tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24133061577725077982024-03-14T02:14:25.845-07:00Texas Secede!Commentary on current events, history, law & reader comments
<br>concerning the prospect of an independent Texas Republic
<br><br>
<a href="http://www.texassecede.org"><img src="http://texassecede.com/images/Secede04_th.jpg"></a><br>
<a href="http://www.texassecede.org"><b>www.TexasSecede.org</b></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-76896011590018320302016-12-06T08:44:00.002-08:002016-12-06T08:45:38.273-08:00After Trump…?Few were as surprised as we were to see Donald Trump win this last presidential election. We were sure it would go to Hillary Clinton as the most Establishment candidate the Establishment could've cooked up. (To be honest, for that very we were bracing ourselves for a repeat of the surge in bumper sticker sales we had faced immediately after each of Obama's elections. Fortunately we were spared from another frenzy of angry orders.)<br />
<br />
But what now?<br />
<br />
With Trump's talk of making America great again, downgrading overseas interventions as well as hostilities towards Russia, China, Syria and others, is he really going to usher in a true transformation of the American empire that makes an independent Texas less attractive, reasonable or politically sound?<br />
<br />
The answer to that question very much remains to be seen.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, we would do well do take notice as he selects the staff for his upcoming administration. Already he has chosen some rather Establishment-oriented individuals for key positions, making him look remarkably more Establishment post-election than he did pre-election. It may well be part of a plan to invoke consensus and compromise and thus assuage concerns on all sides, so as to achieve his aims without entirely snubbing any major elements of the US political landscape.<br />
<br />
Time will tell whether this could be the case — and whether such a program can work or not. It's far too early to say.<br />
<br />
But though enthusiasm for a Texas secession seems to have been mitigated by Trump's victory (yet it has sparked talk of a <a href="http://www.thetnm.org/california_makes_move_to_exit?mc_cid=9ee9144803&mc_eid=57e45a357f" target="_blank">California secession</a>[!]), we will continue to advocate for an independent Texas as we always have, remaining unconvinced (so far) that continued membership in the Union is best for the Republic (and People) of Texas.<br />
<br />
No doubt like many of our readers, we'll be observing Trump carefully in the coming months and years. He may give some Texans reason to cool their secessionist jets, but we're not about to abandon the cause of liberty and self-determination on the grounds that the Establishment has received an apparent "setback" in Trump's victory.<br />
<br />
Watch this space...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-91133645916566981132016-10-13T10:26:00.001-07:002016-10-13T10:29:40.399-07:00We Get Comments... (#3)Amidst the ramp-up of the US presidential debate of 2016, we're getting a steadily increasing flow of inquiries about the "plans" for an independent Texas. These are sincerely submitted questions about the structure of government, logistics, economics, and even a query as to what will be done to restore the sadly decaying battleship USS Texas, moored at the Houston Ship Channel.<br />
<br />
We've tried to offer polite and informative responses to these inquiries, all of which ran pretty much as follows:<br />
<br />
Let's not get the cart before the horse. There's really not much point in asking an entity promoting an independent Texas to describe in detail what that independence will look like. Most decisions about political and civil infrastructure will of necessity be products of some form of political process. Nobody can say in advance what the ultimate decisions will be. The people of Texas will have to ponder and approve them. It's not for any of us to declare — pre-secession — what post-secession Texas will look like.<br />
<br />
It's understandable that folks have concerns about keeping corrupt Washington-style politicians out of the equation, and not repeating many of the mistakes made by Washington. But let's be realistic. The people of Texas have to be trusted to do the right things when fleshing out their newly liberated republic (if that's what it remains post-secession), including its political and civil infrastructure, etc.<br />
<br />
To ask a proponent of Texas secession to define the nature of post-secession Texas is a bit like asking a bachelor to describe the routine and character of his household after he has married. Sure, certain preferences may be described, but asking him for such a description, particularly in the absence of a prospective bride's input, and well before the household has actually been established and its principles and routines hammered out, is both unrealistic and excessively demanding.<br />
<br />
Let us instead occupy ourselves, for the time being, with the goal of informing others about the viability and potential benefits of an independent Texas. As a critical mass of secession-minded Texans emerges, there will no doubt be think tanks and interest groups calling for various elements to be woven into the fabric of the freshly liberated republic. Let's wait to voice our preferences about such details until success seems much closer to the horizon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-59243194663442356192016-06-26T08:46:00.002-07:002016-06-26T13:38:32.486-07:00After 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.)<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
But as Paul Craig Roberts has deftly <a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/06/24/despite-the-vote-the-odds-are-against-britain-leaving-the-eu-paul-craig-roberts/" target="_blank">pointed out</a>, expect a lot of political and financial muscle to be applied towards negating the "Brexit" vote. The matter is far from over.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-6605534922585055792015-05-27T11:45:00.001-07:002015-05-30T05:01:41.033-07:00A Fact-Free Federal Funding ChallengeAfter the recent flooding that many Texas communities experienced due to some extremely heavy rains, we received an email asking:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"How do you feel about using FEDERAL funds to clean up that flood damage?<br />
"Shouldn't you take care of it yourself and prove you are capable?"</blockquote>
The questions might seem superficially legitimate, but they ignore at least a couple of relevant facts.<br />
<br />
First, Texas routinely pays far more <u>TO</u> the US federal coffers than it receives <u>FROM</u> Washington. So an occasion for Washington to return some of those Texas funds to Texas after a natural disaster is actually a good thing, in that it restores some balance to the equation. Had Texans been able to keep that wealth within Texas in the first place, there would have been more than adequate funding for relief efforts. But because Washington has been leaching Texans' wealth for its own agenda for decades, it is only fitting that some of that wealth be returned to Texas for aiding in the coming months of recovery.<br />
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Second, it seems at once naïve and presumptuous to suggest that Texas should "prove" itself "capable" of "taking care of" a natural disaster recovery by generously telling Washington to keep the wealth it has taken from Texas, and turning instead to whatever resources remain after that plundering. Were Texas already a truly sovereign and independent state, there might be a different story to tell. But as long as the infrastructure exists wherein Washington bleeds productive states like Texas to fund their unproductive counterparts, the <u>producing</u> states' fiscal health has already been handicapped. They've already "proven" themselves quite "capable" of sustaining their less productive siblings, so there's really no need to "prove" it again with self-imposed austerity.<br />
<br />
Until either or both of the above situations change, no one should realistically expect Texas to do anything less than call on Washington to return at least a portion of its plunder to relieve Texans of natural disaster losses.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-43427900482692950532015-01-30T22:01:00.002-08:002015-01-30T22:03:45.696-08:00Secession Begins at Home (by Jeff Deist)[<i>This article, adapted from a talk presented by Jeff Deist at the Houston Mises Circle, January 24, 2015, originally appeared at <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/01/jeff-deist/secession-begins-at-home/" target="_blank">LewRockwell.com</a></i>]<br />
<br />
Presumably everyone in this room, or virtually everyone, is here today because you have some interest in the topic of secession. You may be interested in it as an abstract concept or as a viable possibility for escaping a federal government that Americans now fear and distrust in unprecedented numbers.<br />
<br />
As Mises wrote in 1927:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The situation of having to belong to a state to which one does not wish to belong is no less onerous if it is the result of an election than if one must endure it as the consequence of a military conquest.</blockquote>
I’m sure this sentiment is shared by many of you. Mises understood that mass democracy was no substitute for liberal society, but rather the enemy of it. Of course he was right: nearly 100 years later, we have been conquered and occupied by the state and its phony veneer of democratic elections. The federal government is now the putative ruler of nearly every aspect of life in America.<br />
<br />
That’s why we’re here today entertaining the audacious idea of secession — an idea Mises elevated to a defining principle of classical liberalism.<br />
<br />
It’s tempting, and entirely human, to close our eyes tight and resist radical change — to live in America’s past.<br />
<br />
But to borrow a line from the novelist L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” The America we thought we knew is a mirage; a memory, a foreign country.<br />
