If Texas Wants to Secede, Then ... Re "With Stickers, a Petition and Even a Middle Name, Secession Fever Hits Texas" (news article, Nov. 24): As a Texan who is a proud American, I am in complete disagreement with the notion that support for Texas secession has moved from the fringes to the center. None of my friends, family members or co-workers, covering a wide range of political views, have ever expressed support for Texas secession. The only places I ever hear support for the idea are on right-wing-oriented radio infotainment shows and in news articles. These folks have the right to say and believe what they want, but I have the right to judge them as being not just un-American but also un-Texan. I am tempted to sign the petition and have Texas booted. Apparently, those Texans who want to secede no longer want federal dollars for their pet projects, roads, agricultural endeavors, university student loans, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, fee-free interstate transport of their goods, travel without a passport, defense of their border from illegal immigrants and on and on. Any state wanting to go it alone is welcome to do so, but it should think about what it will have to do without help from the rest of us who love the United States with all of the issues we try to tackle together. One factor in secession has not been addressed. Every state owns part of the national debt. Sore losers cannot just walk away from it. The last states to secede paid in blood. Today's price would have to include dollars, their full multibillion-dollar share of the debt they helped amass. Indeed, a president from Texas ran up a good part of it. And would a foreign team like the Dallas Cowboys, when no longer "America's Team," be allowed in the National Football League? Re "Lincoln, Liberty and Two Americas," by Charles M. Blow (column, Nov. 24): The breakup of the United States through secessionist movements seems unthinkable. But there was a time when the breakup of the Soviet Union was also unthinkable. Americans need to seriously address those issues that divide us through our established institutions, and be willing to compromise for the sake of the whole. If we do not, the unthinkable could become a reality.