Sunday, June 26, 2016

After Brexit…?

In the wake of the recent "Brexit" vote in Great Britain, we've seen a flurry of online activity — some pleasant, some not so pleasant. The increase in bumper sticker sales means the very prospect of secession is going to be more visible to the public eye on Texas streets. The surge in embarrassingly ignorant emails we could have lived without.

What "Brexit" means for Britain, the EU or Texas surely remains to be seen. Experts have pointed out that the British parliament has the final say as to whether Britain leaves the EU because the recent referendum was non-binding. The margin by which the "leave" vote won was anything but compelling, and in fact a few short days after the vote there were reportedly already over three million signatures on a petition calling for a new vote. The only sure thing is that there's no sure thing.

Why so many Texans have only now become aware that there's a movement for an independent Texas is hard enough to fathom. Harder yet to grasp is that they see fit to pepper us with a stream of fact- and logic-free arguments about the "dangers" of withdrawing from a "free country" and "ignoring" the interests of anti-secession Texans.

Some of these antagonistic writers have even made it clear they want no dialogue: after shoving their ignorance under our noses so we can smell it in all its glory, they assure the perpetuation of their own ignorance by demanding that we not reply to their rants. (Can't run the risk of having the record set straight.)

We can deal with such emails, partly because we're confident that for every one of them, there are several Texans out there who are not overreacting and have done (or are doing) their homework. It's encouraging that "Brexit" has stirred things up in Texas a bit. The exposure can only strengthen the Texas Independence movement. But the real, long-term effects of the British vote will surely take some time to manifest themselves.

But as Paul Craig Roberts has deftly pointed out, expect a lot of political and financial muscle to be applied towards negating the "Brexit" vote. The matter is far from over.