THE NEW YORK TIMES takes secession seriously. Well, I think it’s a dumb idea, and suggest instead that taking federalism seriously would be a better idea. That said, this is a dumb argument against secession:

Few of the public calls for secession have addressed the messy details, like what would happen to the state’s many federal courthouses, prisons, military bases and parklands. No one has said what would become of Kevin Patteson, the director of the state’s Office of State-Federal Relations, and no one has asked the Texas residents who received tens of millions of dollars in federal aid after destructive wildfires last year for their thoughts on the subject.

These are details — really, we can’t secede because Kevin Patteson would be out of a job! isn’t very persuasive — and one might as well say “No one has asked Texas residents how they’ll spend the federal income taxes and gas taxes they’ll no longer be paying.” If those are the best arguments against secession, I might change my mind. But they’re not.