Texas Governor Rick Perry Talks Treason
Texas Governor Rick Perry has said Texas has the option of leaving the Union if it does not like what the federal government is doing.
He said this despite the blood shed in our Civil War to preserve the Union and to free the slaves.
( 4/20/09 Update–Now a second Republican is talking treason.)
( 4/24/09 Update —Half of Texas Republicans share this disloyal view.)
(Below–After Gettysburg.)
Here is what Governor Perry said—
“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that,” Perry said. “My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.”
According to the Handbook of Texas Online, Governor Perry is wrong that Texas can leave the Union. What it can do is divide into five states. Also, an 1869 Supreme Court case denied Texas the right to secede.
Governor Perry joins Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as open to secession.
At the same time, this Voice of America story discusses Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s report that right-wing terror groups in the United States may be on the rise.
With leading Republicans talking the hateful language of disunion, right-wing fringe groups need only look to the news of the day to find ideas and support for their actions.
41 Comments »
Leave a comment
Welcome To Texas Liberal
Texas Liberal is a blog of politics and political history.
My name is Neil Aquino. Here is my profile.
I can be reached at naa618@att.net.
Additional focuses of the blog are books, art, poetry, personal relationships and, also, sea life and marine mammals.
( The picture above is of the Houston Ship Channel. A narrow channel can lead to a wide sea.)
The signature post of this blog is the Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List. This list is the best of it’s kind on the web.
Another good post is my reciting the words to the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts on Galveston Island, Texas as a ship passes behind.
I live in Houston, Texas and I do sometimes write about political issues in Houston and in Texas.
I also often write about my former hometown of Cincinnati, and about the great beach city of Galveston, Texas.
I define liberalism as a role for government in the economy to help make life more fair, and a broad acceptance of people regardless of who they are.
This is why it says “All People Matter” at the top of the blog.
A blog grows one reader at a time. If you like what you read here, please consider forwarding the link.
Texas Liberal began regular posting on July 25, 2006.
I also blog at the Houston Chronicle as one of eight featured political bloggers, and on Where’s The Outrage? which posts out of North Carolina.
Thanks for reading Texas Liberal.
Recent Comments
Tim Murphy on Mel Gibson & Siouxsie… Sof on Mel Gibson & Siouxsie… Bill Shirley (@bshir… on “Houston” Sculptur… JD on Black Man Drives Car With Conf… Blessthismess on Mel Gibson & Siouxsie…
Global Voices- The jury from Moldova gave highest points to Ukraine during Eurovision 2024
- An activist translates Minecraft, manga, and Harry Potter from Russian into the Chuvash language
- How Mongolia became a 3×3 basketball powerhouse
- Kyrgyzstan’s unsung heroes get recognition through street art
- Central Asia’s unique tradition of singing during Ramadan keeps evolving
- Teenager with Muslim background saved over 100 people in Moscow concert hall terrorist attack
- In Azerbaijan authorities remain silent over the murder of a trans woman
- Kyrgyzstan’s blockbuster film is a moving tale of the bond between a mother and son
- Lotteries, dressed-up figures, and other peculiar entertainment at the Putin's sham elections
- In Georgia, a new political alliance looks to the future
Texas Liberal 
I wouldn’t put much stock it in. This screams of “I WANT NATIONAL MEDIA ATTENTION” and a desire to milk his base for all it’s worth than actual secessionist beleifs. That said, it wouldn’t be the first time (this month) a statement from a prominent republican has blown up in his own face.
More of my thoughts on the matter on my own corner of wordpress:
they have destroyed the country and want to pull out haha what a joke. they can have texas and without the rest of the union mexico will take back what is theirs.
I would like to see in the Constitution where it says that individual states cannot secceed from the United States ?
Look up wingnut in the dictionary, and you’ll find Governor Good Hair’s mug next to the definition.
If the governor doesnt’ like being part of the US then he can leave for all I care. My family immigrated to be in the US and decided to make Texas their home and I am not willing to reside in Texas as a country.
