Reaction & Commentary
To make texas leave the union now daniel real pleasure having you on hey thank you so much for having me so i think a lot of people would have a lot of questions on how this would work but i think let’s start off on how this movement started now i know
This is not a new thing for you i’ve been pushing this now since 96. what has changed between 96 and now well i’ll tell you there’s there’s been a lot you know we could talk about how the federal government the case against the federal government has just gotten worse
We could talk about the increased erosion of our rights and liberties and frankly the sovereignty of our state the destruction of our ability for local self-government but what really changed in the movement was this it was a very conscious choice on the part of those who supported texas independence
To found an organization called the texas nationalist movement that was based on what we had seen happening around the world 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 so you know looking at examples of that
Around the world we’ve made a very conscious decision that a political movement a political and social movement needed to be formed and in 2005 that happened and so since 2005 we’ve been able to as the federal government obviously has made things worse we’ve been able to engage our case just like any social
Or political advocacy organization and take our case straight to the people you look at polling back in 2005 when we started and you know any of those polls that were done back then support for texas independence was in single digits but then you look at our on the ground work from
That point to 2009 you had half of republicans about 45 percent of independents and 15 percent of democrats now rumors 2009 say that they believe that texas would be better off as an independent nation so you see that people were thinking about it from that standpoint
Wow that’s a that’s a pretty good margin actually for you and what is your estimate in terms of support right now i understand texas is a red state and 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 um you know the fact of the matter is is that we we put this thing to a vote uh we anticipate we’re gonna we’re gonna 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 uh you know when 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 now what is the first step with this i understand there’s going to be a vote 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 and 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 now i know with texas it’s it’s in a unique position
As opposed to other states in the u.s and with the dexter with the texas declaration of independence i understand for example it actually talks about texas being able to leave if the standards of government life liberty and pursuit of happiness are not upheld i understand also that after the
After the civil war that there was a new regulation put in for states saying that they had to have a state by state vote or basically have to win it through evolution that’s going to happen as it has this work that’s not it at all and there’s a lot
Of misinformation about that so don’t feel bad okay tell me yeah i got you um so so here’s what it boils down to what we know is the united states constitution in article 10 lists out all the things that states are prohibited from doing there’s no prohibition against the state withdrawing it’s not
In the constitution in addition it says specifically in the 10th amendment that any power is not given to the federal government by that constitution are reserved to the people and to the states so what we have to look at is the from a constitutional standpoint is what the texas constitution says now
People want to talk about texas versus white that supreme court case and i would love to absolutely slaughter that for you and we can get there if you want to but the bottom line is what’s important is our post civil war constitution article 1 section 1 ends with the words
The perpetuity of the union depends on the right of local self-government unimpaired to all the states i don’t know of anyone here in texas that would agree that our right of local self-government hasn’t been impaired so then what becomes operative is article 1 section 2 okay
And that is what i believe to be probably the purest expression of the right of self-determination uh in a governing document to ever exist and it’s existed in every form of our constitution since the republic of texas days back in the 1830s and 40s and it says this
All political powers inherent in the people and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit and the people have at all times the inalienable right to alter reform or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think expedient
So it’s not a question for the federal government or for the other states this is not a mother may i situation it is a question that is left solely to the people of texas it is a political question and it’s a question that we hope to put to them in a texas referendum
You mentioned this texas versus white i’m not familiar with that tell us about this and what the arguments are with you you’re a luck you’re a lucky man so many people here take well the supreme court said you know that’s what they you know they think that texas versus white was then albe
All and they ignore the fact the supreme court is very often wrong about things let’s go back to correct it but essentially what it is it was a reconstruction era supreme court case that a lot of these people use to say that texas can’t leave or that texas needs
The permission of the states well it’s one or the other right so which one is it well that’s part of the problem part of the inherent problem with texas versus white is number one the supreme court the chief justice of the supreme court simon p chase had actually been treasurer under
