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November 19, 2012

Student, part-time resident, calls for secession

Sally Sexton CNHI

PARKER COUNTY — For the last week, Texas has captured the attention of media outlets all over the country, drawing them to the White House’s website, www.whitehouse.gov.

Within the site, a petition calling for the peaceful grant of Texas to withdraw from the U.S. and create its own government was formed by college student and part-time Weatherford resident Micah Hurd Nov. 9.

“I had known this website existed for most of the year,” the University of Texas at Arlington student said of his idea to create the topic. “I ran across a petition for Louisiana to secede from the U.S. and though ‘That’s a good idea, I’m going to put one up for Texas.’”

Hurd said he quickly typed up a summary of his request, and listed some issues that immediately came to mind, following those up with brief research to verify what he had heard.

Some of Hurd’s issues listed include the country’s economic difficulties and abuse of citizens’ rights.

“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,” he wrote. “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.”

As of Friday afternoon, Hurd’s petition had 111,786 signatures from Texans, as well as citizens from other states, including Montana, Kentucky and Georgia.

“I didn’t really expect it to go anywhere,” Hurd said. “But it was a fun idea and we’ve enjoyed seeing the response and watching the number of signatures increase.

“Clearly, there are a number of people out there that do believe we have some issues and they need to be solved.”

Since the Louisiana and Texas petitions were published, the other 48 states have jumped on board also requesting the peaceful withdrawal from the union. Georgia has the second highest number of signatures, with more than 49,000, followed by Louisiana with more than 35,000.

According to the website’s policy, only 25,000 signatures are needed on a petition to elicit a response from the White House. So far, Hurd said he has not been contacted.

“I think this is more of a fad period, not to say that I don’t take the 100,000 signatures seriously,” he said. “Unfortunately I don’t see this going any place other than being an Internet phenomenon.

“If we get a response from the White House, we will be very fortunate.”

To view the petition, or create your own, go to petitions.whitehouse.gov.

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