OK, some quick points about the foofaraw over the 2012 secession movement. For those Gentle Readers who are correctly avoiding the whole silly business, almost a hundred thousand people petitioned the government to allow Texas to secede! Thirty thousand for Louisiana! Twenty-five thousand for Tennessee! Another Twenty-five thousand for Alabama! The South is on the verge of open rebellion!
Except, no.
There are twenty-five million people living in Texas. If a hundred thousand really did want to secede—and the signatories on the petition are not all residents of Texas, according to their signatures—that would be four-tenths of one percent of the population of the state. Not really a wide-spread grass-roots movement, rippling the very fabric of the constitution itself. More like a bunch of crackpots. Even of the four-and-a-half million Texans who voted for Mitt Romney, a hundred thousand is a drop in the proverbial.
And besides. There are, in this wide great country of ours, a lot of people who on occasion have been known to drink alcoholic beverages until they reach a state almost indistinguishable from inebriation. And then go on the internet. And click stuff. If a bunch of people have clicked something crazy, it’s just barely possible that alcohol was involved. No?
Not only that, but there are, on the internet, a group of people who are not necessarily crazy, as such, but who really enjoy freaking other people out. Often these people are called trolls. Common troll behavior includes adopting argumentative stances that are not mere unpopular but utterly untenable. Such as, oh, secesh. Good old secesh. You know who was against secession? Hitler.
Look at it this way: ninety-eight percent of Texans who voted for Mitt Romney—ninety-eight percent of Texas Republicans—wouldn’t click on this thing. I wouldn’t call it a movement.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.