Every time Texas “threatens” to secede from the US my first thought is “Please, please, make that happen.”
I feel like dealing with politics would be so much easier if all the bible belt states were a separate country.
Nick, one of the challenges of these United States of America is reconciling our differences. I also have sometimes thought that the country is too big and diverse to be a single state, but there it is.
We don’t have to rid our country of the bible belt… our country was founded, in part, to allow religious freedom!
We simply need to send the message to Washington that we will not tolerate politicians that turn their brand of morality into legislation.
Maintain a clear separation between church and state and we’ll all get along just fine.
The thing is, if you’re an elected official, you don’t really get religious freedom. I identify with atheism, and I wouldn’t get elected as a high ranking official in a million years… and then there’s the people arguing against the election of Obama, claiming that he is Muslim, if it even matters.
While the idea is to allow the adoption of any and all faiths, that’s not really the case.
California can go next.
Incorrect. Your freedoms aren’t restricted as an elected official. You’re just held to a higher scrutiny.
Sure, you probably won’t get in office if someone floats pictures of you holding a bloody goat head… but that doesn’t mean you’ve lost the freedom to do so.
Obama is president of the US, regardless of his faith or that of his family. Do you need any better proof than this?
People who use religious affiliation as grounds for any sort of discrimination are bigots, plain and simple. The people that have been vocal about Obama’s past are simply telling us they’re idiots…
Probably not quite that long. Hopefully in our lifetimes! Think how far we’ve come from the 1960s to the election of Obama.
Especially the Birthers. They’ve been quiet since Trump became their hero (great constituency, Don!)… But all they need is a new stupid cause to get them all making noise again…
Well, we tried to stay to ourselves, but President Jones kinda screwed that up for us.
Pete Stark is an atheist Representative in the House.
The problem is that the bible belt is filled with people who believe that the USA is a christian nation.
Once people have been indoctrinated into that kind of thinking, it is all but impossible to convince them otherwise (ie: blind faith).
As long as such a large population is
A) electing law makers who will base policy on religion
b) indoctrinating their children to do the same thing
The abyss of logic that is the bible belt will continue to effect me.
(I don’t have a really good idea of where I stand on this, but sometimes I think it should be illegal to indoctrinate children into a religion. Oh man, new topic coming on this one!)
I used to think that the source of the problems in society were in large part due to religion, but upon further discovery, I found that the real source of the problems are governments themselves. The idea that an institution has ultimate authority over you and those in your community is the root problem. These institutions have used religion to gain acceptance for thousands of years, but it’s not the religion that’s the problem, it’s the acceptance of these coercive institutions.
If Texas seceded, I’d consider moving there. The federal government has essentially nullified its charter document (the constitution) and is now a totalitarian government that is going to self destruct itself sometime soon. IMO, all states should secede.
I believe Texas could thrive as an independent nation…we’ve done it before, but then under president Anson Jones we annexed the United States. I just wonder what other states could do well on their own and what industry would support them. Louisiana has the biggest fishing industry in the US. Nevada would end up being the next Monaco with gambling. Florida, Alaska, Hawai’i and a few others would do well on tourism. Oil in the Dakotas maybe. How would some other states make it on their own? The states were actually more independent than they are now when we were under the Articles of Confederation, but economies work differently now than back then. Any ideas?
A return to the articles would be a good thing.
While part of me might agree with you, the rest of me thinks it should be illegal to legislate what to teach your own children in your own home, what not to, or how to do it.
How soon do you figure? Soon like Gotham City in the recent Batman movies? Assumes figuring in the lack of a real-life Batman… 
My state is the world’s eighth largest economy. The rest of you would miss us. Beyond the obvious stuff, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Tourism, there are lots of major things here people probably aren’t aware of. We grow a large percentage of the nation’s food. Supposedly 25% of the cotton! Nearly all of some crops, like some nuts, avocados, etc. And all the sushi rice, 100%, comes from the Sacramento Valley. This state even got its start by being allowed to choose its own (huge) size by Congress. They were worried we would become our own republic, along with all our gold!
Good luck, Texas, but don’t hold your breath. For some reason, Quebec can’t even seem to separate itself from Canada, and they seem really ready for it.
But losing that lone star would screw up our flag. We’d have to make Puerto Rico or Guam a state to keep it an even number.
would it not be better to unify all states of this small earth 
No, it would be better to not have any states at all.
You missed the pun.
I am curious, why you haven’t moved to Somalia yet ? There hasn’t been a state there in a long time. Every man is his own cop and legislature. Is it because you don’t want to admit that the state here protects more rights than it takes away ? You are aware that stateless doesn’t mean crime free. Tax free also means no courts or prisons. Government free won’t mean gun free, or that you can afford a nice enough machine gun to tell someone that can that he must leave you alone. Maybe he will not just tell you to go to hell, he will shoot you.
Then you can die free. There are no hospitals there, and they are all free. What keeps you here ? Obviously it is not your love of taxes or respect for the rule of law they provide.
Somalia is not exactly a stateless society right now. The US and UN are heavily involved there.
You clearly do not know anything about anarchy. All the things you mention do not require a state for those services to be provided.
I used to really consider myself an anarchist. I don’t know if I’d go that far anymore.
I’ve started to think of society as “opt in” (If I don’t like it, there are vast areas of uninhabited land that I could move to and not be bothered for a long, long time). Until I chose to leave it, I am pretty much opting into the rules that we have. If I don’t like it, I can try to change them. If I really don’t like it, I can leave.