President lincoln and so he should have recused himself but beyond that his his opinion that he wrote was so far out of bounds for what the case actually dealt with and and he was in effect legislating from the bench so much so that you had legislation introduced by
Northern legislators that was co that was essentially because of this case that was calling for a an ultimate ban a reservation on the political power being held in the legislative branch and rebuking the supreme court for making the decision be that as it may the the opinion itself is absolutely hideous it’s internally
Contradictory and i already highlighted part of that he says that the union is a union comprised of it’s an indestructible union comprised of indestructible states and he says so we have this indestructible union we have indestructible states but somehow west virginia exists so apparently the states aren’t indestructible
But what about this indestructible union where does he get that from well he makes this assertion that the united states constitution is not a governing document in and of itself that it’s merely an amending instrument to the articles of confederation well if you follow his logic and you say okay
Sam and p chase you got us there well then what he did was he just invalidated george washington’s first term okay so you know because by the time washington was elected president of the constitution two states still hadn’t joined and everything under the articles had to be unanimous
So then you move on to the that ridiculous notion and you say okay how does he make that connection well he makes it by saying that well the articles of confederation said that it was a perpetual union which we obviously find out because you know you had nine
Ten you had nine or ten states have to secede out of the articles of confederation to form the actual union under the us constitution but beyond that he he says that because the words perpetual union are in there and the preamble to the u.s constitution says it’s to form a more perfect union
That somehow he figured out that the founders devised a way to make perpetual even better you know perpetual 2.0 right but what you find is that people that start dealing with this this issue they neglect the fact that he said that he says typically or he says in there that states
Can leave after he says that it’s perpetual and they can’t leave he says they can leave by permission of the other states consent of the other states is the phrase he uses or revolution well it’s like wait a minute i mean that just that just got a little extra right so so
You know he’s internal so he contradicts himself inside the document but more importantly and this is where the opposition who loved to use texas versus white always wind up on the losing end of this argument for them the world stopped spending on the issue of self-determination in 1869
But for people like us the world kept spinning supreme court kept ruling including the one in jacobson v massachusetts where it said that the federal government can derive no powers from the preamble to the constitution so they utterly cut the legs out from under his entire decision because his entire decision on
This issue was predicated on that belief so texas versus white is garbage very interesting now what is the argument to leave the union imagine now i’m a texan i’m here and i’m you know wondering you know okay not sure what the future of texas or america is
What do you tell me well i could tell you just to turn on the news right we could go there but look it’s you know it’s it’s interesting because people want us to sort of come out and say hey this is why we should leave the union and what we
Feel is it’s an intensely personal decision right everyone has their their reasons are rational but but i will tell you that throughout the years what we have seen are some common threads 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 that’s that’s that is it should
Be troubling to anyone you know but that that’s just one aspect of it texans are really just sick and tired of being told how to live their lives by a bunch of unaccountable federal bureaucrats you know when we have real issues here in texas related to the border and immigration
And and so many things that you know that nation states of right should you know have to deal with we can’t justify overpaying 103 to 160 billion dollars annually into a federal system that’s money we’ll never see again that is the negative economic equivalent of a hurricane harvey event hitting texas
Every nine months i mean it’s it’s like going to a doctor the doctor drawing all of the blood out of your body spilling about 40 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 and so you know our case is quite simple but i i will what we do is we boil it down for every texan out there and we say look we’re tired of having to make the case for texan we’re tired of having to make
The case for texas independent so we’re going to let you make the case for why texas should be in the union and we ask them this question if texas was a free independent self-governing nation right now right we had our own army we had our own control of our own borders
Our laws were all made here we had our own embassies overseas we had our own passport we had our own currency in every respect we were a self-governing independent nation and this debate was not about taxes but this debate was whether or not we should join the union
What would your vote be and what would your case be and it’s fun to watch people flip that switch and realize that they can’t list really a single reason why they would join the union right now i mean think about how unappealing that is right immediately 180 000 pages of federal
Laws rules and regulations immediately almost 30 trillion dollars worth of debt i mean it goes on and on and on so if you can’t make a case for why texas would join why would you ever try to make a case that we shouldn’t leave now to what extent is the model for
