Texas Secession Petition Crosses 25,000 Signature Threshold

Earlier today, Bridget Johnson reported on the numerous secession petitions that have popped up on the White House’s “We The People” web site since Barack Obama’s re-election last week. Well, the Texas petition has crossed the 25,000 signature threshold requiring “White House staff action.”

The Texas petition states:

Peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

We do live in interesting times. As president, Barack Obama has treated Texas as an ATM when he needs campaign cash, and a hostile power the rest of the time. The blue state model of which he is champion is failing in California, so naturally he is pushing more of that. Texans voted strongly for Mitt Romney last week and a majority are quite frustrated with the treatment our state has received over the past four years.

The White House’s petition site lists three steps for the user-generated petitions it hosts. Step 1 is to “Browse open petitions to find a petition related to your issue, and add your signature.” Step 2 says “If your issue is not currently represented by an active petition, start a new petition.” Step 3 is the kicker: “If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.” It’s obviously not legally binding. The petitions were a gimmick that the Obama White House launched to make people feel like they had a direct line to the government. The reality is that they’re little more than a gussied up online forum.

Now that 25,000 have signed the Texas petition, what will the Obama government’s response be? We don’t have a Ft. Sumter to fire on and the Alamo is a museum in the middle of downtown San Antonio.

For anyone considering signing any White House petition, I would advise against it. The one place to which there probably is a direct line is the Internal Revenue Service.