<br />
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why we should take secession seriously, both conceptually — as consistent with libertarianism — and as a real alternative for the future.<br />
<br />
Does anyone really believe that a physically vast, multicultural, social democratic welfare state of 330 million people, with hugely diverse economic, social, and cultural interests, can be commanded from DC indefinitely without intense conflict and economic strife?<br />
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Does anyone really believe that we can unite under a state that endlessly divides us? Rich vs. poor, black vs. white, Hispanic vs. Anglo, men vs. women, old vs. young, secularists vs. Christians, gays vs. traditionalists, taxpayers vs. entitlement recipients, urban vs. rural, red state vs. blue state, and the political class vs. everybody?<br />
<br />
Frankly it seems clear the federal government is hell-bent on Balkanizing America anyway. So why not seek out ways to split apart rationally and nonviolently? Why dismiss secession, the pragmatic alternative that’s staring us in the face?<br />
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Since most of us in the room are Americans, my focus today is on the political and cultural situation here at home. But the same principles of self-ownership, self-determination, and decentralization apply universally — whether we’re considering Texas independence or dozens of active breakaway movements in places like Venice, Catalonia, Scotland, and Belgium.<br />
<br />
I truly believe secession movements represent the last best hope for reclaiming our birthright: the great classical liberal tradition and the civilization it made possible. In a world gone mad with state power, secession offers hope that truly liberal societies, organized around civil society and markets rather than central governments, can still exist.<br />
<h3>
<b>Secession as a “Bottom-Up” Revolution</b></h3>
“But how could this ever really happen?” you’re probably thinking.<br />
<br />
Wouldn’t creating a viable secession movement in the US necessarily mean convincing a majority of Americans, or at least a majority of the electorate, to join a mass political campaign much like a presidential election?<br />
<br />
I say no. Building a libertarian secession movement need not involve mass political organizing: in fact, national political movements that pander to the Left and Right may well be hopelessly naïve and wasteful of time and resources.<br />
<br />
Instead, our focus should be on hyper-localized resistance to the federal government in the form of a “bottom-up” revolution, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe terms it.<br />
<br />
Hoppe counsels us to use what little daylight the state affords us defensively: just as force is justified only in self-defense, the use of democratic means is justified only when used to achieve nondemocratic, libertarian, pro-private property ends.<br />
<br />
In other words, a bottom-up revolution employs both persuasion and democratic mechanisms to secede at the individual, family, community, and local level — in a million ways that involve turning our backs on the central government rather than attempting to bend its will.<br />
<br />
Secession, properly understood, means withdrawing consent and walking away from DC — not trying to capture it politically and “converting the King.”<br />
<h3>
Secession is Not a Political Movement</h3>
Why is the road to secession not political, at least not at the national level? Frankly, any notion of a libertarian takeover of the political apparatus in DC is fantasy, and even if a political sea change did occur the army of 4.3 million federal employees is not simply going to disappear.<br />
<br />
Convincing Americans to adopt a libertarian political system — even if such an oxymoron were possible — is a hopeless endeavor in our current culture.<br />
<br />
Politics is a trailing indicator. Culture leads, politics follows. There cannot be a political sea change in America unless and until there is a philosophical, educational, and cultural sea change. Over the last 100 years progressives have overtaken education, media, fine arts, literature, and pop culture — and thus as a result they have overtaken politics. Not the other way around.<br />
<br />
This is why our movement, the libertarian movement, must be a battle for hearts and minds. It must be an intellectual revolution of ideas, because right now bad ideas run the world. We can’t expect a libertarian political miracle to occur in an illibertarian society.<br />
<br />
Now please don’t get me wrong. The philosophy of liberty is growing around the world, and I believe we are winning hearts and minds. This is a time for boldness, not pessimism.<br />
<br />
Yet libertarianism will never be a mass —which is to say majority — political movement.<br />
<br />
Some people will always support the state, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves about this. It may be due to genetic traits, environmental factors, family influences, bad schools, media influences, or simply an innate human desire to seek the illusion of security.<br />
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But we make a fatal mistake when we dilute our message to seek approval from people who seemingly are hardwired to oppose us. And we waste precious time and energy.<br />
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What’s important is not convincing those who fundamentally disagree with us, but the degree to which we can extract ourselves from their political control.<br />
<br />
This is why secession is a tactically superior approach in my view: it is far less daunting to convince liberty-minded people to walk away from the state than to convince those with a statist mindset to change.<br />
<h3>
What About the Federales?</h3>
Now I know what you’re thinking, and so does the aforementioned Dr. Hoppe:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wouldn’t the federales simply crush any such attempt (at localized secession)? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
They surely would like to, but whether or not they can actually do so is an entirely different question … it is only necessary to recognize that the members of the governmental apparatus always represent, even under conditions of democracy, a (very small) proportion of the total population.</blockquote>
Hoppe envisions a growing number of “implicitly seceded territories” engaging in noncompliance with federal authority:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Without local enforcement, by compliant local authorities, the will of the central government is not much more than hot air. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It would be prudent … to avoid a direct confrontation with the central government and not openly denounce its authority … </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rather, it seems advisable to engage in a policy of passive resistance and noncooperation. One simply stops to help in the enforcement in each and every federal law …</blockquote>
Finally, he concludes as only Hoppe could (remember this is the 1990s):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Waco, a teeny group of freaks, is one thing. But to occupy, or to wipe out a significantly large group of normal, accomplished, upstanding citizens is quite another, and quite a more difficult thing.</blockquote>
Now you may disagree with Dr. Hoppe as to the degree to which the federal government would actively order military violence to tamp down any secessionist hotspots, but his larger point is unassailable: the regime is largely an illusion, and consent to its authority is almost completely due to fear, not respect. Eliminate the illusion of benevolence and omnipotence and consent quickly crumbles.<br />
<br />
Imagine what a committed, coordinated libertarian base could achieve in America! 10 percent of the US population, or roughly thirty-two million people, would be an unstoppable force of nonviolent withdrawal from the federal leviathan.<br />
<br />
As Hoppe posits, it is no easy matter for the state to arrest or attack large local groups of citizens. And as American history teaches, the majority of people in any conflict are likely to be “fence sitters” rather than antagonists.<br />
<h3>
Left and Right are Hypocrites Regarding Secession</h3>
One of the great ironies of our time is that both the political Left and Right complain bitterly about the other, but steadfastly refuse to consider, once again, the obvious solution staring us in the face.<br />
<br />
Now one might think progressives would champion the Tenth Amendment and states’ rights, because it would liberate them from the Neanderthal right wingers who stand in the way of their progressive utopia. Imagine California or Massachusetts having every progressive policy firmly in place, without any preemptive federal legislation or federal courts to get in their way, and without having to share federal tax revenues with the hated red states.<br />
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Imagine an experiment where residents of the San Francisco bay area were free to live under a political and social regime of their liking, while residents of Salt Lake City were free to do the same.<br />
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Surely both communities would be much happier with this commonsense arrangement than the current one, whereby both have to defer to Washington!<br />
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But in fact progressives strongly oppose federalism and states’ rights, much less secession! The reason, of course, is that progressives believe they’re winning and they don’t intend for a minute to let anyone walk away from what they have planned for us.<br />
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Democracy is the great political orthodoxy of our times, but its supposed champions on the Left can’t abide true localized democracy — which is in fact the stated aim of secession movements.<br />