Texas based on brexit yeah it’s uh there are a lot of similarities um there are some similarities i think probably between a mix between scotland uh the uk and and maybe even the catalans but with less unofficial referendum right but you know we see those similarities in dealing with
Independence movements around the world obviously the common thread is that of self-determination but but ours is very similar i mean if you look at the arguments say on the brexit debate very similar arguments in uncaring bureaucracy in brussels a massive overpayment that could better be used at home and reallocated at home
That centralization of power in brussels that threatens to erode the personal rights and liberties of british i mean those are very similar and you know we see similar arguments especially with with the movement in catalonia where their argumentation against the spanish central government when when we first got personal story
When we first got in touch with that coalition they sent over some of their material that they had translated into english and amazingly enough the case that they were making against the spanish central government you could have crossed out the proper names and put texas and put washington d.c in their
Place and we could have used it to go out and recruit texas supporters i mean that’s that’s how similar a lot of these are uh we see it there we see it with the south paulistas in brazil and we see some of the same complaints especially related to immigration and
The border oddly enough from independence fledgling independence movements in the northern mexican states so you know a lot of this is we understand that while we’re fighting this fight in texas right now that it’s really part of a much larger movement around the world to reclaim the right of self-government
From a bunch of political elites who think they know what’s best and texas has an interesting history with this too i was actually talking to a friend who’s a good historian on you know u.s and texas he was telling me interesting things about santa ana taking over in mexico
Actually that for example he did a ideological purge of the military soon after taking power he tried taking people’s weapons away um you had him for exam you know there was suspicion of voter fraud for example many many of the same issues a lot of conservatives are especially
Concerned about right now texas had actually faced under santa ana and under the grounds of them declaring their independence from mexico actually some of those same narratives from what my friend was telling me could be applied now do you agree with us and to what extent
Yeah i mean i would say that i agree with it but isn’t that really sort of part and parcel of the history of mankind’s struggle with how to govern one another um the the desire by corrupt men and women to impose their will upon people and people that typically just want to be
Left alone you know they want to be left to their own devices and and they want to be able to govern themselves away in the way that they want to be governed and so yeah i mean there was definitely some some incongruity you know when you had
Santa anna and you know enacting his edicts that ran counter to the grain of the sons and grandsons of the american revolution that were populated that had been invited there to to you know colonize um we’re seeing that exact same thing i mean we’re seeing in a position of neo-marxist doctrine
Uh crazy science if you want to call it that um we’re seeing all of these really crazy dogmas and doctrines that are taking root in washington dc and have for a very long time right no one should pretend like this is a brand new occurrence you know the the power that has been
Centralized in washington dc has made it right for the control of radicals and ideologues so the moment that they get control of it they can wield it you know i told someone the other day uh you know they were one of our politicians in in texas government was
Fawning all over and congratulating joe biden the guy was ostensibly a republican and i thought well that’s odd because if a man had just spent the last year going around telling everybody that had a pair of ears that he was going to burn my house down i wouldn’t be applauding and
Congratulating him on being able to get a packet of matches you know but that’s in essence what we’re looking at they made the promise they went for a year and said what they were going to do and frankly for more than a year right that’s just the public campaign so
Here we are as texans at a very strong decision point if if freedom and liberty and rights and rule of law and you know prosperity and opportunity and all the things that make texas texas if those things matter to us then as texans we’re a very we’re a very pivotal decision point
We’ve got some choices that we’re going to have to make and one of those choices involves us reasserting our status as an independent nation now it comes to the basis again of seceding from the union if you do manage to do it of course part of
That is based on the idea of whether or not politicians are still holding the foundations of the constitution i understand and also on whether they’re still serving the basic function of government protecting life liberty and the pursuit of happiness right based on that argument of succeeding what is the basis of
Government you know how has government gone against the constitution and against life liberty pursuit of happiness well let me let me address one thing before we get to that question and that is this this term secede okay and i understand why so many people want to return back
To it because that was the term that was very prevalent back in the 19th century when i woke up this morning it was the 21st century so i like to think we’re a little more evolved and and we’re looking at this through a much clearer lens than in those days
