Texas Secession FAQ Archive name: texas-faq Author: ANUS staff Last Update: July 04, 2002 Contents I. Why II. Plan III. Methods IV. Resources Sections I. Why As the modern state of Texas finds itself rapidly being forced into conformity with the rules, cultural standards and expectations of the United States as an increasingly generic whole, our thoughts turn to the wisdom of our forbears who desired independent states collaborating in a larger treaty organization, not unlike Europe at the time of this writing. With the centralization of American government and society through the use of economics and media, our society has begun to transform itself into a global power with the corresponding obligations for its citizens and former free republics. Our view is that Texas' entry into the Union was a beneficial partner- ship for both parties involved. We provided more land and a military outpost against any nation entering through the Mexican border, and the United States would provide military protection and a trading partner. The same are still true, except that Texas provides now a large share of revenue in taxes and value-added manufacturing, intellectual property and agricultural output. Many raw materials come from Texas natural resources. Texas has contributed its share to the wealth of the United States. At this point in time, however, the United States also has massive revenue streams in other parts of the country, notably California and the east coast, which provide for it an entirely reasonable income for a superpower of its size, and demonstrate that while Texas is important it is not essential to the continuation of the U.S. economy. Our primary arguments are that decentralization provides advantages in long-term decision-making for the species as a whole, and that having a separate but friendly trading partner would strengthen the economy of the north American states. II. Plan Economy * Tariff-reduced trade between U.S. and Texas * Trade Texas-produced goods without value added tax * Texas would socialize economic utilities and raw materials * Texas will not tax, or VAT, outbound U.S. goods or raw materials. * Value-added tax on Mexican goods and products Culture * Texas benefits from national identity encouraging competing cultural development * We allow for different Texas cultures to be given statehood within Texas * Our school system will enter our most oft-quoted research into a computer network for use by Texas children. * Separate national identity allows funding of cultural events through profits from marketing the resulting Texas identity abroad. Society * Drugs are legalized, prison costs reduced, and funds will be transferred instead to proactive anti-crime work. * A reduction of taxes except sales taxes will provide funds for social investment. * We will acknowledge environmental concerns and work to clean up Texas outdoors to provide a positive social role model. * An "anarchy zone" will be established in which behaviors not accepted by mainstream society are given a chance to be expressed. * Rules on public behavior will be relaxed and monitoring of citizens will not occur in social contract exchange for a network of citizens who stop violent crimes only. * Firearms will be licensed and allowed in most forms provided they are used ethically, and in some areas, the requirement that each individual carry a gun will be enforced. III. Methods Our method is simple: acknowledge the benefits of Texas secession and then appeal with logic to the United States in conjunction with Texas voters, requesting formally for severance of our national ties and the inception of political intercourse according to our plan. After careful study, many of those who suport Texas secession have come to realize that Texas voters will approve of change if there is a clear benefit, which can logically be expressed as the following: * Decentralization makes stronger leadership Centralized republics can have a single approach to any situation, where diversified trading groups do not act together and therefore are able to approach a problem from several angles until an avenue of success is found. Further, they have a higher survivability rate as a larger when facing enemies with weapons of mass destruction. In a decentralized approach, nations retain unique national character and cultural aspects, creating for each a national brand which can be marketed as a cobrand to a large number of products. Their responses to economic fluctuations will vary as well, through the diverse nature of local regulations, and therefore economic disaster will not strike as quickly or be as devastating. * Economic benefits of a friendly trading partner With the United States and Texas being separate economic entities comes the ability to balance one another through trade. The United States benefits from a low-tariff ally which purchases and consumes U.S. goods and services, but also now has a country through which raw materials from other nations can undergo value-added manufacturing or intellectual property conversion, providing to the U.S. a cheaper source of basic consumer goods and services without the overhead of a tariff or an unduly competing partner. As a friendly competitor, Texans can contribute innovation and market leadership to areas where the U.S. is temporally lagging. Its protection of U.S. patents and copyrights makes it an ideal test market and goods exchange partner, and its record for business innovation suggests it would be a positive counterbalance to the U.S. economic system as a whole as modified by political initiative. IV. Resources http://www.anus.com/etc/texas/ * Primary site of this facet of the Texas secessionist movement * Has a list of web resources for the study of the history, culture(s), social standards and language(s) of Texas and the Republic of Texas * Permanent host of this FAQ and soon home to a mailing list for Texas secession (c) 2002 anus.com/etc/texas/