6 ms·

For the same sort of reason that Texas can't?

by abraae 7y ago

alliao 7y ago
Texas can't??
- jryan49 7y ago
  Remember what happened the last time a bunch of states wanted to claim independence?
- yladiz 7y ago
  Yes, states cannot leave the union once they are admitted. There is no mechanism in place in the Constitution or via a law for a state to leave/become independent.
- rayiner 7y ago
  It cannot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union. Texas in fact voted to secede during the civil war, in a public referendum where secession got 75% of the vote. (Or course, it should be noted that the 30% of the population that was enslaved could not vote.) After Texas was defeated in the civil war, it was governed by a governor appointed by the union president for five years until it was readmitted to the United States.
  - aiyodev 7y ago
    The Texas secession movement doesn't claim a right to secede. Texas retains the right to split into five states. They plan to use the threat of adding 8 right-leaning senators to the US senate to convince democrats to let them leave.
    - steve19 7y ago
      Texas demographics are changing. I don't know if they would be able to add eight right senators now, and definitely not in the future. Of course that may depend on a definion of right (right of center or right of Bernie) .
      - aiyodev 7y ago
        Yeah. It's unlikely to work.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        It depends very heavily on your definition of "right." Hispanic people in general are pretty conservative, and Hispanic people in Texas are particularly so. For example, Hispanic registered voters are less likely than white registered voters to support marijuana legalization, and more likely to support restrictions or bans on abortion: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-views-on-selected-2014-ballot-measure-issues https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-vie.... On the criminal justice front, hispanics are more likely than whites to view the elimination of mandatory minimums for drug crimes as a bad thing, and twice as likely to support jail time for minor drug possession: https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/section-2-views-of-marijuana-legalization-decriminalization-concerns https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/section-2-views-of-m.... Hispanic people are more likely to attend religious services at least once week and to pray daily: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-an.... Hispanic people strongly support school choice: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-voter-support-for-expansion https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-.... Hispanic people list preventing terrorism as a top priority, alongside education and higher than healthcare or immigration: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/02/23/latino-priorities-for-the-trump-administration-and-congress-in-2017 https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/02/23/latino-priorities-for.... Among Democrats, Hispanic people are much more likely than whites to list the economy as the issue that "matters most" and much less likely to list the environment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/business/economy/black-democrats-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/business/economy/black-de.... Another key issue is aging. The median age for Hispanic people is 28 (squarely millennial), versus 42 (later side of Gen X) for non-Hispanic whites. That means, to a significant degree, the more liberal attitudes you see for Hispanic people as a group are a function of age and generational membership. Everyone gets more conservative with age, and you will see that same trend among Hispanic people. Trump managed to get 28% of the Hispanic vote, despite running on an aggressively anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant platform: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/24/2020-hispanic-voters-donald-trump-225192 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/24/2020-hisp.... His approval rating among Hispanics is now 35-45% depending on the poll. Greg Abbott won re-election in Texas with 42% of the Hispanic vote. Due to the various factors discussed above, I think the increasing Hispanic representation in the Texas vote is going to have much less of an impact than people assume.