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They’re interested in democracy only when the vote actually goes their way, and then only at the most attenuated federal level, or preferably for progressives, the international level. The last thing they want is local control over anything! They are the great centralizers and consolidators of state authority.<br />
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“Live and let live” is simply not in their DNA.<br />
<br />
Our friends on the Right are scarcely better on this issue.<br />
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Many conservatives are hopelessly wedded to the Lincoln myth and remain in thrall to the central warfare state, no matter the cost.<br />
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As an example, consider the Scottish independence referendum that took place in September of 2014.<br />
<br />
Some conservatives, and even a few libertarians claimed that we should oppose the referendum on the grounds that it would create a new government, and thus two states would exist in the place of one. But reducing the size and scope of any single state’s dominion is healthy for liberty, because it leads us closer to the ultimate goal of self-determination at the individual level, to granting each of us sovereignty over our lives.<br />
<br />
Again quoting Mises:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done. (italics added)</blockquote>
Furthermore, some conservatives argue that we should not support secession movements where the breakaway movement is likely to create a government that is more “liberal” than the one it replaces. This was the case in Scotland, where younger Scots who supported the independence referendum in greater numbers hoped to create strong ties with the EU parliament in Brussels and build a Scandinavian-style welfare state run from Holyrood (never mind that Tories in London were overjoyed at the prospect of jettisoning a huge number of Labour supporters!).<br />
<br />
But if support for the principle of self-determination is to have any meaning whatsoever, it must allow for others to make decisions with which we disagree. Political competition can only benefit all of us. What neither progressives nor conservatives understand — or worse, maybe they do understand — is that secession provides a mechanism for real diversity, a world where we are not all yoked together. It provides a way for people with widely divergent views and interests to live peaceably as neighbors instead of suffering under one commanding central government that pits them against each other.<br />
<h3>
Secession Begins With You</h3>
Ultimately, the wisdom of secession starts and ends with the individual. Bad ideas run the world, but must they run your world?<br />
<br />
The question we all have to ask ourselves is this: how seriously do we take the right of self-determination, and what are we willing to do in our personal lives to assert it?<br />
<br />
Secession really begins at home, with the actions we all take in our everyday lives to distance and remove ourselves from state authority — quietly, nonviolently, inexorably.<br />
<br />
The state is crumbling all around us, under the weight of its own contradictions, its own fiscal mess, and its own monetary system. We don’t need to win control of DC.<br />
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What we need to do, as people seeking more freedom and a better life for future generations, is to walk away from DC, and make sure we don’t go down with it.<br />
<h3>
How To Secede Right Now</h3>
So in closing, let me make a few humble suggestions for beginning a journey of personal secession. Not all of these may apply to your personal circumstances; no one but you can decide what’s best for you and your family. But all of us can play a role in a bottom-up revolution by doing everything in our power to withdraw our consent from the state:<br />
<ul>
<li>Secede from intellectual isolation. Talk to like-minded friends, family, and neighbors — whether physically or virtually — to spread liberty and cultivate relationships and alliances. The state prefers to have us atomized, without a strong family structure or social network;<br /></li>
<li>secede from dependency. Become as self-sufficient as possible with regard to food, water, fuel, cash, firearms, and physical security at home. Resist being reliant on government in the event of a natural disaster, bank crisis, or the like;<br /></li>
<li>secede from mainstream media, which promotes the state in a million different ways. Ditch cable, ditch CNN, ditch the major newspapers, and find your own sources of information in this internet age. Take advantage of a luxury previous generations did not enjoy;<br /></li>
<li>secede from state control of your children by homeschooling or unschooling them;<br /></li>
<li>secede from college by rejecting mainstream academia and its student loan trap. Educate yourself using online learning platforms, obtaining technical credentials, or simply by reading as much as you can;<br /></li>
<li>secede from the US dollar by owning physical precious metals, by owning assets denominated in foreign currencies, and by owning assets abroad;<br /></li>
<li>secede from the federal tax and regulatory regimes by organizing your business and personal affairs to be as tax efficient and unobtrusive as possible;<br /></li>
<li>secede from the legal system, by legally protecting your assets from rapacious lawsuits and probate courts as much as possible;<br /></li>
<li>secede from the state healthcare racket by taking control of your health, and questioning medical orthodoxy;<br /></li>
<li>secede from your state by moving to another with a better tax and regulatory environment, better homeschooling laws, better gun laws, or just one with more liberty-minded people;<br /></li>
<li>secede from political uncertainly in the US by obtaining a second passport; or<br /></li>
<li>secede from the US altogether by expatriating.<br /></li>
<li>Most of all, secede from the mindset that government is all-powerful or too formidable an opponent to be overcome. The state is nothing more than Bastiat’s great fiction, or Murray’s gang of thieves writ large. Let’s not give it the power to make us unhappy or pessimistic.</li>
</ul>
All of us, regardless of ideological bent and regardless of whether we know it or not, are married to a very violent, abusive spendthrift. It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to get a divorce from DC.<br />
<br />
[<i><b>Note:</b> The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com or TexasSecede.org.</i>]Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-25936463542822870672015-01-09T08:56:00.002-08:002015-01-09T08:58:23.605-08:00«Breaking Away: The Case for Secession» 1-Day Seminar by the Mises Institute<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yU33iC6urCE/VLAE9wkDbCI/AAAAAAAAAK8/EZQ_Vm_xeug/s1600/Mises%2BCircle%2BHouston%2B2015_750x516.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yU33iC6urCE/VLAE9wkDbCI/AAAAAAAAAK8/EZQ_Vm_xeug/s1600/Mises%2BCircle%2BHouston%2B2015_750x516.jpg" /></a>On Saturday, January 24, 2015, the <a href="http://mises.org/events/houston-mises-circle-2015#registration-form" target="_blank">Mises Institute</a>, an heroic champion of liberty and the requisite Austrian economics model has scheduled a 1-day seminar in Houston on the topic «Breaking Away: The Case for Secession». Attendance is a mere $95—well worth the price to hear liberty-minded men like Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Brion McClanahan, and Jeff Deist speak to an issue so dear to many Texans.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
We encourage our readers to attend this seminar. You won't be disappointed. TexasSecede.org receives no financial consideration or benefit for promoting the seminar. We're convinced that such events make for a healthier, better informed body politic within Texas, equipping individuals to better discern the political and economic realities around them, and to communicate the same fundamental principles to their neighbors.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Sign up <a href="http://mises.org/events/houston-mises-circle-2015#registration-form" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://texassecede.com/buy.php" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-14wXVdc2kkI/VHYH0GRl1UI/AAAAAAAAAKs/7d6qSiJuO_0/s1600/Secede04.jpg" height="107" width="320" /></a></div>
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The original design that inspired these stickers could be spotted on bumpers throughout Texas in the 1970s. But by the 90s, the stickers had become rare, being no longer available for purchase. A year or two after the turn of the century, we became convinced that updating the design and making the stickers available again could have a healthy influence on the politics and public opinion in Texas.<br />
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For those who are interested, the bumper stickers can be purchased <a href="http://texassecede.com/buy.php" target="_blank">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-20069443965110387652014-11-02T08:54:00.001-08:002014-11-02T11:41:10.856-08:00Scotland, Infrastructure and Logistics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hZRix2uKBVc/VFaIxXrCnLI/AAAAAAAAAKU/GZsoqV_3zfY/s1600/Flag-Pins-Texas-Scotland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hZRix2uKBVc/VFaIxXrCnLI/AAAAAAAAAKU/GZsoqV_3zfY/s1600/Flag-Pins-Texas-Scotland.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
If the results are to be trusted, the people of Scotland recently voted (narrowly) <u>not</u> to secede from the United Kingdom (UK). At least one critic blamed the failure of the referendum on an almost total lack of planning on the part of the proponents.<br />
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There's a lesson to be learned here.<br />
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To be taken seriously, Texans who are really serious about Texas independence, and aren't just emotionally swept along by the noble/romantic notion of secession, ought to start talking about the details sooner or later. Many who scoff at the idea love to pepper their comments with suggestions that an independent Texas would flounder for losing federal funding or US military protection or some other economic or infrastructure disadvantage.<br />
