Why Mars should be independent from Earth

I have three thoughts:

1) Regardless of what Martians want, they'll be heavily economically dependent on Earth. Complex materials, chemicals, drugs, microprocessors, etc. simply won't be manifacturable on Mars for a long time. As long as Martians need these things from Earth, Earthlings will be able to influence their politics by controlling (or threating to control) the flow of goods to Mars. However..

2) Martians will be mostly politically independent in their own affairs. They are simply too far away from Earth to be micromanaged. Additional, Mars has nothing of value to Earth (at least so far), so...

3) Martians will mostly be ignored. There will be a lot of hype and interest at first, but it will quickly fade once the novelty has worn off. Unless and until Martians have something of value for Earth, most Earthling will pay no attention.

One of the benefits of getting older is "discovering" great books by rereading them after many years. Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicals is among those for me. This essay reminded me that Bradbury's take is that any humans living on Mars would be independent regardless of what's on paper. Simple physics insures it.

Mars was colonized by the Northern Block at enormous expense. Our entire war effort depends on the turbinium, and it's ridiculous to think that we're going to give it away just because a bunch of lazy mutants think they own the planet.