense at all, his campaign posters will simply have his face with the word “RIGHTS” on it. So long as he can avoid stating what rights he’s talking about, he might win the next election.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Perry’s a windbag. Embarrassing.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:17 am
You know, I do wonder if any of this has to do with the primary challenge he might be getting from Kay Bailey Hutchinson in 2010. The talk radio rhetoric might sound crazy, but it will get certain elements of the primary base on his side. (Not to mention the Kinky Friedman people with the talk about Texas).
April 16th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I think that all of this is, in fact, primarily (no pun intended) about Hutchison.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
WHAT rights? You want specificity? How about:
1. The right to private property? (vs. “wealth redistribution” and government control of private industries?)
2. The right to keep the money we earn and make our own choices about how it is spent (or NOT spent)?
3. The right to freely assemble? (People with a legal permit who tried to stack 1 million tea bags across from the White House yesterday were forced to leave and told they did not have the “right” permit.)
4. The right to free speech? (Homeland Security now considers those of us who believe in states’ rights vs federal power, as established by our Constitution, to be “extremists.” And of course anyone who dares criticize the policies of this administration is res ipsa loquitur a racist.)
5. The right to a free press (which includes radio)? (Though popular sentiment against the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” was so strong that only 11 Senators went on record in favor of it, the back-door strategy in Sen. Dick Durbin’s amendment wil accomplish the same goal of shutting down nationally syndicated conservative and Christian talk radio by limiting radio station ownership and allowing government [FCC] enforcement of “diversity” in programming. Whatever happened to “I might not agree with what he said, but I’ll defend to the death his right to say it”?)
I could go on; those rights are just off the top of my head…
April 16th, 2009 at 11:24 am
MLEnglish:
*sigh*
1. We have had a tax code that engages in some redistribution for quite some time. Nothing has changed. And last time I checked, the companies in questions have asked for assistance or have been taken over under bank insurance provisions to protect depositors.
2. Again, the tax code hasn’t changed, and the only proposal on the table affects only 1 bracket at a level that we had in the 90s.
3. There were assemblies all over the country yesterday. And the First Amendment doesn’t grant the right to dump stuff on public property.
4. I covered that one on Tuesday.
5. I oppose the Fairness Doctrine–but would also point out that it is not going to happen. In case you haven’t noticed, no programming has been shut down.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
It’s weird how ML English seems to have posted his comment in an exasperated tone as if it’s so obvious. He truly believes that stuff. This whole tea bag thing is creepy to me and comments like ML English’s only reinforces that feeling for me.
Steven, I think you’re completely right about the Talk Radio made manifest thing. What an odd development.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Is it only patriotic to be patriotic when the GOP is dominant party?
In a time of two wars we have a governor suggesting succession from the union?
Suppose that had been suggested by a Democratic governor in 2003 as Texas’s favorite son committed the Nation, the blood of its finest and a trillion dollars to a discretionary war with hazy objectives?
How long do you think it would take Fox news, Rush Limbaugh,Insanity Hanity, Karl Rove, Washington Times etc during the Bush years to have sung a chorus of “traitor” “subversive” “anti-troop” ?
Our soldiers are serving and dying under the flag of our nation – not under the banner of some ex-governor & ex- president from Texas.
How quickly one forgets patriotism and the urgency of solidarity in the face of the enemy (or forgets the enemy entirely) when political or financial opportunism calls.
Despicable.
We have major problems looming around the bend. A spent thrift Congress and President with unrealistic goals could make matters much much worse – especially in the wake of 8 years of a spent thrift Congress and unrealistic President.
The Tea Parties are good to the extent that they provide a forum to express public concern for Congressional drunken sailor spending (7 years late to the party but those were GOP years – deficits didn’t count).
But the near-hysterical Republican fear mongering chronicled here in recent posts is extremely deleterious IMO because it distracts from serious discussion of policy. All the rancor is good for those who profit from political turmoil (Rush etc – and some politicians) but it diverts attention away from the nitty gritty decision items which may shape our economic future.
Indeed, the Democrats are once again throwing out looney comments from Rush & other sore losers on the Right as inducement to support the “economic rescue” agenda – obviating the messy task of justifying outlandish expenditures.
Hopefully some middle-of-the-roaders or a bi-partisan coalition of fiscally responsible leaders will capture the stage when the Tea-Parties and Socialist alarmists flame out.