    - p1necone 7y ago
      Isn't Texas only a red state because of gerrymandering?
      - aiyodev 7y ago
        No. Gerrymandering is something a political majority does to hurt the minority. Texas was a reliably blue state until Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 without winning Texas. Before that it was thought no democrat could win without winning Texas. Democrats stopped spending money in the state and George W. Bush became governor in 1994. Republicans have controlled both houses of congress and every statewide position since the 90s. There's a chance Trump might change that as he is less popular among republicans in Texas than he is nationwide.
      - adventured 7y ago
        No. It's a mixed bag still favoring the Republicans. 2018 Texas governor election: 4.65 million (55.8%) votes for the Republican Abbott, to 3.56 million (42.5%) for Valdez. 2018 Texas Senate race: 4.26 million votes for Cruz vs 4.05 million for O'Rourke. That's with the left pouring enermous support and resources behind O'Rourke. Cruz raised $37 million, O'Rourke raised $80 million. 2014 Texas Senate race: 2.86 million (61.6%) votes for the Republican Cornyn vs 1.58 million (34.4%) votes for Alameel. Republicans are still winning the popular vote.
      - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
        Well, no, but there is gerrymandering. https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Ranking-Texas-most-gerrymandered-districts-13024898.php https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Ranking-Te...
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      Not quite that straightforward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism
- SllX 7y ago
  Texas can vote to leave, but the United States has more and bigger guns, so they can’t actually leave.
toyg 7y ago
I understand the technicalities, but Wilson’s Doctrine clearly applies to the citizens of Texas in 2019 as much as to the citizens of Austria-Hungary a century earlier. If it became absolutely certain that an overwhelming majority of Texans wanted to secede, the right answer would be to draw up ways to allow them to do so in the smoothest and most legal way, not to send the US Army to quash it. I understand the Civil War happened and all that, but it was a different time and hopefully the Western world works on better principles now. If the USSR had let Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia free to chart their own destiny, maybe it wouldn’t have eventually collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy and lies.
- pvg 7y ago
  Wilson’s Doctrine clearly applies to the citizens of Texas in 2019 as much as to the citizens of Austria-Hungary a century earlier. How do you figure? I don't think any mainstream view of 'self-determination' and certainly not Wilson's just up and grants national sovereignty for the asking. Texas is plenty autonomous.
  - toyg 7y ago
    “I don’t think so” is not an argument. Texas is a well-defined territory with a well-defined set of cultural characteristics. Its population has as much of a right to self-determination as Catalunya, Scotland, Croatia, Slovakia or Kosovo, should a consensus emerge in the region. This is hardly controversial.
    - pvg 7y ago
      It's hardly controversial that whatever Wilson's ideas were, they did not include Texas becoming an independent country. I also don't think it's controversial that all the intricate thinking, principles and international proclamations on self-determination don't actually boil down to 'any group or region can easily turn themselves into a sovereign country, if they really want to and work hard at it'.
      - 7y ago
jeff_carr 7y ago
But Texas can vote for a Governor & for the government of Texas in general.

