Reaction & Commentary
Got invited to texas by content 2020 the film festival to receive an award for our last documentary we thought it’d be nice while we’re out here to come enjoy the sights and scenes in texas and meet some nice people and also after the election get a good sense i think of
What this country really stands for so come along and join us in a special episode enjoy i’ve been chasing down this dream for as long as i’ve known sometimes i get thinking that my life might be wrong that was a bitter cold day in new york
We escaped a heavy blizzard and took a four-hour flight to sun-soaked texas it felt like landing another country my first impression of the lone star state were these enormous american and texas flags after we left the airport they were everywhere it suggested something interesting that the texas story is the american story Texas got its name from a native american word meaning friends in 1683 when spanish franciscan priest damian massinet entered this new world he met some indians and misunderstood the word they used to introduce themselves vekas means friends or allies but he took it as the name of the land and the name
Stuck texas is america’s second largest state both in land and population and has also kept a strong culture of farming and ranching and indeed we saw a lot of cows [Applause] the state is also quite wealthy with the second highest gdp in the country and it exceeds the gdp of canada and russia
But even more important to texas is its unique culture and its founding story Before the film festival i decided to go learn more about what the story really means 185 years ago in 1836 the mexican president general santa anna who took mexico from spain and proclaimed himself the napoleon of the west led thousands of troops to attack the alamo which had less than
200 defenders now in his eyes the alamo was just an irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name despite overwhelming odds the alamo defenders held off the mexican army for 13 days the alamo eventually fell and every defender was killed but their actions helped secure the future freedom of texas
Unlike many famous battles the reason the alamo became one of the most critical battles in american history was not because of its victory but rather because of its failure the defenders knew they wouldn’t survive but they sacrificed their lives for freedom and remember the alamo became a slogan for anyone resisting tyranny
In his famous letter to the people of texas and all americans in the world william b travis commander of the texan forces wrote i am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor
And that of his country victory or death the spirit moved countless texans and americans two months later general samuel houston and the texan army defeated santa anna in the battle of san jacinto that lasted us 18 minutes after his own waterloo santa ana signed the peace treaty
Paving the way for the republic of texas to become an independent country back to the present we’re here in front of the alamo in san antonio texas we’re going to talk to some folks here about what the alamo means to them i’m curious being from texas yourself i mean what
Meaning does it have for texans in terms of the spirit of texas and america because when they saw what was happening they sent out writers outside of texas to try to get help from other states so it’s not just texas it’s also the other states in america
The people that came in to help the freedom of these people the suppressed people by the dictator and uh you ask what meaning does it have for texas well they got rid of the dictator it gave us our freedom now we’re not pursued by armies from mexico
Saying you can’t have that gun you can’t have that black powder or spiking our cannons where we couldn’t use them we’re just into one of the guys who served and died here and he was a young man in his 20s and he gave his life for freedom and he was one of just
Thousands millions maybe that have given their lives for freedom in one way or another and so that’s the symbol of the alamo the alamos that that symbol to me it just shows our fight as a people for freedom and i think now you know as much as any time
Is we’re in a fight and maybe we’re not doing it with guns and with you know with sieges and those kind of things but we’re in a fight for for our very freedom and the very values of our country after visiting the alamo i walked the streets of downtown san antonio
But due to the pandemic the seventh most populous city in the united states had become a ghost town So i decided to go to the countryside to see if i could find out more about the texas story this brought me to kasi in a town with a population of about 500 people what is it about small town america in terms of character what’s what’s the
Difference would you say well i think small town america for me and a difference for everybody i have friends that don’t understand how i can how my wife and i can live here and we absolutely love it they want the nightlife they want to know that there’s
500 different restaurants they can go to and all that that’s okay but i think that one thing around here people know each other people will help each other out i mean it’s kind of like our police officer over here chief knew you can give him a call he’ll go do
Something that the average police officer could not do in a major city city management he handles all of our infrastructure he helps people out all the time there’s just things that in a big city no way go find a plumber or go find so you have that kind of thing
And uh if you need somebody to you know watch your dogs or to you know your mom’s sick can you drive them to the hospital that’s available it’s just a phone call away it’s the old tradition of just having neighbors and everybody no no it doesn’t mean everybody it’s a love
Fest i mean there’s this and every occasionally but it’s i found in all the years i lived down the woodlands for about 25 years which is a huge master plan community north of houston beautiful but i’ve got more close neighbors around here that i had 25 years of living there than
My neighbors on the very street just because everybody’s gone to work you come home you’re in your house you get up and go go again and you go to your various churches or whatever you’re involved in and we love it While we were in casey there was a speech at the community center on texas leaving the united states and while the topic may be controversial to some it showed that the spirit of texas independence is still very much alive By now many of you probably heard that texas may look to secede from the union this is new movement now called texit and to speak with us about this we have daniel miller he’s with the texas nationalist movement he’s going to talk to us about his push to make texas
