Amerika Syarikat Bakal Kehilangan Texas?

Walaupun majoriti rakyat Puerto Rico telah memilih untuk menyertai Amerika Syarikat, gerakan memerdekakan Texas dari Amerika Syarikat yang sememangnya telah berlaku dua tahun kebelakangan ini semakin aktif.

Ia diparahkan lagi dengan kemenangan Obama minggu lalu yang membuatkan sebuah laman web yang dikendalikan Rumah Putih dibanjiri petisyen untuk memisahkan Texas dari negara tersebut.

Jumlah yang menyokong petisyen tersebut kini mencapai 70,000 dan menurut Rumah Putih, dengan jumlah 25,000 sahaja, membolehkan pertimbangan dibuat.

Tambahan pula, perlembagaan Amerika Syarikat tidak mempunyai artikel yang jelas mengenai larangan pemisahan sesebuah negeri dari negara tersebut.

Texas merupakan penjana ekonomi antara yang terbesar di Amerika Syarikat dan ke 15 terbesar di dunia. Lebih memalukan lagi, negeri ini memilih Mit Romney semasa pilihanraya Presiden minggu lalu.

Jelas terserlah maksud hati mereka, sama ada bersifat perkauman atau berkeengganan dipimpin pemimpin kulit hitam tetapi bertopengkan alasan ekonomi dan batas-batas tertentu yang dibuat kerajaan persekutuan.

Texas Secession Petition Receives Enough Signatures
For White House Response

Less than a week after Obama won another four years in the White House, an online petition calling for Texas to secede from the Union has gained enough signatures to warrant a response from the White House.  The petition is posted on the “We the People” page of the White House website, a project launched by the Obama administration that requires a member of the administration to answer any petitions that receive more than 25,000 signatures within a 30-day period.

“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 its 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,” reads the petition.

As of Tuesday morning, it has received more than 61,000 signatures. So far, the White House has not issued a response. Although Texas Gov. Rick Perry has made tongue-in-cheek allusions to the Lone Star State’s secession in recent years, his press secretary, Catherine Frazier, said the former Republican presidential hopeful “believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it."

However, she also added that Perry “also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

During a 2009 Tea Party rally, CNN reported that Perry declined to rule out a possible Texas secession from the United States if significant changes were not made to its economic policies.

"When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation," Perry reportedly said. "And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again."

Residents in more than 25 states have filed secession petitions on the White House website, but so far the Texas appeal is the only one with enough signatures for a response.

Petitions have also been filed for Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina and Tennessee.