Try him for treason, fine him, and jail him. Then give him the boot. He can swim away from Texas to another country or find himself an Island.
truevcu—It just takes the Governor making one nut do something violent
mypoliticalparty–I think we settled that question in 1865.
Bill– Would Mexico want Texas?
Saleema—With more fine immigrants like yourself and your family, soon enough we won’t be electing people like Rick Perry anymore.
divad–He sure is an awful guy.
Thanks for the comments
[…] the “wingnuts” – it’s the characteristic way these people deal with ideas, in spite of the pretensions to transcendence of Obama’s beyond-red-state-and-blue-state credo. In […]
Pingback by These United States: Too Big to Fail? by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com | April 17, 2009
What does Perry mean when he says Washington is thumbing their nose at them?
Blogster Aquino writes: “leading Republicans talking the hateful language of disunion, right-wing fringe groups”
Let’s see, 4 years ago the “republican” opposite to Aquino would have said: “leading Democrats talking the hateful language of dissent, left wing fringe groups”
Aquino uses “hateful” ! Ohhh! Just like the R’s used “Hater”!
Surely all these people can’t be this stupid at once…
The dividing has been accomplished, the conquering well under way, and those that will complain the loudest at being sold out haven’t been born yet. Certainly Well Done.
Aquino, your overlords have done a good job washing your brain
3rd party voter
sole4sail–I guess it means he wants more stimulus money as he bashes the federal government.
jc calenda—What third party?
As for our overlords, as long as they keep us entertained, what complaint can we have?
wow it really is lunatic week, first the sore loser parties, now Perry trying to start another civil war and believe me I am from Texas and my father and grandfather fought for the U.S. and so will I. Take your best shot Perry, but you better take up residence in the alamo cause the result will be the same in the end. I say sore loser parties because where were all of these people going all the way back to 1981 when all of the deficit spending and national debt problems were started by their party. Why did they not rally behind the only president to have a balanced budjet (Clinton). Why now. I can tell you why, because especially in Texas they are sore losers.
yes they want texas back and southern california and arizona and new mexico.
@Neil: I just don’t think this is actually going to escalate to actual secession unless the economy does in fact implode. At this stage I’m filing it under “incredibly idiotic statements that will claim their revenge at election time.”
What is so “hateful” about voluntary secession? Can anyone answer that? By the way, the Civil War ended almost 150 years ago, and Dishonest Abe Lincoln only pulled the “Emancipation Proclamation” political card out of his sleeve in 1863, a couple of years into the conflict. He famously said that all he wanted to do was to “preserve” the Union and he didn’t care if slavery were legal or not. He knew that by issuing the Proclamation (which only “freed” the slaves in the South, NOT those poor souls who were enslaved in the North) it would make France and England less likely to aid the Confederacy. It was a political ploy and it worked.
Back to the question. What’s so “hateful” about seceding from this moribund, arthritic, evil empire?
I’m a native-born Texan (originally from Dallas) currently living in Idaho. Now I remember why I left Texas.
When I was a kid I used to be proud of my state and its unique cultural contributions to the world. As I grew older and realized that the too many Texans are ultra-conservative, narrow-minded, and generally ignorant of the big picture, I knew I had to leave and find a better place to live.
So now they have this ignoramus governor who purports treason with his suggestion of secession. Governor Perry , didn’t you ever learn anything from history? Or maybe you
are just destined to have a 2nd Reconstruction and carpetbaggers running rampant again.
Do you know how much you have embarrassed patriotic Texas citizens who would fight and die for the USA? Do you have any idea how hurt and embarrassed I feel because of your totally irresponsible statement?
So go ahead and secede and lets see what will happen to
your economy, highways, infrastructure, tax base, military, education (by the way, you can keep Baylor, UT, A&M, and Tech- and we’ll keep Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale), etc.
