Can't We Make Texas Secede? (Updated)

It isn't bad enough that Texas, in the form of the Texas GOP Platform, gave us wars, famine, pestilence, and a global economy it broke into thousands of little pieces. It wasn't enough that it shoved George W Bush, Iraq, torture, unprecedented corporate corruption, the egregious executions of innocent men, and the likes of Tom DeLay and John Cornyn down our throats. No, now it wants to force creationism into our schools by forcing it into Texas textbooks.

Is there no end to Texan perfidy? Why can't they leave the rest of us alone?

In Austin, Texas, this week, scientists and creationists battled over whether to include the words "strengths and weaknesses" in the state's official statement about evolution. The words would influence how evolution is taught in Texas classrooms and would be immortalized in Lone Star textbooks. As the largest textbook market in the country, the decision could pressure other high school textbook publishers to conform to Texas standards.

Dan McLeroy, the Texas State Board of Education chairman, a dentist and self-described creationist, led the charge to mandate teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution. After three days of high-pitched argument on both sides, the 15-member board, by a vote of 8-7, rejected the language, relieving textbook authors and publishers of the pressure to insert what opponents called "junk science" into their pages. But in a compromise that alarms and dismays many science education advocates, the board did adopt language that attempts to cast a shadow of doubt over the validity of the central evolutionary concepts of natural selection and common ancestry.

Proponents of the theory of intelligent design, and other brands of neo-creationism, argue that evolution is inadequate to the job of explaining the diversity and history of life on earth. If they can cast doubts about evolution's validity, they have a chance to fill the authority vacuum with the tenets of creationism. But since late 2005, when a federal judge in Dover, Pa., ruled that intelligent design was a form of creationism, and that its introduction into public high school curricula was unconstitutional, advocates of teaching neo-creationism have been forced to seek other ways into public science classrooms. Enter the "strengths and weaknesses" strategy, crafted by the Seattle-based, pro-intelligent-design think thank, Discovery Institute.

DI is run by a classic fundie mental case named Bruce Chapman, an ex-Reaganite (aren't they all?) who was, scarily, once in charge of the Census Bureau. He's paranoid, narrow-minded, self-righteous and boorish. IOW, he's one of God's Warriors. Like many of them, he is funded by yet another crackpot multi-millionaire, Howard Ahmanson, the Godfather of the American Theocratic Movement and the man who has paid for Rushdoony's Dominionist proselytizing for the last 30 years. Ahmanson is from - guess where? That's right, TEXAS. Arlington, to be exact.

This may look like a loss to creationist forces but they don't see it that way. They're "psyched".

Casey Luskin, a Discovery Institute lawyer, and its guy on the Austin scene, was psyched by the outcome. "These are the strongest standards in the country now," he says. "The language adapted requires students to have critical thinking about all of science, including evolution, and it urges them to look at all sides of the issue."

One amendment calls for students to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data on sudden appearance and stasis and the sequential groups in the fossil record." The key words are "sudden appearance" and "stasis." McLeroy argues that "the sudden appearance" of forms in the Cambrian period, when there was a rapid multiplication and diversification of species, and the persistence of forms over long periods of time (stasis) are evidence against evolution. And thus for creationism.

Of course they are. "Critical thinking" apparently means teaching kids to equate a dentist with the tooth fairy. Personally I think we ought to force kids to question the moon landing because it was probably a fake tv stunt, and anyway the moon is made of green cheese so how could anyone have landed on it? Hey, my "analysis and evaluation" is as good as DI's.

Texas has to be one of the dumbest states in the Union. Texas native Kinky Friedman once said, "There's a lot of wide open space down here. Most of it's between people's ears." It is a fucking embarrassment to the US and to civilization in general. Its citizens occupy a strange parallel universe where George W Bush is a genius, Tom DeLay isn't a crook, and God is just a much bigger version of Rush Limbaugh. It's like a mental institution without walls.

They have done enough damage to us the last 25 years. If they won't secede, can't we make them? It's like having your scary, screw-loose, alcoholic Auntie May doing all the driving. We don't deserve this.

UPDATE: (2.15pm) Via Mark G and Kathleen Parker at the WaPo comes the rather startling if timely news that the above-mentioned Mr Ahmanson is, *gulp* switching parties.

In a rare interview Thursday, Ahmanson shared some of his thoughts about why he switched parties. In a word, taxes.

Specifically, he was offended by the California Republican Party's insistence during a recent state budget battle that there would be no tax increases for any reason, no matter what. "They're providing one issue, and it's just a very silly issue," Ahmanson told me by telephone.

Granted but can't he just stop funding them instead of bothering us? Because he will. He'll start backing the most conservative dingbats the Dems can brag on. And we've got them. They're in the Blue Dog and Moderate Caucuses. Alaska's Mike Doogan, f'rinstance. Don't we have enough trouble without this?

Comments

[Kilgore 4 TX Governor]

The USA and Texas both would be better off as two separate nations. Texas culture is very different from that in the USA. Texans appreciate USA people who value secession as a way to get along with each other.

[mick]

Good. Let's start a movement. You'd probably like to get rid of our sanity as much as we'd like to free ourselves from your clueless, violent, troglodytic backwardness.

[Johnnyb]

Mick, there is already a movement for Texas Secession, ever heard of the Republic of Texas?

They will never let us go though, Texas has too much wealth, too much oil, not to mention NASA and PANTEX. Houston is the 4th biggest city in the USA, DFW is even bigger than Houston as a metro area.

As a Texan, there is nothing that I would like more than to get out of the USA, but you might consider how many other States might like to come with us. Oklahoma would certainly come with us, so would much of the old South. Kansas up through the Dakotas and Montana.

We would have 1/2 the space program, and where do you think all those old nuclear war heads from the cold war are buried? If you guessed Texas, you would be right! Not only that, but Texas has the nuclear bomb plant, Pantex right next to the where all the old war heads are buried, so it should not be too much trouble to put everything back together again.

White folk will need some place to run to, after multiculturalism finishes destroying California, and I realy do not think that all those tech workers would have much trouble finding work with companies like Dell and Texas Instruments.

Texas can feed itself, its already on its own power grid, and is energy independent. I do not think that Wyoming would be too opposed to joining the Texan Union, so there is our source of coal, and even if they do not join we got plenty of refined atomic material and lower quality coal and natural gas of our own.

Yep, I think Texas would be just fine by itself, and there is nothing that I would like more than to get out of the Union. Of course we tried that before, but then the United States attacked us which lead to our current state of occupation by the American Empire.

Best of luck in your pursuit of getting Texas kicked out of the Union. I for one really hope that we can make it happen.

[mick]

johnnyb: Actually, I doubt very much that anybody, even OK, would go with you. The whole point of this t-in-c post is that Texas' rep has been so poisoned by its fringe whackos that nobody wants anything to do with it. OK and parts of the South might like to secede either alone or in concert with each other but with Texas? Not so much.

But it's true that OK is currently running a close second and you might want to approach Alaska. Sarah would be very open to the idea as long as she can be the new Republic's prez. But Texans wouldn't mind that. Sarah P is their kind of boot-y, right?

[Mark Gisleson]

The Republic of Texas opt out is a myth anyway. Rick Perry has just ended his political career because even in Texas that shit don't fly for 75% of Texans.

All over wrongful anger. Americans are by any First World standards undertaxed. Sooner or later the wingnuts will wake up to the fact that all their financial problems stem from being underpaid, not overtaxed.

[mick]

Don't count on it.