But i think that as we have seen in the last 70 years the term secession has come to mean the withdrawal from a political body typically an incorporated political body and that’s not what this is what we’re essentially talking about is withdrawing our membership from a political and economic union
And a you know from from that aspect of an absolute political and economic union that no longer serves our interests in that regard it’s very much like the uk with the european union right and it all depends on what your viewpoint of the union is if you believe that it is an
Absolute centralized government and that that the united states is a nation-state that has sovereignty and the states are just merely administrative subdivisions use the word succession to your heart’s content but if you believe that the union was founded with a very limited federal government and a very limited scope which is
Very limited political an economic union a mutual defense compact a postal union a currency union those things that we see around the world right now all days between self-governing independent nation states if you believe that that’s what the founders intended which is exactly what they found to the founders and framers
Then you know withdrawal exit is exactly the term that you want to use so not to quibble over words but it’s important you know that we get the we get the terminology right because the opposition loves to change the dictionary on people you know they they love to to skirt a debate
By just shifting the words and that’s an important one so um you know so to to your point though now that i’ve gotten that off my chest but uh you know really really to your point um this this issue that you you asked about related to where is that incongruity that’s that’s
Fueling this if i remember that’s what you’re asking uh you know it’s it’s all over uh you know we’re we’re looking at a a people here in texas that believe in a constitutional republic with a very fundamental set of rights that are not given and taken away by government
And at a fundamental level that’s what they sense out of washington dc that has gone wrong they’re seeing the opposite of that you know we’ve seen it time and time and time again and and i think texans at their very core are just tired of having to wake up
Every day and fight for something that they were born with you know it’s it’s i think it’s really just a matter of i guess if you want to go back to your discussion a moment ago about the colonists rising up against santa ana you know you look at the battle of gonzalez the
The home of the the anna the inaugural voice of the come and take it flag right when the mexican army came and wanted to take this little bitty cannon that was given to them for self-defense they had such an attachment to the right to keep and bear arms
That they said no you’re not going to take it well that’s where we are here in texas and and the best way to avoid having to get into those situations is for us right now to engage in this process of reasserting our status as an independent nation
And this last question if you’re telling people just average americans anything in terms of you know what you’re trying to do with with texas what’s your what your movement is about what would you tell them well look our organization was founded to secure and protect the political cultural and economic independence of texas
We have seen it under threat from the very jump there is a misconception that our organization is exclusively about the texas issue and granted it is a huge issue for us because it solves so many of the challenges so much of the fighting that we have to do
For our political cultural and economic independence that threat comes from you know the the criminals on the potomac river you know those who couldn’t find the constitution if you taped a copy of it to their face so you know we we have engaged in in many campaigns
Related to not just texas but our cultural preservation you know the the fact that you’ve got folks that are coming in now and wanting to indoctrinate or change the alamo story to fit a neo-marxist progressive rhetoric you know we just had to fight a battle against our own state board of education
Because they wanted to remove the references to the alamo defenders as heroes i mean that’s that’s that is absolutely ridiculous that in this day and age we would have to we would have to go fight our own state board of education to prevent them from scrubbing the word hero out because
They said that the the word hero was value charged and it was a value judgment it’s like where do they come up with this stuff but that’s where the fight is it really stems back to what i told you we did when we founded the texas nationalist movement which is
As we looked around the world at movements that had gotten their independence we saw that they had to have all three they had to secure their political their cultural and their economic independence because if they didn’t they would wind up right back under the thumb of some external power some external
Control so it was important for us to engage this fight on all three so texit is a part of what we do but our organization will have a far longer life beyond this simply because we know that once you gain independence there are those people out there
And the the brexit issues are perfect they are a perfect lesson for this but we know that there are people out there right here in texas that will do everything they can to put us right back under those connections so when the win the texan vote win the transition
Insta install a a constitutional republic right here in texas and a government that is here to serve the needs of its people and to make texas a this self-governing independent bastion of economic freedom and personal liberty hey daniel miller thanks again for being on crossroads hey thank you you