Governor Perry, I believe you need that proverbial big “can of Texas Whoop-ass” applied to your frontal lobes or whatever is left of them.
By the way, that will be 34 less electoral votes for the Republicans in the next national election if you succeed in seceding.
Signed
Sad and embarrassed ex-Texan
PS. If Texas secedes from the Union I hope Dallas secedes from Texas and rejoins the US so I can at least save my Cowboys from total ruin
What’s all the bellyaching about? I see you lefties are just like the neocons. Can’t really come up with a good argument, so you just throw out the same old cliches, and ad hominem B.S. When you thing about this. It makes perfect sense.
We could divide into three regions, a leftward leaning one, with its “diversity” and open “mindedness” Perhaps this could be the region north of the Mason Dixon line stretching out to Chicago, along the great Lakes. You morons could even have your own version of the “Danzig” corridor. That includes the sliver along the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California. You could have your precious “universal healthcare” , and set your taxes rates to “soak the rich”. Nobody really works, since you all can’t seem to get beyond the hunter-gatherer realm, which is the main problem with economic systems, that lack a pricing structure like communism does, but hey you got all kinds of rules, regulations, and laws, to make sure everyone starves equally and fairly.
There would also be the Hobbesian South Region. They could fulfill their insatiable lust for worshipping state police power, have cameras everywhere to record the morality of their upright citizens. Their motto could be “if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t mind being watched”. They could call for white bread, red blooded males to fight against Islamofascism. They greet each other with a salute, and say “Your a great former American”
Of course the high cost of a military state, combined with their phoney calls for “low” taxes and “limited” government, unfortunately creates a huge need to borrow money from dreaded RED China. So it’s even less sustainable then your dreams of a left wing welfare state.
Then of course there is the state of JJLL, short for Jefferson-Jackson-Libertyland. It has very few rules, the main one that you respect the dignity of your fellow human beings, and neighbors, by not fucking with them. Lest you find out how the oppostie of gun control wars. It decriminalized drugs from the start, made marriage not a function of the government, but of private contracts. It’s amazing how the Baptist pastor, gets along with the flaming homosexual couple down the street. Medical care is delivered by the only system capable of spreading social justice, FREE MARKET CAPITALISM. There is low unemployment, and without a mandated, monopolized, state controlled education system. It’s citizens are by far the brightest in the world, and the range, diversity and low cost of education is truly mind boggling. The military is made of a citizen militia, that’s main purpose is to keep out the Huns (the rightists) and the Hacks (you leftists) from corrupting it with your pathetic fake money, and dirty wars.
Phil–Great comment. You are a true blue American. Nothing I can say to improve it.Please visit the blog again.
Right Radical—Jefferson-Jackson-Libertyland? You mean where we moved out all the Native Americans at gunpoint. That was Jefferson and Jackson for you.
Citizen milita? Timothy McVeigh was in one of those I recall.
Yes–The free market is doing a great job getting everyone health care and health insurance. More of that please.
Thanks for the comment though. Please visit again. You’re a kook, but you don’t feel all that threatning.
[…] if your in the duly elected minority, the appropriate response is to secede, which is bordering on treason? Maybe he can join up with Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck. I think Chuck has definitely crossed the […]
Pingback by Life Is Rich » Texas Secession? | April 18, 2009
Comment to all the bleeding heart liberals. There is a day coming when you people reap the reward of your backward thinking. I don’t think it will be long. And, I’m sure you will be blameing conservatives for the many manifest failures that come on us because of the loony idea’s that you people support. As for Texas sucession, If that were to really happen we would first have to deport all of you. Treason? Our country was formed by people throwing off the oppression of bad Government. Guess you could say all the founding fathers of this country committed treason. So it all depends on perspective.
Joe–And if things do go bad we’ll be able to count on you to take satisfaction in people’s misery.
Wow. I can’t believe it. Don’t these sec
I can’t believe there are Americans who talk about cessation as if it’s no big deal. Don’t these people realize there are people around the world that would find great satisfaction in seeing the US disintegrate?