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While most of those speculations are as baseless as the so-called 'legal' reasons why secessions is supposedly impossible, it would behoove independence-minded Texans to be mapping out practical ways that Texas would function again as a wholly independent state.<br />
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Matters for consideration and discussion might include the system of government, constitution, economic and monetary systems, policies on immigration and economic and political relations with the US and Mexico (Texas' two most immediate neighbors), energy, etc.<br />
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The point is, for the prospect of a Texas independence to be taken serious by many outside observers (not to mention many Texans themselves), any conversation about secession must sooner or later (and preferably sooner) include at least discussions — if not published proposals — for the handling of these kinds of details.<br />
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To suggest ironing out the details afterwards is a very short-sighted and naïve approach to a very significant aspect of the formation of an independent state. There's already plenty of such 'thinking' within the Texas independence movement. What remains lacking is a visible element of practical planning with regard to the new nation's political and economic infrastructure and logistics.<br />
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Without this element, we fear the secession movement — like that of Scotland — may never 'turn the corner' as a legitimate drive for an informed decision for independence.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-30045131849541735862013-01-12T00:56:00.000-08:002013-01-16T12:12:46.486-08:00The White House 'Responds'<div>
As we've previously pointed out, petitioning the White House for 'permission' to secede is a silly way of asserting the right to self-government, but it's at least an interesting way to see where popular sentiment is heading. And the recent flurry of petitions does seem to reveal that sentiment to be heading somewhere other than the status quo.</div>
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In any case, it appears that one Jon Carson, ostensibly spokesperson for the White House, has finally issued a (rather historically and legally ignorant) <strike>response</strike> <a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/deport-everyone-signed-petition-withdraw-their-state-united-states-america/dmQl1bXL" target="_blank">piece of propaganda</a> on behalf of the White House in answer to the many secession petitions.</div>
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Like a typical contemporary government functionary, Mr. Carson presumes to fabricate both history and law as he goes along, and the public is presumably expected to naïvely 'go along' too, like good little subjects (after all, it's from the <i>White House!</i>).</div>
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Carson says the founding fathers 'enshrined' in the Constitution 'the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot,' but 'they did not provide a right to walk away from it.' He seems to have forgotten that: </div>
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<ul>
<li>Before there ever was a Constitution, the founding fathers invoked 'the power of the ballot' to 'walk away' from a 'national government' (details <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/" target="_blank">'enshrined' here</a>). They would have been utter hypocrites to deny the same right to anybody else, including subsequent generations — and they <i>didn't</i>, either in the Constitution that they ratified, or anywhere else (see below).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>With a few statist exceptions, neither the founding fathers who ratified it, nor the Constitution itself, speak of any such thing as a 'national government'. Their objective, as described right there <i>in</i> the Constitution, was instead a <i>federal</i> government (there's a difference), with limited, enumerated powers delegated to it by the States, all other powers being unequivocally 'reserved to the States respectively, or to the people' (see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" target="_blank">10th Amendment</a>).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
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Mr. Carson then has the nerve to quote Abraham Lincoln — who deliberately acted outside his lawfully limited authority to unleash several years of horrendous, bloody violence against the lives, liberty, and property of those whom he pretended to serve — as saying 'in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual'.</div>
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What Carson hopes his readers won't notice is that — whatever 'contemplation' Lincoln had in mind — there is neither an unequivocal 'universal law' nor any reference in the Constitution itself to <i>anything</i> being 'perpetual'. Like any other politician with an agenda, Mr. Lincoln was merely dressing up his personal opinion and political will with a phony veneer of unquestionable legality.</div>
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Using the 'perpetual union' fallacy as a springboard, Carson then announces that Lincoln's bloody war against the South somehow 'vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States,' when in fact it never did — and still doesn't. (<a href="http://www.usconstitution.com/" target="_blank">Read it yourself</a> and see if you can find anything even remotely resembling the words 'perpetual' or 'permanent' — or, just for fun, even 'indivisible'. For bonus points, try and find the clause authorizing a president to use military force to prevent one or more States from withdrawing — through the power of the ballot — from voluntary participation in the Union.)</div>
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As if that weren't enough, Mr. Carson hastens to make much of the fact that Lincoln's Supreme Court subsequently 'confirmed' Lincoln's arbitrary opinion by asserting its own arbitrary opinion that '[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States'.</div>
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Trouble is, neither the Court, nor Mr. Carson, could put a finger on a single constitutional 'provision' (let alone 'all' of them) even <i>suggesting</i> that <i>anything</i> (never mind a 'State' or a 'Union') is 'indestructible'. (Go ahead, <a href="http://www.usconstitution.com/" target="_blank">read it yourself</a> and see if you can find anything even remotely resembling the word 'indestructible' in connection with a political entity.)</div>
Though Jon Carson may have accurately quoted both Mr. Lincoln and the Supreme Court that reigned in the wake of the domestic slaughter over which he presided, when it comes to the intent of the founding fathers and legal document they produced, Carson's White House statement is comprised of historical and legal fiction couched in terminology designed to make its lies sound patriotic and noble.<br />
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Whether the American public is naïve enough to believe and acquiesce to such statist propaganda remains to be seen, but we're not putting any money on their objective critical thinking skills. Yet.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-22525374048783301502012-11-25T06:21:00.002-08:002012-11-25T06:21:57.539-08:00The Grey Lady Stirs Up the Dregs<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On 23 November, the New York Times published a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/us/politics/with-stickers-a-petition-and-even-a-middle-name-secession-fever-hits-texas.html?_r=0" target="_blank">brief article</a> describing how unhappy Republicans have piled onto the secession bandwagon like the a mob of political lemmings in the aftermath of Obama's re-election.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We probably wouldn't have known or cared, but because they included a live link to the TexasSecede website, we received a smattering of good old yankee hate mail, dripping with profanity, abuse and all-around contempt — but (surprise!) reflecting little or no knowledge of history, law or America's <a href="http://lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo243.html" target="_blank">tradition of secession</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The article observes that "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." But there's no reason to believe those 'messy details' couldn't be resolved in the same manner sought by the seceding states in 1860: They simply offered to compensate the federal government for any property within their borders to which it had lawful claim.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Likewise, Manny Fernandez, the article's author says "</span>no one has asked the Texas residents who received tens of millions of dollars in federal aid after destructive wildfires last year." But why should they? Mr. Fernandez appears to be unaware that the Texas economy is one of the largest and most rapidly growing economies in the US, yielding the second highest gross <strike>state</strike> national product out of all fifty [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Texas" target="_blank">source</a>]. <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As of 2005 Texans were receiving 94¢ in federal "aid" for every $1.00 they paid in federal taxes. A separate Texas would appear destined to suffer little in the absence of that federal "aid" trade-off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Like so many fans of American statism, Fernandez and the gaggle of Texas haters his article drew from the woodwork seem oblivious to the real world logistical and economical plausibility of an independent Texas. Sure, it's easy to mock and ask 'hard questions', but these folks seem conspicuously silent (or downright absent) in the face of sound, thoughtful answers. (And they say <i>Texans</i> are hard to take seriously.)</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-49864447455875863282012-11-14T10:48:00.004-08:002012-11-14T13:52:08.518-08:00A Petition? Really?Three days after Obama was elected to his second term in office as president, one Micah H. from Arlington started a petition on the White House website. In less than five days (at this writing), nearly 100,000 people had signed it.<br />