Leave the union you know at the end of world war ii there were 54 recognized countries around the world and by the end of the 20th century there were 192. those countries did not fall from space the earth did not get any bigger they were people in countries or areas
That were just like us in texas that said look we just want the ability to govern ourselves the way that we want to be governed you know people in texas are sick and tired of living under 180 000 pages of federal laws rules and regulations that if you
Printed them out and stacked them would be taller than the san jacinto monument that’s the monument to our victory against santa ana and our independence from mexico you know and think of that situation when you when you put it in those terms and realize that we fought a war
To be independent from a dictator but yet the laws rules and regulations that it administered upon us are forced upon us by two and a half million unelected bureaucrats dwarfs our monument to our victory for independence i mean it’s like going to a doctor the doctor drawing all of the blood out
Of your body spilling about 40 percent of it on the floor re-injecting the rest of it and then saying hey you realize you wouldn’t be alive without me right i mean that’s that’s how this relationship is the idea of independence is branded into texas from its nickname is a lone star state
The fact that it joined the union as an independent nation to its own military texas national guard and with its over 21 000 troops with both air and land capabilities it’s among the strongest military forces in america from a certain perspective texas is just like a small america
That’s both prosperous and efficient if texas were a country it would be among the world’s top 10 economies and oil producers in addition to that there are 50 fortune 500 companies headquartered in texas ranking third in the u.s after new york and california but still could texas really function as its own country
Another question is do most texans actually support texas independence on the tnm website more than 400 000 people have already declared the support for texan but texas has a population of close to 30 million people i understand texas is a red state and a lot of people aren’t happy with the election
How do you think this has changed things well look we wouldn’t be pushing for a referendum if we didn’t think we could win it you know the fact of the matter is is that we put this thing to a vote we anticipate we’re going to slam dunk
It by 10 to 15 points maybe more i think it really depends on exactly what the federal government does between now and the time the vote happens does anyone anticipate that they’re going to reverse course and suddenly say you know what texas we get you we understand your concerns
No what we’re going to get is we’re going to get more jobs killed through the green new deal we’re going to get more centralization more socialism more power sucked into washington d.c and we’re going to see the rights of the people of texas eroded and trampled on when they’re talking about you know
Taking someone like beethoven who said you know hell yes i’m going to take your ar-15 right and when they take these radicals that are in congress and say look we’re going to put them in charge of your health and your economy and energy and all of these things
Then the people of texas you know we know exactly what we’re going to expect so yes we’ll win by 10 to 15 percentage points and possibly more depending on exactly how radical washington dc gets how does this actually work yeah it’s a process question
We get a lot of those as you can imagine but i would just encourage people to go to look and see what happened in scotland in 2014 in the uk in the brexit vote it’s a very similar situation for us here in texas we don’t have citizen initiative so we can’t
No matter how many signatures we collect we cannot force something on the ballot but what we have to do is we have to engage these legislators and we need a statute in place that will allow us to go to the polls and vote for that now good for us state representative
Kyle biederman being the hero that he is filed hb 1359 which will do exactly that thing so we make it through the legislature texans will go to the polls in november of 2021 to vote on the issue of texas leaving the union the next day i attended content 2020
Now the epic times was honored to win the best documentary award in the news and journalism category and during the news and journalism lunch i was invited to share my experiences as an investigative reporter researching radical and subversive movements in the united states and people started telling me those
People attacking us those are spies and then i come from a background like james bond movies and stuff like that i’m like like that’s that’s not a spy you know it’s like the guy looks like he hasn’t showered in a week you know they’re like they’re like sweaty you know like you
Know they don’t look like spies i’m like no that’s that he should be wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase never thought anything like it and so once i uncovered these guys and started reporting on them i started seeing interesting things namely that i started getting followed that people would surround me people
Would threaten to kill me uh contacts i had would tell me one for example said they thought he said he woke up his tires were slashed on his car and he said they told me that they if i keep talking to you they’re going to
Hire a hitman to chop off one of my hands and of course what did i do i wrote a story about it and i said i said well you know if they do it now they’ll know who did it because if you go back and read the communist manifesto what does it say
Communism abolishes eternal truths and what is eternal truth right it says communism abolishes all religion and all morality we think it’s an economic theory to go back to the 1930s it was never an economic theory it was a metaphysical theory meaning it is a belief and it’s a belief
Of a cult of man and that you can only create that cult of man by destroying god and everything that god created in man it is a system to recreate society in the image of man and not in the image of god and so everything they do
Is to make you abandon your faith everything they do is to undermine your morals to destroy your traditions to destroy your family values to destroy everything that your country and your culture and your character is based upon and it is only through that if they can achieve it that they can achieve their
Goals and so at epoch times we of course have our slogan truth and tradition meant to speak the truth and uphold traditions this is something we’re going to be doing into the distant distant future and we will never be silenced during this conference i took the opportunity
