Brodner's Cartoon du Jour: The Civil War 2.0

Gov. Perry's comments are accurate. Texas is the only US State with legal authority to secede. I say, the rest of us should insist that they leave and thus, we no longer would need to fear another Texan in the White House. Better yet, sell Texas to the Saudi's to help pay the debt their two presidents rang-up--then, let them secede from the Saudi kingdom. Lyndon Johnson (unelected to his first term) created the national debt and Bush-W (also unelected to his first term) turned deficit spending into a fine-art form. Now we have to listen to Ron Paul fiscally lecture us--while he takes as much federal money for his own neighborhood as he possibly can. BTW: Texas gets about 80% of its tax contributions back from Washington--while urban states such as NY and Illinois get closer to 45%.
Lastly, Texas is the only US State which actually displaced Mexicans off their land. They first formed an alliance with the local Hispanic population to fight off Mexico, then, when that war was over, the white Texans ethnically cleansed the Texicans back where they (allegedly) "came from".

Respectfully submitted~
Absolute leader of the Troll Kingdom (for life)

The struggle of maintaining a Union is a reality where “federalism” is a key. The difference between a union and a confederation of states is one of the most revolutionary aspects of the United States. We are the first nation to form a real union out of individual states—where all of the states agreed to surrender some of their beloved state power so as to form a supra-state power we call the federal government and thus create the sense of a nation—though it is a union. Our constitution in essence sets the limit of the federal government (but in a very flexible manner), as well as the limits of state's rights where the fundamental political philosophy builds from a concept known as “the balance of power”. Europe is now discovering that this is no easy thing to accomplish because all efforts to create a constitution for the EU have failed to win popular consent, while in the former Soviet Union we find an example where the central power failed to maintain a union—to a high degree because Moscow called all the shots to such a high degree that the possibility for war started to emerge within their union—thus back in the 70's when Ukraine mobilized its military into a war stance they sent a clear message to Moscow that it had over stepped its bounds to point of war. Still as things stand in the US today—the Federal governments intervention into the affairs of Texas are minimal—compared to what it ought to be considering the enormous repercussions of Enron. If Texas wants to succeed from the Union they will discover that the price will be the end of their reign of central control over the US that has dominated the nation in a most obvious manner starting with LBJ but begins with the discovery of oil in that great state. But as the oil fades from the spot light it will be those states that develop the means to new methods of transforming energy into a product that will move to the center of political control and this appears to be a rather open frontier.

Republicans who pretend to be anti-government are the most extreme federalists in modern American history—they offer Americans a system of ever increasing central control while they torpedo social programs that benefited millions of Americans. The new FISA Act, the Patriot Act, or the Homeland Security Agency—are acts that extend the ability of the federal governments to pry into Americans lives.

The question of where should the federal limitation be set is in no way obvious. The stage for this “war” between states rights and federalism starts between two great Americans at the very birth of our nation—Jefferson verses Hamilton. Yet it is a war for which our system of government is designed. There will be those epochs in which we will tend towards central control and others which will send us towards strong state's rights. If we view health care as a “right” on par with “free speech” or “habeas corpus” then the role of the federal government must be extended but here we see that this functions for the vast majority of Americans as a benefit while if we consider FISA the role becomes far more Orwellian—even though catching terrorists before the make an attack must be seen as a great benefit as well. Republicans have on average a far more KGB view of our union than the Democratic Party, but Democrats are the ones who are most often labeled as “communists” or “socialists” because they wish to have a greater redistribution of wealth (meaning increased taxes on the wealthiest) so as to offer Americans an increased quality of life—health care, improved education, greater access to higher education, more affordable child care, environmental legislation and so on. This “communist” attack has its roots in the most Soviet like Republican of all time—Uncle Joe McCarthy who apparently even viewed FDR as being a commie.

In a sense the idea of accusing Obama of taxation without representation—hence the allusions to the Boston Tea Party, show just how hypocritical and disillusioned the Republican Party has become. It is because there was no representation of Americans at all in regards to oversight of the financial sector (especially in regards to housing and the sale of debt as AAA securities when banks were lending money to people who were not credit worthy—meaning the debt could not be made into a security)—who have by their actions extracted not just a tax on all Americans but the world. This lack of oversight is precisely what Republican economic policy has created. When for example the US chose to go to war in Iraq without UN consent, this is also taxation without representation—because when the US goes to war the immediate consequence is a devaluation of the dollar created by the debt incurred to finance the war and this means all goods produced outside of the US go up in price in relation to the dollar and since the dollar was halved in value the Republican foreign policy extracted a 50% tax on all foreign goods sold in the US—most critical however was the price of oil. The dollar when it halved doubled the price of oil. Republicans seem to view this as a legitimate strategy—meaning they feel free to act under the concept of taxation without representation—hence their hypocritical views. At least that's my opinion.