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Critics have rightly pointed out that the petition has no legal power, and that a proper secession would require a formal declaration issued by convention and approval of the citizens of Texas (which today appears even less outside the realm of possibilities than it did a week ago).<br />
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The White House petition's lack of legal teeth notwithstanding, it serves as a useful indicator of public sentiment — both within and outside of Texas — towards the federal government and the union it presumes to rule. Formed voluntarily some 225 years ago and — 81 years later — arbitrarily rendered "perpetual" and "indissoluble" except through "consent of the States" by an unaccountable, unelected body of prejudiced jurists, said union appears to have worn out its welcome for a growing number of Americans (Texas is only one of several states with such a petition).<br />
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Despite the negative, often ignorant (and sometimes downright hostile), reaction from certain self-styled 'patriotic' quarters, the many thousands of people signing the petitions are representative of a general consensus displeasure with what the federal behemoth has become. Their voices have resonated with a fair amount of feedback we've received from people outside of Texas, who — whether rightly or wrongly — see Texas as a test case: Should Texas withdraw from the union, they're either hopeful that their states will follow, or would soon make Texas their new home.<br />
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A 'critical mass' secession movement in Texas may not be right around the corner, and the White House petition, like its counterparts from other states, may well be effectively ignored by Washington. But the growing discontent isn't likely to go away, as long as Washington's politicians and bureaucrats continue with their current policy trends. And if they refuse to change course, it may well be just a matter of time before Texans invoke a declaration instead of a petition.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-50627208965090515532012-11-07T13:31:00.002-08:002012-11-09T13:50:07.788-08:00Election 2012: What Now, Texas?The results of election night 2008 (four years ago) caused an unexpected spike in Texas 'Secede' bumper sticker sales. Back then I got an email notification for every order (they were handled by an on-line shopping cart at the time). As the evening wore on, my Inbox filled up — which was my first clue as to how the election was turning out.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-abnM5wmS3Dw/UJrG8hyhoQI/AAAAAAAAAJM/yMhUl1Gc-xE/s1600/Nope.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-abnM5wmS3Dw/UJrG8hyhoQI/AAAAAAAAAJM/yMhUl1Gc-xE/s320/Nope.png" width="246" /></a></div>
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<b>Neither Party nor Candidate Matters</b><br />
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Now, I don't know how many Texans really thought McCain/Palin were anything but 100% status quo ruling class in 2008, and I don't know how many Texans really thought Romney/Ryan were anything but 100% status quo ruling class in 2012. I certainly expected nothing but business-as-usual, regardless of which party controlled the White House or either house of Congress.<br />
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But as long as there are only spikes in Texans' secessionist sentiment when the Republicans lose a race for the White House, the Texas secessionist movement will remain not-ready-for-primetime. It will take more Texans realizing that there's no essential difference between the "<a href="http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com/bipartisanmonopoly01.asp" target="_blank">two parties</a>" before public awareness can reach a "critical mass" eager to be rid of the US status quo political regime.<br />
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<b>A Solid Motive is Critical</b><br />
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Seceding because the "lesser-of-two-evils" didn't win is a petty and naïve motive, and guaranteed to fail. But seceding because the whole US political system is corrupt, because both parties have historically perpetuated the same harmful core policies both at home and abroad, and because those policies have only served to strengthen the US State (and it political class) at the expense of the liberty and property of The People — well that's a solid motive that could rally a broad enough base to get some traction.<br />
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A separate Texas that isn't based on principles of personal liberty and responsibility, as well as limited government, is not a big enough dream to truly inspire Texas' population, no matter how disgruntled they might be about some election results. Enough Texans need to recognize that the whole so-called "democratic" system of US politics is a fraud before they'll rise to support an independence unencumbered by such external baggage, knowing that things like the ever-increasing <a href="http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com/bipartisanmonopoly01.asp#caseinpoint2" target="_blank">national debt</a> have been part and parcel of an overall agenda with minimal concern for the well-being of the ruled.<br />
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A Texas so informed could very well make its way to a successful and beneficial separation from Washington's rule. And that could well be peacefully achieved, as it has been elsewhere in the world at various times. Let's retain that hope, and wait patiently — for one never knows...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-54009307025485739842012-11-07T12:10:00.000-08:002012-11-09T13:46:00.037-08:00We Get Comments... (#2) "Racists?"A few readers have pointed out that many Texans favored secession in 1861 because of racist sentiments — that is, their motivation, at least in part, was to keep blacks "in their place" as subservient to whites. <br />
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While it cannot be denied that such sentiment existed among some (perhaps many) Texans in 1861, it bears mentioning that such sentiment was by no means limited to Texas — nor to the South. Racism peppered the social landscape throughout the entire U.S. and remained so long after the Lincoln's war.<br />
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More importantly, the racist views of some Texans in 1861 are simply no basis for presuming to project the same views onto secession proponents today. Yet incredibly, that's exactly what some folks have suggested — that those Texans who favor secession today want to reinstate slavery as an institution(!).<br />
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We find no empirical basis for such a notion. Nor, we suspect, can any of our accusers.<br />
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What we find perhaps more disturbing is the fact that some of our fellow Texans who favor secession seem motivated, at least in part, by another flavor of racism.<br />
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These Texans begin by complaining about "illegal aliens" (which is really just one symptom of a much more serious problem in the entire U.S.), inevitably making comments about the "prevailing [meaning white?] culture and society."<br />
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What these people apparently fail to realize is that the Texas of today is more multicultural than it has ever been, and there is no "prevailing culture and society," except in the minds of those who fancy themselves as members of some exclusive "prevailing culture and society."<br />
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The Texas Secession movement will not succeed if it tolerates an attitude of superiority on the basis of skin color or ethnic heritage.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-39533742783244523172010-03-22T18:22:00.000-07:002010-03-22T20:20:19.534-07:00ObamaCare: Secession or Nullification?This past weekend's passage of "Healthcare Reform" in the House has been followed by much weeping and gnashing of teeth (not to mention a moderate surge in the ranks of the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-Secede/10150104764400440?ref=mf">Texas Secede!</a> Facebook page.). <br /><br />Many folks seem to be fretting over some combination of the further erosion of personal liberty and responsibility, the additional economic devastation and tax burden, the stark imposition of top-down state socialism, or simply an apparent triumph on the part of the Democrats.<br /><br />Many voices in Texas are calling freshly for secession as the logical response — but perhaps it's still too early...<br /><br />Right now, unlike any other time in US history, a <a href="http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/the-10th-amendment-movement/">nullification movement</a> has taken hold — and is growing — in most of the US states, including Texas. This means there is a strong, public-centered, and legally-informed opposition to the bloated despotism reigning in Washington, and a growing intent to invoke the Consitution itself to tell both the White House and Congress that their "federal laws" are null and void wherever they cross the line drawn by the Tenth Amendment:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."