As reported on one of our local “If It Bleeds It Leads — Or Even If It’s Just Badly Bruised” television stations, somebody conducted a poll, the results of which had 25 percent of respondents favoring Oklahoma’s secession from the Union in the event that Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.
That 25 percent may belong to Donald Trump’s “white men without a college education” base. “Without much of any education” would be more like it.
Let’s keep it simple: If Oklahoma seceded from the United States, bye bye Tinker, Vance, Altus and Fort Sill, to mention a few economic hits. As for oil and gas, there would be some sort of tariff beyond our borders, making oil and gas cheaper for the remaining 49 states to buy from anybody else in the world.
Banking? Currency? The State of Oklahoma has such whopping revenue problems that it can’t pay its teachers or prison guards adequately already. Think of secession as economic suicide.
And who we gonna play football with? Any foreign countries involved with the NCAA? Get your passports in order, if we can get treaties signed to keep OSU and OU in the Big 12.
Unprepared and under-armed
The 25 percent of would-be secessionists are probably gun-toters with NRA stickers on their bumpers, right next to the truck nuts hanging from the trailer hitch. Problem is, they aren’t toting enough guns. The sad fact is that Oklahoma will be wholly unprepared in the event of invasion. Suppose a greedy neighbor wants to take our oil and gas a la Donald Trump’s view of what the U.S. should have done in Libya. We’d not be able to put up much resistance because we’re short of firepower.
According to a study by an outfit called Injury Prevention published in AARP magazine, a mere 31.2 percent of adults in Oklahoma were gun owners in 2013. In Arkansas, 57.9 percent of adults were gun owners. The numbers for Texas were 35.7 percent; for New Mexico, 49.9 percent; for Colorado 34.3 percent; and for Kansas — Kansas for Pete’s sake — 32.2 percent.
In fact, to find the winners in a Great Plains “Wussier-Than-Thou” contest, you’d have to go to Nebraska, where only 19.8 percent of adult Huskers are gun owners. Too many gnarled fingers from all that shucking, perhaps. Can’t get ’em in the trigger guard. Let’s hope nobody wants to “take” their ethanol.
Of course, everybody knows — just ask ’em — that Hillary Clinton wants to gut the Second Amendment and take everybody’s guns. We wouldn’t have any rights under the Constitution, were Oklahoma to secede; but we’d be a foreign country and a clear and present danger, smack in the middle of the U.S., and somebody would have to deal with it.
How about defusing this potentially dangerous situation by offering to take over when the U.S. closes Gitmo? We could make up lost revenue by charging the federal government a young fortune to keep an eye on terrorists for them.
Maybe there should be a poll to find out how many people favor secession in the event of a Trump win in November. Indeed, a Trump victory would suit me just fine, but not because of anything having to do with secession. I’d invite Mr. Trump to visit me and try grabbing my pussy — an orange tabby named Henry who could hide in the president’s hair and claw the hell out of him.
