Texas Wants to Secede? DO IT! You've Got My Vote.

Steve Benen does a great job smacking down the latest secessionist nonsense coming out of Texas Governor Rick Perry.

There's Perry's rhetoric...

"I believe the federal government has become oppressive. It's become oppressive in its size, its intrusion in the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. [...]

"We think it's time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas. That's what this press conference, that's what these Texans are standing up for. There is a point in time where you stand up and say enough is enough, and I think Americans, and Texans especially have reached that point."

... and there's Perry's reality.

Governor Rick Perry, five days ago: Governor Perry Calls FEMA To Assist With Wildfires

Governor Rick Perry, last month: Governor Perry Calls For 1,000 Troops To Be Sent To Border

Governor Rick Perry, five months ago: Governor Perry Requests 18 Month Extension Of Federal Aid For Ike Debris Removal

I think Benen misses the larger point: Why can't we just let Texas and the whole godforsaken South secede and get all this recurring idiotic bullshit over and done with once and for all? I am so sick and tired of being treated to their once-per-decade explosions of rightwing victimology and paranoia. Let the ignorant antebellums and appalachians form their own third-world failed state named Jesusland on our borders... In the final analysis, I think everyone would be better off.

Update: Glenn Beck thinks secession is a super idea:

"Does the state have any right anymore? And I know, because I've heard it from all of the conservative, uh, you know, uh, the historians and scholars and everything else, but you can't convince me that the founding fathers wouldn't allow you to secede. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. And if a state says, 'I don't want to go there because that's suicide,' they have a right to back out. They have a right. People have a right to not commit economic suicide.

"I believe it was Davy Crockett, that as he was standing there in the well of the Senate and they were all yelling and screaming at him, he said -- he looked them right square in the eye and said, 'Hey, you know what? You can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas.' About time somebody says that again.

"You're telling me that states can't say 'Washington, we're not going to commit suicide with you'"?

This brings up a good point -- by forming Jesusland, we will be able to deport loony fuckers like Beck and Michelle Malkin there.

Update 2: Here's Michael Tomasky's three cents:

Secede! If that's how you feel, just get out of the union. Texas has been (in political terms, not necessarily cultural ones) a greasy white zit in the middle of America's nose ever since Dwight Eisenhower warned the rest of us about crazy Texas millionaires in 1954. Today, it's still Texas billionaires who finance insane right-wing smear campaigns on a regular basis.

This one state has done more than any other to retard progress in our recent history. The swift-boaters, much of the money to finance Reagan's contra war, Karl Rove, the Bushes...all Texas.

If it left, those billionaires and Rove and the Bushes could run the new republic. Fine. Drive it into the ground instead of America. Secession would also produce 34 fewer Republican electoral votes, meaning either that a) no Republican would ever win a presidential election again or b) one might, but he or she would have to moderate his/her positions so much that they'd make Nelson Rockefeller look like Grover Norquist, in which case GOP rule wouldn't be so hideous at all. And about 20 or so fewer wingnuts in the House of Representatives.

Of course, there are a lot of good liberals in Texas fighting the good fight. My sympathies are with them. But really folks. Just move north. You'll like it better anyway. Or maybe the good guys will find a way to Austin, and we'll build a subway line down to you or something. After all, without Texas to worry about, we'll be spending money on infrastructure to beat the band.