</span></blockquote>State legislatures across the country have enacted resolutions, bills, and acts warning Washington that the people and the states are fed up with the power- and money-grabbing habits of the <a href="http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com/bipartisanmonopoly01.asp">bipartisan monopoly</a> that's dominated US politics and government for over a century.<br /><br />Perhaps secession is not the only option at this moment — and it may well be avoidable if the nullification route has its constitutionally intended effect — which is to not only stop the Washington behemoth in its tracks, but also to put it back within the limits unambiguously defined by the Constitution itself.<br /><br />Texans would do well these days to check out the <a href="http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/the-10th-amendment-movement/">Tenth Amendment Center</a> and get involved right here in Texas. Austin and Governor Perry should know Texans want Washington's meddling tentacles kept out of Texas. This calls for a resolve in Austin to get each of Washington's unconstitutional activities (i.e., most of them) out of Texas, starting with a big "NO" to top-down federally mandated socialized healthcare.<br /><br />ObamaCare is only the most recent in a long line of DC's despotic assaults on the people of Texas and their liberty and property. It will take a few years for Washington to start implementing it, if it even survives the many legal challanges already lining up for it among the several states. Meanwhile, secession will always remain an optional response to this accumulated conglomeration of unlawful federal impositions. <br /><br />But a unified voice from the people of Texas, offically delivered to DC from Austin, could go a long way towards not only stopping ObamaCare, but turning back the tide on innumerable other usurpations Washington has been foisting on Texans over the years.<br /><br />Just imagine, for example, how empty would be threat of withheld (unconstitutional) federal "aid" to Texas, in the face of Texas' refusal to allow the collection of Washington's (unconstitutional) taxes on Texans and their property in the first place. The feds would be deprived not only of both the carrot and the stick, but also a pony to ride on — leaving Texans to enjoy their lives, liberty, and property in peace.<br /><br />...and if that can't be had within the union, we can still leave.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-54602549785508168302009-05-23T08:32:00.000-07:002009-05-26T05:32:34.872-07:00Olberman's Obtuse OratoryAn alert reader recently brought to my attention <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DJKpsUq9IY">Keith Olberman's Rant</a> over Texas Governor Rick Perry's refusal to rule out secession as an option for Texas.<br /><br />While I don't think Perry's comments were anything but disingenuous political posturing (he's always been an opportunistic hack of the Republicrat mainstream, and shows no signs of changing those colors), Olberman's histrionic response exposes remarkable measures of both ignorance and intellectual laziness worthy of enough contempt to pretty much eclipse any embarrassment I might feel for Perry.<br /><br />Olberman wastes no time revealing his true nature, as he starts off by calling Perry "Governor Asshat." So much for common courtesy.<br /><br />Though he feigns a measure of civility by suggesting the other states might give "permission" for secession, his historical ignorance is betrayed by his failure to take into account the fact that Texas didn’t wait for the anyone’s permission when seceding from Mexico or the U.S. (the first time), nor did the first American states, when seceding from Britain. It isn’t clear where he gets the notion that "permission" is a relevant — let alone necessary — factor today.<br /> <br />Mr. Olberman's predisposition towards tax-and-spend Big Government plundering as a norm comes out next, as the first consequence of secession he announces is "Your taxes would shoot through the roof!..."<br /><br />But his conclusion is predicated on the (false) assumption that all Texans share his (religious?) belief that the <span style="font-style:italic;">status quo</span> in government-provided "services" (mostly at what is ultimately the barrel of a gun) is a desirable norm. No longer compelled to finance endless ventures in imperialism and "nation-building" abroad, and Big Government welfare-state socialism at home, Texans could actually enjoy a <span style="font-style:italic; font-weight:bold;">decrease</span> in taxes, once the tethers of "American" bureaucratic bloat have been cut.<br /> <br />Olberman brags that FEMA has sent over $3 billion to Texas since 2001. That's less than $400 million per year — a tiny fraction of what the US government plunders from Texans in taxes annually.<br /> <br />"Other agencies sent you another $1 billion just for hurricane Ike last year," he says, boasting about what amounts to a mere .6% of the state's current $150 billion budget.<br /> <br />Later he throws in another billion in Pell grants as an afterthought. (Tellingly, while I was able to find unlimited government sources for discussions nitpicking over the amount of each of these socialist "education" giveaways, no overall budget numbers for the total Pell grant welfare program was to be found. Hmm...)<br /> <br />Then he starts listing all the meddlesome socialist programs, police state bureaucracies, and war machinery he presumes Texas will want to replicate, both betraying (again) his personal dedication to Big Government statism and his (largely erroneous) delusion that Texans somehow share his love for the welfare/warfare state. "You'll need your own Gitmo," he says, as if Texans actually want to pattern their independent republic after the US imperialism model — complete <span style="font-style:italic; font-weight:bold;">with</span> torture and <span style="font-style:italic; font-weight:bold;">without</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">habeas corpus</span>.<br /> <br />He also presumes that the "gringos" will "pull out" — again revealing his aversion to civility, and forgetting that Texas was a Mexican state with a white minority in the first place, and that by and large, Texans of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds get along fairly well, as long as folks like Olberman aren't around to fan the flames of racism.<br /> <br />Mr. Olberman is already reaching when he starts whining about nuclear waste disposal and the big business sports franchises have become — as if these would somehow uniquely become more severe problems for an independent Texas than they are for any state or country. His use of TV ratings and sport franchises as an argument against secession shows just how far he puts the prosperity of Big Business "sports" and Big Business mainstream media above the principles of liberty and self-determination.<br /> <br />He suggests that the US will want a border preventing commerce and free movement between Texas and the US, as if the US federal government will somehow be able to a <span style="font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">better</span> job than it has already, <span style="font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">without</span> the tax revenue it currently plunders from Texas.<br /> <br />His blathering about the effect of a Texas secession on US politics is moot. (Why would or should Texans care?)<br /> <br />The "scare tactic" he invokes of seeing Texas reunite with Mexico is another non-issue. The US government's taxation, intervention, and imperialism all dwarf those of Mexico by an order of magnitude, so why exactly should Texans find the prospect of "joining Mexico" so terrible? Every year, many Americans (Texans included) are already voting with their feet by relocating to Mexico, where they are basically left alone by the local and federal governments.<br /> <br />All in all, Keith Olberman's hysteria over the prospect of an independent Texas has plenty less to do with facts and sound reasoning than an irrational zeal for what has become the fascist norm in American economic and political life. It's no wonder that he can't stand the idea of the second largest economy of the country pulling its contribution from the federal trough — why, all of his favorite Big Government programs would lose a big chunk of their <span style="font-style:italic;">raison d'être,</span> and (more significantly) an even bigger chunk of their plundered funding.<br /><br />His taxes would shoot through the roof!...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-57267700607950554012009-05-04T20:09:00.000-07:002009-05-05T05:37:57.365-07:00We Get Comments... (#1)When blogging about such a controversial subject as secession, one should expect some negative comments, but frankly, we've been stunned (and saddened) at the "quality" (for lack of a better term) of the negative feedback we've recently received.<br /><br />Almost every critical comment to date has been peppered with profanity, as if there were a concerted effort to affirm that the graces of civility and common courtesy were a thing of the past among Yankees, also guaranteeing that their venomous epithets wouldn't see print in a public forum such as this.<br /><br />It would seem that the profanity was furthermore used as a substitute for knowledge, reason, critical thinking skills, and common sense — all of which were sadly absent from nearly every criticism.<br /><br />Yankee aversion to inconvenient truth is made manifest by many (irrelevant) suggestions to the effect that former president Bush were a product of Texas, and supposedly beloved by all Texans, when in fact he was Yankee born (Connecticut) and Yankee "educated" (Massachusetts, Connecticut), and his overall popularity in Texas is no greater than it is elsewhere.<br /><br />Many critics mocked that Texas couldn't survive loosing the federal funding the state currently receives, exposing their ignorance of the fact that Texas currently pays <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">more</span> in federal taxes than it receives in federal funding. My <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">dog</span> could apparently "do the math" better than a Yankee: Severing the relationship would be a fiscal <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">advantage</span> to Texas, not a hardship.