For the same sort of reason that Texas can't?

by abraae 7y ago

For the same sort of reason that Texas can't?

alliao 7y ago

Texas can't??

jryan49 7y ago
Remember what happened the last time a bunch of states wanted to claim independence?
yladiz 7y ago
Yes, states cannot leave the union once they are admitted. There is no mechanism in place in the Constitution or via a law for a state to leave/become independent.
rayiner 7y ago
It cannot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union. Texas in fact voted to secede during the civil war, in a public referendum where secession got 75% of the vote. (Or course, it should be noted that the 30% of the population that was enslaved could not vote.) After Texas was defeated in the civil war, it was governed by a governor appointed by the union president for five years until it was readmitted to the United States.
- aiyodev 7y ago
  The Texas secession movement doesn't claim a right to secede. Texas retains the right to split into five states. They plan to use the threat of adding 8 right-leaning senators to the US senate to convince democrats to let them leave.
  - steve19 7y ago
    Texas demographics are changing. I don't know if they would be able to add eight right senators now, and definitely not in the future. Of course that may depend on a definion of right (right of center or right of Bernie) .
    - aiyodev 7y ago
      Yeah. It's unlikely to work.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      It depends very heavily on your definition of "right." Hispanic people in general are pretty conservative, and Hispanic people in Texas are particularly so. For example, Hispanic registered voters are less likely than white registered voters to support marijuana legalization, and more likely to support restrictions or bans on abortion: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-views-on-selected-2014-ballot-measure-issues https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-vie.... On the criminal justice front, hispanics are more likely than whites to view the elimination of mandatory minimums for drug crimes as a bad thing, and twice as likely to support jail time for minor drug possession: https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/section-2-views-of-marijuana-legalization-decriminalization-concerns https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/section-2-views-of-m.... Hispanic people are more likely to attend religious services at least once week and to pray daily: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-an.... Hispanic people strongly support school choice: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-voter-support-for-expansion https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-.... Hispanic people list preventing terrorism as a top priority, alongside education and higher than healthcare or immigration: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/02/23/latino-priorities-for-the-trump-administration-and-congress-in-2017 https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/02/23/latino-priorities-for.... Among Democrats, Hispanic people are much more likely than whites to list the economy as the issue that "matters most" and much less likely to list the environment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/business/economy/black-democrats-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/business/economy/black-de.... Another key issue is aging. The median age for Hispanic people is 28 (squarely millennial), versus 42 (later side of Gen X) for non-Hispanic whites. That means, to a significant degree, the more liberal attitudes you see for Hispanic people as a group are a function of age and generational membership. Everyone gets more conservative with age, and you will see that same trend among Hispanic people. Trump managed to get 28% of the Hispanic vote, despite running on an aggressively anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant platform: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/24/2020-hispanic-voters-donald-trump-225192 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/24/2020-hisp.... His approval rating among Hispanics is now 35-45% depending on the poll. Greg Abbott won re-election in Texas with 42% of the Hispanic vote. Due to the various factors discussed above, I think the increasing Hispanic representation in the Texas vote is going to have much less of an impact than people assume.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    Isn't Texas only a red state because of gerrymandering?
    - aiyodev 7y ago
      No. Gerrymandering is something a political majority does to hurt the minority. Texas was a reliably blue state until Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 without winning Texas. Before that it was thought no democrat could win without winning Texas. Democrats stopped spending money in the state and George W. Bush became governor in 1994. Republicans have controlled both houses of congress and every statewide position since the 90s. There's a chance Trump might change that as he is less popular among republicans in Texas than he is nationwide.
    - adventured 7y ago
      No. It's a mixed bag still favoring the Republicans. 2018 Texas governor election: 4.65 million (55.8%) votes for the Republican Abbott, to 3.56 million (42.5%) for Valdez. 2018 Texas Senate race: 4.26 million votes for Cruz vs 4.05 million for O'Rourke. That's with the left pouring enermous support and resources behind O'Rourke. Cruz raised $37 million, O'Rourke raised $80 million. 2014 Texas Senate race: 2.86 million (61.6%) votes for the Republican Cornyn vs 1.58 million (34.4%) votes for Alameel. Republicans are still winning the popular vote.
    - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
      Well, no, but there is gerrymandering. https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Ranking-Texas-most-gerrymandered-districts-13024898.php https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Ranking-Te...
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    Not quite that straightforward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism
SllX 7y ago
Texas can vote to leave, but the United States has more and bigger guns, so they can’t actually leave.

toyg 7y ago

I understand the technicalities, but Wilson’s Doctrine clearly applies to the citizens of Texas in 2019 as much as to the citizens of Austria-Hungary a century earlier. If it became absolutely certain that an overwhelming majority of Texans wanted to secede, the right answer would be to draw up ways to allow them to do so in the smoothest and most legal way, not to send the US Army to quash it. I understand the Civil War happened and all that, but it was a different time and hopefully the Western world works on better principles now. If the USSR had let Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia free to chart their own destiny, maybe it wouldn’t have eventually collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy and lies.

pvg 7y ago
Wilson’s Doctrine clearly applies to the citizens of Texas in 2019 as much as to the citizens of Austria-Hungary a century earlier. How do you figure? I don't think any mainstream view of 'self-determination' and certainly not Wilson's just up and grants national sovereignty for the asking. Texas is plenty autonomous.
- toyg 7y ago
  “I don’t think so” is not an argument. Texas is a well-defined territory with a well-defined set of cultural characteristics. Its population has as much of a right to self-determination as Catalunya, Scotland, Croatia, Slovakia or Kosovo, should a consensus emerge in the region. This is hardly controversial.
  - pvg 7y ago
    It's hardly controversial that whatever Wilson's ideas were, they did not include Texas becoming an independent country. I also don't think it's controversial that all the intricate thinking, principles and international proclamations on self-determination don't actually boil down to 'any group or region can easily turn themselves into a sovereign country, if they really want to and work hard at it'.
    - 7y ago

jeff_carr 7y ago

But Texas can vote for a Governor & for the government of Texas in general.