Twitters From Texas

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

Let us pause to consider Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, and his feelings about seceding from the union.

This all started during the recent anti-tax protests. You undoubtedly saw the pictures of the demonstrations full of people wearing teabags or tricorner hats who kept comparing themselves to the founding fathers at the Boston Tea Party. True, when it comes to taxation without representation, they were slightly different from colonial New Englanders on the minor point of having representation. But let’s not be picky.

Have you ever noticed that the states where anti-tax sentiment is strongest are frequently the same states that get way more back from the federal government than they send in? Alaska gets $1.84 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington, which is a rate of return even Bernard Madoff never pretended to achieve. Yet there they were in Ketchikan waving “Taxed Enough Already!” signs and demanding an end to federal spending.

Also, have you noticed how places that pride themselves on being superpatriotic seem to have the most people who want to abandon the country entirely and set up shop on their own?

(More here.)