<br /><br />Others offered smarmy taunts like "haven't you ****s heard of the Civil War?" — demonstrating a clear lack of <a href="http://texassecede.com/faq.htm#civilwar" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight:bold;">reading skills</span></a> and/or adequate education (thanks, we suppose, to their federally funded Yankee "public education"). These and other bitter and hostile comments clearly exposed a predisposition to violence as the Yankee's first choice in resolving differences.<br /><br />It apparently doesn't occur to these foul-mouthed statists that civil and peaceable separation is possible. Rare perhaps, but possible nevertheless. The first Southern secession of 1861 was originally undertaken in hope that a civil and amicable separation could be achieved. But Lincoln and the War Party were determined <a href="http://texassecede.com/faq.htm#civilwar" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight:bold;">at the barrel of a gun</span></a> to make "taxation without representation" a way of life, not a motivation for seeking independence, in America.<br /><br />Little further evidence is needed that Lincoln's ambition has been achieved. Many Americans (especially Yankees, apparently) are well conditioned to swallow the myth that "national unity" (no matter what it costs in constitutionally protected liberty and freedom from coercive federal meddling) is important enough to defend with profanity and the threat of violence.<br /><br />To say we're disappointed would be an understatement. Our Yankee critics have (perhaps unwittingly) betrayed themselves as historically and economically ignorant big-government war-mongers. The prospect of a free and independent Texas has not been tarnished or eroded nearly so much as the benefit of the doubt heretofore given to Yankee intellect, civility, and common sense.<br /><br />History is replete with examples of the tragic, destructive consequences of such attitudes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-48731173040968221842009-04-27T20:24:00.000-07:002009-04-27T20:28:27.627-07:00Ron Paul on SecessionFrom <a href="http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=090427_2851,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml">US Congressman Ron Paul</a> (14th District, Texas):<br /><br />"Last week the governor of Texas ignited a media firestorm for his remarks involving the idea of secession. He did not call for Texas to secede from the United States. He merely pointed out that the federal government was treading heavily on the sovereignty of the states and that this can not continue indefinitely without a breaking point.<br /><br />"The reaction to Governor Perry’s statements has been nothing short of hysterical. He has been called treasonous for making this obvious point and opening up a discussion. I am not calling for secession either, however there is nothing wrong with a healthy and open discussion of this issue.<br /><br />"America was born from an act of secession. When King George’s rule trampled on the rights of the colonies, we successfully seceded from England. It took a war, but we were well within our rights. We applauded when former soviet states seceded from the USSR and declared their sovereignty. And hopefully the United States will eventually secede from the United Nations. We pay most of the bills of the UN, yet do not have the commensurate votes, so someday we will wake up and realize that membership, for these and other reasons, does not serve our interests.<br /><br />"On a personal level, contracts you enter into can be terminated if one side unilaterally changes the terms. If a credit card company jacks up your interest rate, you have every right to fulfill your obligations and close the account. Imagine if you were forced to stay with a credit card company forever no matter what just because you previously signed up! The principle of self-determination applies to political unions as well. In the cases I mentioned above, governing organizations transformed into much more overbearing entities than originally agreed upon. Several state constitutions originally had clauses explicitly allowing them to opt out of the Union down the road if they so chose. I doubt our country would have ever come together if this were not the case. Just because the north successfully kept the union together by force with the Civil War does not mean that enslaving the states is a legitimate alternative. <br /><br />"Secession is the last resort of states whose sovereignty is over-ridden by an overreaching federal government. The federal government has only itself to blame for this talk. Recently, some states have enacted laws allowing for the medicinal use of marijuana, yet these laws are basically voided by the continuing raids by the DEA, sanctioned by the administration. The federal government is also strong-arming states with stimulus money, forcing them to expand programs they know they will not be able to afford in the future, at a time when many states’ budgets are already in the red. This is not a new problem. No Child Left Behind burdened the states’ education systems and forced them through many hoops designed by federal bureaucrats in distant Washington DC rather than allowing communities to tailor education to their children’s unique needs. There are numerous other examples of the erosion of state sovereignty and many governors are frustrated, not just ours in Texas. Without the right to secede, state’s rights are meaningless. <br /><br />"A republican form of government should also be as close to the people as possible, which means the decisions of local governing bodies must be respected. Where the decisions of local governments are disregarded, the voice of the people is also disregarded. The more that happens, the more frustrated and angry the people will become." — Ron Paul 04-27-2009Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-22441368615731287042009-03-25T19:31:00.000-07:002009-03-25T21:02:38.775-07:00Mindless Obedience, Anyone?Recently brought to our attention was a quasi-anonymous bulletin board posting by one "TVC184" in response to our <a href="http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm">FAQ</a>, which read:<br /><blockquote>"The very first question shows that the right to secede is bogus. As it states, there is nothing in the Texas Constitution that allows such a secession.<br /><br />"The answer then states that Article 1 Section 1 states that we have to follow the United States Constitution. The answer quickly tries to explain this away as saying that they only have to follow the Constution [sic] and not the US President or Congress.<br /><br />"Well duhhhhhh.... the US Constitution is what gives the Congress and President their power. The slanted answer is that we have to follow the US Constitution.... except the parts we don't like.<br /><br />"I don't buy it. The first answer clearly says that no such power allowing Texas to secede exists in the Texas Constitution. Then the political spin starts where they can obey the US Constitution but somehow ignore the President and Congress listed in that very document. Hmmm....."</blockquote>The first thing we noticed was the writer's apparently mindless obsession with the arbitrary (but false) notion that the Constitution says we're required to "follow" or "obey" the president and Congress — particularly when they <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">aren't</span> obeying the Constitution. The fact is, Americans (the president and Congress especially) are required obey the rule of <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">law</span> — not men. But the writer of the above comments mindlessly embraces the notion that we're all obliged to "follow" and "obey" the president and Congress instead of demand that they "follow" and "obey" the Constitution.<br /><br />Turning both the law and logic on their heads, our writer ("TVC184") is suggesting that the absence of any constitutional provision either for or against secession somehow renders secession a prohibited and "bogus" notion, and that unconditional "obedience" to presidents and Congress is the perpetual obligation of Texans.<br /><br />Frankly, the very idea that we are somehow obligated to "obey" a president and/or a Congress that openly defy the clear limitations imposed by the Constitution is unmitigated evidence of shameful ignorance — the same kind that mindlessly acquiesces to the falsehood that the US Constitution "gives power" to presidents and Congress, instead of <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">delegating</span> it on behalf of the people, as both the US and Texas Constitutions explicitly state.<br /><br />Our "TVC184" is also apparently ignorant of the fact that secession is how both the United States and Texas Republics were born. Secession is rendered neither "illegal" nor "bogus" by either of their respective Constitutions, and in fact the founding documents of both entities clearly indicate that people have a right — an <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">obligation</span> — to change their government if they're not happy with the current one (and it's not referring to "voting").Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413306157772507798.post-6999535220440727832009-02-23T20:45:00.000-08:002009-03-27T22:13:20.067-07:00A Confederate Soldier's Revisionist LegacyAround mid-February 2009, we received some unsolicited emails from fellow Texan Darrell McEver of Leander, "10 Generations" of whose "family have fought and Died for this Country, the Confederacy, and Texas." On the face of it, that's a very credible claim (I did the math), with the average span between generations being roughly 23 years and 4 months.<br /><br />But in this story, that's where Mr. McEver's credibility both begins and ends.