“The new nation would have to raise an Army and a Navy and an Air Force from scratch, of course. For the first few years, if it didn’t want to be gobbled up by Mexico or intimidated by the hugely irritated United States to the north, there would probably have to be confiscatory taxation, and a draft of a million or so healthy men and women over 18, just to guard its thousands of miles of borders. The drug violence and corruption in Mexico would quickly move north and permeate the new nation. Loyal Americans would no doubt launch a resistance movement. Under such conditions, in this militaristic state, we can assume that certain ‘adjustments’ would be made in civil liberties.

So, high taxes and repressive government. Texas could play its hand like Cuba, and become a satellite of China or Russia, and save money on defense that way, but that sort of defeats the purpose of independence, no? Isn’t escaping ‘socialism’ the whole point?”

***
“Consider the sort of nation Texas would become: bellicose, oil-rich, brutal — and with terrifying chemical and nuclear weapons stockpiles controlled by a dangerously irrational religious fanatic. By the political logic of Texas conservatives, that’s a pretty good formula for U.S. military action.”