To talk with some of the attendees and got a sense of the role of faith personal responsibility and independence in the american character people are starting to see hollywood as being this big business it has a lot of practices that people may not agree with happening in it
And also that the trajectory of it is moving away from tradition moving away from values moving into a lot of political realms that people just don’t feel comfortable with these days they’re too tired of it and we see now the faith film industry getting a lot more professional
Making really good films sometimes and also making films that talk to us with meaning right right not not even per se you know getting preachy but just having meaning right what do you think the value of that meaning is in film it’s extremely important because people are seeking and they’re
Not finding you know we talked a little while ago about the frivolity of the internet and all these kind of things right and i think people seek that frivolity they seek that escape because they’re afraid of what the answers that they may not be able to find or they’re afraid of the answer
That they are finding and so they’re looking for a way to give them a hope to kind of give their brains a shock into thinking i don’t have to i won’t have to deal with it i can grin and bear it i can go ahead it’s not really happening
Because they’re watching all you know that’s why they’re getting involved in all this stuff and so the value sector of filmmaking is extremely important because people may not know of christ yet they may not even be prepared but there’s a precursor to that word there is a
There is a value there is a principle centeredness there’s a understanding of family there’s an understanding of marriage there’s an understanding of of just humans one to another brotherhood right there are so many values that civility my god what would we where would we be if we were just to be civil
With each other before we talk about being born again we’ve all talked about all these other things just if we had some kind of respect just just so we can disagree and yet love one another and just still be able you know be like children that they disagree they’re fighting in
One way and the next thing they’re good at ice cream you know if we can if we can turn back to that that in itself would change the landscape of what’s happening in america and around the world you were telling me something interesting just a bit ago
About people looking for justice but you said they’re looking for justice in the wrong places all the wrong places most times joshua buildings that are designated as justice centers and this is where the general public has to go from time to time for some reason or another
And they expect to go into these buildings and come out of these buildings with the thought and attitude that they have received what they consider to be justice but they don’t understand that absolute and perfect justice comes from only one source only one source and that is father god
Now someone sent me a quote from another saint actually there was an interesting quote it said something along the lines that basically you find similar traits among saints and heroes that oftentimes they’re people who are willing to take risks yes but the saint also said you find that same trait
Among criminals and actually the line between saints and heroes and criminals can be very thin it’s just a choice of how you deal with the hardships put in front of you and i mean that was something that really had me thinking it’s making me think about your story too of
Finding people and seeing in them talents and values that they do not see in themselves and helping them to nurture those values to change them right you know as a teacher that’s what i do a young person comes to college and they have these big dreams of what they’re going to be
And they think that coming to college and just sitting there is going to miraculously make this wonderful job appear on their fourth year may when they walk across that stage they don’t realize how much work and effort and time it is going to take they haven’t developed their savvy wings
Yet so they don’t realize that it’s going to take an understanding of how to do that’s my job my job is to lead and guide them in the how to’s so some of their savvy may be considered game so i’ve got to see the game in them and
Use it for their own good that’s an interesting way of looking at it actually if you were to let people know one thing about your work and what you hope to build through all this what would you tell them i really want people to know god first and foremost and
I want to give glory to him you know because if it wasn’t for the lord i wouldn’t be here you know i wouldn’t know anything what i’m going to do or i never aspired to be a filmmaker you know it just it just kind of happened as i started following the lord In 1864 28 years after the siege of the alamo the phrase in god we trust was first used on a two cent coin and this was declared by congress as the national motto in 1956 and has put the u.s in sharp contrast to the atheist and anti-religious
Regimes that were then taking over the world during the cold war such as the soviet union americans belief in god has changed little after more than 200 years of good times and bad the united states is still a deeply religious country and the american spirit is rooted in the
Belief in god and the belief that as the declaration of independence declared people are endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that government is instituted among men only with the purpose of protecting these rights i’m delighted to realize this again
Through this trip to texas well folks i hope you’ve enjoyed this special episode as much as we’ve enjoyed filming it and i also hope that maybe you found some of the same hope that we’ve also found here you know one thing i’ve seen coming out here to texas is that the
Spirit of the american character and what america stands for is still alive and will always be alive as long as we ourselves hold it and really seeing community seeing people maintaining their values their faith their traditions really this is what america is this is what we are focuses always appreciate all of you
And again as always as well please take care of yourselves stay informed and stay free thank you I love you filmed this episode just before the snowstorm hit texas and like many people we didn’t expect the storm to hit so badly there’s a strong spirit of independence and faith in texas and that’s something that really stood out to us while we were there
We hope this video will encourage all of you to stay strong during this hardship and our hearts got to everyone in texas
