Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDoc
(Post 15046505)
Those numbers are from 20 years of drilling in standardized testing memorization rather than actually learning. It's still bottom of the list for good schools. And a lot more than rankings make a school system bad. The Schools in Texas straight up do not match up to the Schools in the North East, in every way other than maybe sports, which Texas Schools are great at!
|
You may very well be right on that. I went through public school in California though, and its hard for me to imagine a school system any worse than that one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
(Post 15046671)
1. Yep, you do have oil you could sell and I think there is also natural gas right off the coast. This will help you.
2. NASA. This would go away. NASA is funded by the US Government. When you secede from the union they will pull NASA out of there. They aren't going to give all the NASA billions to you, they will just move it elsewhere.
3. Port. Again, it is big, but again, the US would just switch to other ports. Why pay you to import and export a bunch of freight when we can do it for free.
4. Armed populace. Okay. Nobody is going to invade you and if they do, Joe Bob and his shotgun can't shoot a fighter plane.
5. Massively diverse and strong economy. Again, how much of that is based on help/involvement from the US. If you pull away from the union will the US and its might purchasing power looking happily on you? Probably not. It will be a lot harder for that economy to thrive when you are on your own.
I love when people think their state could just pull away and all would be great. It really isn't that simple.
|
1. Agreement.
2. Technically, you're right. However, I think in the wildly hypothetical scenario of a secession, there would still be a close economic and political relationship between the [what would be] two countries, and even our deficit loving government wouldn't want to undertake the multi-billion dollar project of moving mission control. Cost aside, the logistics would be overwhelming.
I think if something like that did happen, Texas would be more of a protectorate of the US.
3. The amount of foreign tonnage (most in the US), and overall tonnage (2nd most in the US), is far too great to simply divert to other ports. The Port of Houston is a gargantuan complex, one that was built specifically to handle this amount of import/export, and diverting that traffic would take hundred of billions, if not trillions, in associated costs. Again - not very feasible.
4. Of course, I'm not implying that hillbillies are going to overpower military forces. However, Texas has many military bases, and it's citizens have a state pride unlike any I've ever observed before. Any military installations in Texas, along with an overwhelming majority of its soldiers, would retain loyalty to their state over that of a government that is more unpopular in Texas than in many other places.
5. Not very much at all. Oil/Gas is the primary stimulus of economic prosperity here, but crops and livestock are also enormous contributors to Texas' wealth. Additionally, more Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Texas than in any other state, due to Texas' comparatively friendly tax climate, as well as being one of 6 states lacking a state income tax. That puts the interests of big business in a favorable position for Texas.
I'm not trying to come off as one of those neo-confederate secessionists here, by any means. All I'm saying is that in my opinion, due to the aforementioned factors, I think Texas is the only state with a sufficiently well-rounded portfolio of resources to be capable of a secession, hypothetically speaking.
