It's Thanksgiving; let’s talk about Texas. 

For most of my life Texas was the epitome of a Wild West populated by tough, self-sufficient people living under hostile conditions. Texas was part of a never-ending stream of TV westerns—white hats versus black hats—parading before by young eyes. It was tales of the Alamo. Texas was pioneers overcoming near insurmountable barriers. The monster-sized state was a giant repository of heroism. It remained that way to me from childhood to whenever I stopped paying attention.

What brought Texas back to my attention today was reading that one of its legislators wants the state to consider seceding from the US at a March 1st GOP primary. Secession talk again. This is the third time? 30th? 

Despite always being glad that Texas is a part of the USA neighborhood, there have been Texas-specific situations over the last ten years that make me nervous:

A. The inordinate control Texas has in choosing textbooks of partisan nature. That’s not just bad enough for the education of the state’s children, but Texas’ choices determine our choices as well. (Explained in detail in How Texas Inflicts Bad Textbooks on Us by Gail Collins in the June 21, 2012 issue of The New York Review of Books.)

B. Their criminal justice system. I always envisioned Texas lawmen as old-school heroes like Walker, Texas Ranger but find that today’s police departments are as likely as not to have an inordinately large number of bad people in their ranks. If you type “bad Texas cops” into Google, you get back 10,900,000 references.

C. Texas politicians. Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Ken Paxton, Rick Perry, the Bushes. (That’s an impressive group of wingnuts! Do not understand how these people were elected to office.)

Secede? Become a nation where everybody carries a gun in defense of freedom? (Now that is someplace I want to live—with a bunch of desperate folks toting lethal weapons. If the Mexicans just wait a couple of weeks after secession, they will be able walk into a Texas defended by the few white Texans left after experiencing payback from Native Americans, Hispanics, and each other via drugs, alcohol and gunfights.)

What does the neighborhood of united states lose if Texas succeeds at secession? Certainly dirt and rocks; lots of dirt and rocks—269,000 square miles of it. Beef? It would be healthier for us to cut back, anyway. Cacti? Exotic plants but a little prickly. (Luckily they thrive in extreme environments that man can't endure, so they may reach the earth's next stage climate.) Chili and BBQ? Good dishes but other states do the same as well.

Do we lose much with the disappearance of that famous Texas football we hear so much about? Considering the sport consists of administering mental and physical abuse on our choicest young men, I’m not seeing much of a downside here. Any decrease of football is a good thing. (Look at what we find in our older athletes: so much brain damage. In addition, players run a real risk of death. According to the Illinois High School Association, seven high school students died playing football this year.)

Texas oil? We won't lose it. We will be buying it from the new government of MexTex. That financial flow will be one of the major lifelines for a newly seceded Texas, and while its presence won’t stop what's going to happen if Texas secedes, it will be protected by and prop up the victors who pop up.

All-in-all, I think Texas needs the rest of us more than we need Texas. 

Still, I don't want them to leave the Union. Texas was hard won by our ancestors, and I think we would dishonor their lives if we let it be absorbed by Mexico because it couldn’t be defended. (I doubt that a Texas cowboy army of today, a blend of trailer park rednecks and Calvin Klein yuppies, could succeed without us even with Alamo hearts.) We need Texas to guard the land approach to our south; Texas needs us to have their backs.