<br /><br />His purpose in writing wasn't to boast about his family's role as fodder for the war mongers of American history, but to inform us that:<blockquote>"The Civil war was about The Vast Majority of American Citizens voting to end Slavery by the election of Lincoln. It was about Americans wanting to end injustice. The rights of states to Secede was far outweighed by the rights of ALL Americans to be free. ...If there had been no slavery there would have been no Civil war."</blockquote>Those four short sentences contain four abject falsehoods, to wit:<ol><li>Lincoln was elected by a "vast majority."<br /><li>Lincoln's election was about ending slavery.<br /><li>a state's right to withdraw from its voluntary relationship to the Union is somehow trumped by "Americans' right to be free."<br /><li>slavery was the cause of the War of Northern Aggression—popularly (and erroneously) called the American "Civil War."</ol>When told his assertions were only popularized myths, Mr. McEver assured us of their reliability, because he was "quoting [his] Great Grandfather from Vidor Texas," who was "a very young private in the Confederacy."<br /><br />With due respect to both Mr. McEver and his great grandfather, neither a man's having been a private ("very young" or otherwise) in any particular army, nor his being from Vidor, Texas, is a logical basis for substituting his beliefs for the scholarship and historically-informed writings of the likes of Shelby Foote (author of the three-volume "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394749138?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwlonest-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0394749138"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Civil War</span></a>"), Thomas DiLorenzo ("<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761526463?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwlonest-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0761526463"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Real Lincoln</span></a>"), Charles Adams ("<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0847697231?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwlonest-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0847697231"><span style="font-weight:bold;">When in the Course of Human Events</span></a>"), or Kenneth Stampp ("<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671751557?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwlonest-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0671751557"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Causes of the Civil War</span></a>").*<br /><br />So let's examine each of the four (false) claims of Darrell McEver and his great grandfather.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1) Did Lincoln receive the votes of the "vast majority" of Americans in 1860?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">No,</span> he received just under 40%. The remaining 60+% went to the other three candidates: Breckinridge (18%), Bell (12%), and Douglas (30%). Forty percent is not a "majority" of the available votes at all, let alone a "vast majority." Lincoln won because he received more votes than any other candidate, not because the "vast majority" of Americans voted for him.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2) Did Lincoln's election having anything to do with slavery?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">No.</span> He did not campaign against slavery. In fact, he was on record as having an opinion of Negro slaves as inferior folk who should be removed to another continent, and when pressed to the point, he explicitly stated that he had no intention of interfering with slavery in the South. The above authors have plainly and thoroughly documented all of this from the historical record. No one has rebutted the evidence they have published, because no rebuttal is possible—the historical facts speak for themselves, and expose the anti-slavery myth for the popularized lie that it is (at least for those unwilling to substitute opinion or myth for an objective examination the historical facts).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3) Is there legal or historical evidence that Americans' "right to be free" somehow trumps, negates, or nullifies the right of a state to secede (<span style="font-style:italic;">i.e.,</span> to voluntarily withdraw from its voluntary relationship to the Union)?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">No.</span> No such provision is found in either the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, the two documents articulating the laws and principles which comprise the foundation of the American republic. Nor is there a logical foundation for such a claim: A secession being an act undertaken by a state on behalf of the will of its people (presumably in the interest of their right to self-determination), it is a logical fallacy to assert that such an act may somehow be justifiably nullified by some alleged claim to "freedom" by the sum of the people <b><i>not</i></b> represented by that state, since the freedom of those outside the state is not substantially affected, threatened, or questioned by either the will of the people or the state acting on behalf of that will in executing the act of secession.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4) Was slavery the cause of the so-called "Civil War"?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">No.</span> The above authors (and many others) have demonstrated from the historical record that, although slavery in America existed as a highly controversial issue, both morally and politically, Lincoln's presidency was not founded on a resolve to end slavery, nor was the South's secession primarily motivated by a fear of any such resolve on Lincoln's part.<br /><br />Instead, Southern secession was motivated primarily by what had become a long-brewing imbalance between Northern control of Washington power via higher population (and therefore voter) concentrations in the North, which, in turn, rendered Southern productivity and property subject to the whims (and taxes) of Northern industrialists. Southerners had grown weary after many years of Northern domination, in which their freedom to buy and sell was being controlled and manipulated through Congress by dominant Northerners. Lincoln had promised more of the same, so his election became the last straw for a great many Southerners.<br /><br />To be sure, there were both Southerners and Northerners who wanted to end slavery, and there were both Southerners and Northerners who felt it was nobody's business to interfere with slavery. Many scholars agree that American slavery was destined to end soon in any case, and war was certainly unnecessary for that achievement: Slavery was abolished without armed conflict in most other Western nations around the same time as Lincoln's war on the South, bringing further into question the popularized myth that a bloody conflict was necessary.<br /><br />During the 19th century, slavery was abolished (without war) in Argentina (1813), Colombia (1814), Chile (1823), Central America (1824), Mexico (1829), Bolivia (1831), British colonies (1840), Uruguay (1842), French colonies (1848), Danish colonies (1848), Ecuador (1851), Peru (1854), Venezuela (1854), Dutch colonies (1863), Puerto Rico (1873), Brazil (1878) and Cuba (1886). The notion that a nation-wide war was necessary for the same purpose in America is based purely on popularized, arbitrary opinion—not the facts of the historical record.<br /><br />Finally, Mr. McEver saw fit to assert that "when it comes to States Rights and Secession today I remind you" that the Pledge of Allegiance contains the word "indivisible... Americans, by oath under the Hand of the Almighty, completely and purposefully acknowledge that the United States of American is indivisible."<br /><br />It apparently doesn't occur to Mr. McEver that:<ol><li>not all Americans voluntarily recite or assent to "the pledge"<br /><li>with the exception of its mentioning "liberty and justice for all," nothing about "the pledge" reflects the spirit or principles of the American founders<br /><li>"the pledge" is neither a legal document, nor based in law, and as such, is not legally or morally binding on those coerced to mindlessly recite it at government "schools" and political functions<br /><li>"the pledge" was originally crafted (1892) by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight:bold;">a socialist</span></a> in the interest of fomenting a spirit of socialist nationalism in which individual liberty itself was to be subjugated to the supposed "greater good" of the whole nation<br /><li>the phrase "under God" had no part in the author's original text, and was only added 62 years later (1954)<br /><li>neither "the pledge" in general, nor its containing the word "indivisible" in particular, by any means carries any legal force whatsoever, let alone that sufficient to nullify the inherent right of a people to self-determination, as formally recognized in the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Texas Constitution.</ol>Thanks to his Confederate soldier great grandfather, Darrell McEver is just one of many Texans (and other Americans) who have been conditioned to accept without question the mythologies of the American federal government. Too busy (or lazy) to examine the historical record itself, they are duped into believing — and repeating — outright falsehoods about American history, as popularized and perpetuated by our government, media, and academia, and (to his own shame) even a veteran of the Confederate army.<br /><br />This habitual displacement of truth by such popularized myths in the public mind seems to go hand-in-hand with popular acquiescence to the big-government national-socialist agenda perpetrated from Washington by the twin ruling parties. That being the case, any hope for genuinely positive change awaits a popular awakening and abandonment of both habits.<br />___________________________<br /><br />* For those either unwilling or unable to examine the historical record as brought to light in the above cited books, a small sampling of the scholarship they embody may be found <a href="http://democracyisnotfreedom.com/articles.asp#lincoln" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight:bold;">here</span></a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com