Over the years, I have seen the leaders of many regions call for separating themselves from the mother country. But this is always rich regions wanting to take their money and run. For a while Scotland wanted to leave the United Kingdom because they liked all their oil money, thank you very much. True to form, America does everything assbackwards.

Hardin County Texas Republican Party treasurer Peter Morrison is floating the idea that he doesn’t want to live in a democracy. Okay, he doesn’t put it like that. Instead, he claims that since he didn’t manage to force half the country to have to put up with his chosen candidate, he shouldn’t have to put up with theirs. The logic doesn’t really work, but so what? He’s a Texan!

Morrison is calling for an “amicable divorce.” How amicable? As amicable as any husband who refers to his wife as a maggot. I swear I’m not making that up.

What I find most interesting is that these calls for secession always come from the south or Alaska: areas that get a lot more from the federal government than they pay in. To be fair, Morrison’s home state of Texas gives a lot more than it gives. For every dollar of taxes, it gets 85 cents back. But it is part of a broader southern move. Back in 2010, Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp was calling for secession over Obamacare.

The issue of how much money a state gets back for the taxes it pays in is not real, of course. The truth is that the biggest determinant of this difference is the age of the population. Older citizens get Social Security and Medicare. These are very expensive programs that are paid for exclusively by younger citizens. The issue instead is that people in “red” states tend to think of themselves as autonomous: they send all this money to the feds and receive nothing for it. This just isn’t true. (A better case can be made for states like Delaware and New Jersey that get less than half the money back that they pay in.)

A lot of liberals would like to see the south secede. But the truth is, it would be a very bad thing. I’m not talking about the conservatives. I’m more than willing to let them experience the truth of their situation. The problem is that there are a lot of liberals who live in these states. It is wrong for us to abandon them to the likes of Rick Perry.

What’s really funny about Morrison’s little article is what it shows about the Tea Party mentality. They’ve convinced themselves of their talking points. Obama isn’t just a politician who differs with them on the issues: he is a man dedicated to destroying the United States. To quote John Dickinson (in 1776 anyway), “If you have grievances, and I’m sure you have, our present system must provide a gentler means of redressing them short of revolution!”

Of course, I’m not really sure what Morrison and his ilk are on about. I suspect that they are a good deal closer to the President’s policies than I am. But even granting that these people have real rather than imagined grievances, how can secession be the answer? Liberals have lived through decades during which presidents—Republican and Democrat—have pushed our nation ever to the right. Yet liberals do not call for secession.

Update (12 November 2012 4:57 pm)

David Atkins over at Hullabaloo presents us with the following table that indicates that Texas does a little better by the Fed than the data I have. It changes from year to year, but this table is really interesting: