The United States should sell Texas to the highest bidder

I appreciate Pro's response in the face of his dual burden of a late night at the pub and having a ridiculous proposition to defend. I don't think Pro has yet fully grasped the meaning of "don't mess with Texas." Perhaps another anecdote will help. Outside a shopping mall in Texas, a man confronted his ex-wife and ultimately shot her in the head, killing her. The man then raced to his car and started out of the parking lot. A bystander saw this and, by chance, happened to be packing heavy iron. The bystander shot across the parking lot, through the door of the getaway car, killing the varmint. Later, a judge told the bystander that he shouldn't have done that, and the bystander admitted that he ought not have and felt bad about it, which put the whole thing to rest. I'm told that in Texas "some people just need killing" is a legal defense. I ask, are if the Chinese, or is anyone else, stupid enough to try to take over Texas. I think not. Anyway, back to business, Pro inquired as to the origins of US deficit. About $500B was spent by Bush on bailouts. The bailouts of investment banks were less than $100B, and have since been entirely repaid, with interest. Citibank, a regular bank, was bailed out and has not repaid yet, but probably will. $145 B has gone to government-run Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac (whom, despite the names, do not live in Texas), and those bailouts are ongoing with projections of it reaching $349 billion. The government also bailed out AIG, an insurance company, and two auto companies. AIG had 55,000 employees making money selling insurance, plus about 200 employees in London who lost $161 billion trading derivatives. The autos were bailed out to preserve fat union pensions. (I think AIG and the autos should have been put into bankruptcy.) Including the bailouts, Bush incurred $700B in debt in his eight years; Obama is over $1.2 trillion in debt in his first year, and has officially announced plans to incur $10 trillion in new debt in the future. There is a colorful graph at http://blog.heritage.org... that shows the situation. My point remains undisputed that the problem we have is chronic overspending by politicians, not a one-time bailout. Hence, if we could sell Texas it wouldn't cure the problem. It would just be extra booze for the alcoholics in control. I did not challenge the legality of the proposed sale of Texas, as the Constitution could be amended. However, that has nothing to do with the morality of selling Texas to the Chinese without the consent of Texans. That is universally recognized as immoral, per the United Nations declaration of rights to self-determination I cited. Pro asserted that selling off Texas would be less immoral than the previous subjugation of Native Americans. It would also be less immoral than killing off the first-born male child in each household. Being less immoral does not make something moral. Not a single living Texan had anything to do with subjugating Native Americans. There is no logical basis for a doctrine of inherited guilt, because a person born into this world is given no choice of ancestors nor control over the ancestors he happens to receive. Pro claims fears about Hong Kong being given to China having been overblown. There are three critical differences between Hong Kong and Texas: (1) Hong Kong was never independent, they traded foreign rule by Britain for foreign rule by China; (2) Hong Kong is naturally allied with China culturally; and (3) whatever Hong Kong might like, they were way too small to make a stink about it. Of these (3) is the most important. Thus when China imposed the requirement that English and Cantonese languages be dropped in favor of Mandarin, there was nothing that Hong Kong could do but comply. Imposing Mandarin upon Texans is a different kettle of fish. Texans will fight to the death for the right to keep speaking Texan. Texans have fought a war for independence in the past, and every Texan holds to that tradition . . . maybe excepting a few airy-fairy liberals around Austin, but they don't amount to much. Pro makes the unsupported speculation that a majority of Americans would vote to sell off Texas if it decreased their taxes. There is no chance of Pro being correct about American willingness, or, for that matter, of taxes being reduced. For one thing, selling people into slavery has been decidedly out of fashion since the aforementioned "Civil War." On the ethics of it, in the recent Debate over health care, the senator from Nebraska negotiated the "cornhusker kickback" whereby Nebraskans got special benefits in return for the Senator's vote. The Senator, rather than being applauded for his dealing, was severely damaged politically. http://hubpages.com... Selling a vote on a single bill is a good deal less immoral than selling 24 million people into slavery. Even Illinois voters, in the state where Senate seats have a price, would get very upset about selling out Texas. Well, okay, maybe not Illinois, but everyone else. Even if voters were crass, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out that they would lose the ongoing net influx of taxes into the Treasury. "Per dollar of Federal tax collected in 2005, Texas citizens received approximately $0.94 in the way of federal spending." http://www.taxfoundation.org... Voters would also realize there would be a Texas war for independence that would inevitably spill over the borders. Texans would surely launch guerrilla attacks on their Chinese masters from outside the state. That would be bad for business all around, as the China attempted to hunt down rebel forces. The Chinese suppressed a handful of unarmed students. It is one thing to take out a few dozen sincere, but unarmed, chihuahuas, and quite another to take on 24 million rottweilers armed with blazing 45s. (Pro did not answer my challenge about his bid for angry rottweilers.) Iran has spent a decade developing nukes. Texans could figure it out in about twenty minutes. Pro suggested that Texas could be disarmed before being turned over to China. I had anticipated that strategy and had asked Pro who would disarm them. Americans know better than to mess with Texans. Would the UN send in Belgians to do the job? I think not. The United States should not sell Texas to the highest bidder. It is immoral to sell anyone into slavery. China, and anyone else, would soon appreciate the very high cost of messing with Texas, so it is unlikely to bring a positive bid, let alone a large bid. Any money that was obtained would just feed the spending frenzy of politicians rather than go towards solving financial problems. The resolution is negated.