I like to think that I know a little bit about Texas. Oh, it’s not that I am a Texan. Nor have I studied their culture in any great depth. Anything so academic would not provide a meaningful glimpse into the Texas psyche. In reality, I lived there for a few months while I was in basic training and tech school for the Air Force. I was their neighbor while living in the Ark-La-Tex region (Shreveport, LA) for five years. I was surrounded by Texas natives for ten years in the military (there’s an abnormal amount of them in the Air Force). So I can say that, though I never lived there for any meaningful length of time, I nonetheless got to know them a bit.
In that time I learned that they have the best cities. Just ask any Texan if you doubt this. They have the best beaches (sorry Florida, California, Hawaii, Barbados, and Cancun – again if you doubt this, just ask them – they’ll swear that their beaches trump all). They have the best music (with apologies given to New Orleans Jazz, Memphis Blues; etc). They are rich in resources. There women are the finest, and the biggest coiffed, in America. Their food is the greatest. Any Texan will swear that a Santa Barbara Tri-Tip is like Spam in comparison to a Texas brisket. If you really want to get them going, simply tell them you prefer North Carolina BBQ or a Memphis Rub to anything a Texas grill can put out! And lest we forget, they are perhaps best known for saving America again and again from our own errant ways by providing us with a veritable swarm of politicians raised in a unique cauldron of plain speaking, up by their own bootstrap swagger, and with a little dash (alright a whole dump truck full) of pomade.
Yes! They have given us such luminaries as the Bush family. Who could forget the quiet genius of George, George, and Jeb? Now some of you might protest that this family actually came from Connecticut, but the fact remains that the Texas gene seeped in and remains there today. This is also the same state that gave us Lyndon B Johnson! You remember, don’t you?
“We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” - 1964
There’s some of that Texas plain talk for you.
Of course, not being satisfied with this for their legacy, Texas has now given us Rick Perry and his smooth tongued ways that could only be rivaled by Porky Pig. In the meantime, State Representative Larry Taylor has now come out to remind us all about what not to say in front of a live mic! Of course, in his defense, he may very well have had a moment where he simply wanted to illustrate to the rest of us what might be considered a “bad term” as he called it immediately afterward. I suppose it is possible that he just picked the exact wrong time for this educational moment.
Indeed, the stars at night are big and bright…deep in the heart of Texas!…and so are their politicians’ mouths, and their hair.
So it is with the Texas political class in mind that I address this solution. You have so often reminded us of the legality of secession, particularly in your case. We have considered it long and hard, and we promise not to fight you if you want to go ahead and become your own nation. All we ask is that you immediately take your politicians with you and that you divide up with the rest of our 49 states the capital that has been invested into creating NASA, the Department of Defense and all the military bases that are currently in your state, as well as the funding for roads and other infrastructure; etc. all miscellaneous funds that have gone to you over the past fifty years. In return we will faithfully extradite any Texas politician after a 30 day eviction notice has been issued. You may take your vast wealth and your vapid politicians with you, and we will live as a true, modern family does…away from each other and in different countries.
This is perhaps the best option available at a time when you seem intent on flooding the rest of the United States with politicians that either drift into incoherent drivel or are guilty of racial slurs. As your great state does not seem to be too concerned about these issues, as long as you secede, and make it quick, we promise not to “mess with you.”