Stop giving comfort to “enemies” and instead work towards trying to better the US as a whole. Stop thinking like Texans and start thinking like Americans!
Neil – Its not a question if things will go bad……… With regard to taking satifaction in other people’s misery I can speak for myself. I don’t need someone like you commenting for me. The only…. satisfaction I have at this point is just the act of letting you and yours know that your liberal idea’s will bring about change allright. However, when we get on the other side of this so called change……we…. will wish that you left well enough alone. If you haven’t guessed I’m allready there!!!!
Saleema – Spoken like an advocate for the freedom of speech! Ha! Again it is all about perspective. However, take comfort; Texas Succession will not gain real support….until government oppression becomes blatantly obvious, & brutal to many. Of course there’s the fact that many liberals wouldn’t recognize government oppression even if it cost them there lives & freedom.
[…] leaning blogs such as Texas Liberal also agree that the question of secession was “settled” with the Civil War and goes even […]
Pingback by The Liberty Papers »Blog Archive » Gov. Rick Perry’s Tenth Amendment Stance: Principle or Political Pandering? | April 19, 2009
Right Radical—Jefferson-Jackson-Libertyland? You mean where we moved out all the Native Americans at gunpoint. That was Jefferson and Jackson for you.
Exactly like Texas you know? Where we moved out the Mexicans by gunpoint. Actually you’re in a bit of a conundrum here, friend. Your sensitivity hates the fact that the white man oppressed the Indians, but if they were to want to succeed from the late, great USA you would be on your soapbox calling them traitors, and demanding “Federal” action. Of course your type has always thought. Don’t they know we are killing them for their own good?
Citizen milita? Timothy McVeigh was in one of those I recall.
Every where I turn you all bring up the “Timothy McVeigh” card, can you all get into the new decade please? But alas it is America, home of the lone assassin or loan bomber. (and not a moment too late. I might add) Of course it’s only coincidence, how the political power of country centralizes, and the country is plunged into war, after every one of these “isolated cases” Yeah, right.
Yes–The free market is doing a great job getting everyone health care and health insurance. More of that please.
Dude we are so far from a free market. I hardly know where to begin. Here is an example of one your finest “liberal” government’s, the state of NY, denying people affordable medical coverage. In light of the state of the economy this is downright immoral.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090304/FREE/903049985
Thanks for the comment though. Please visit again. You’re a kook, but you don’t feel all that threatning.
I will take that as a compliment, although I am an Anarchist. And before you get on your low horse again. Chaos is not the same thing, as anarchy. The most chaotic societies in modern times where Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Mao’s China were the most centralized. Again it’s only a coincidence of history, that this is so, and is something that you seem to favor. Good luck with that being happy ending.
We need a 3rd political party with the best from each other party. More choices so we dont vote for one because we dont want the other, that is what got us in the current mess.
[…] of the “wingnuts” – it’s the characteristic way these people deal with ideas, in spite of the pretensions to transcendence of Obama’s beyond-red-state-and-blue-state credo. In spite […]
Pingback by These United States: Too Big to Fail? Or too big to survive? « In These New Times | April 19, 2009
Joe,
I didn’t say that secessation talk should not be allowed, I merely requested that people think before they speak. There’s no contradiction between that and the freedom of speech. I think that’s obvious.
transcendence of Obama’s beyond-red-state-and-blue-state credo
Like Joseph Stalin and Kennedy. It’s the “Cult of Personality”
#27 By the way Mr. Raimondo, that wrote that piece. Is one of the American greatest writers. He is totally anti-war. Well like you guys used to be, until you weren’t starting on January 20, 2009. Before you come down on him too hard he is a member of you one of your favorited classes, he is homosexual. Although he is not clammoring for special rights, which I guess cause you all to call him a traitor to his “class” or is the sexual being, or gender or lifestyle choice. See gang not everyone fits into your fake, phony left-right paradigm. That’s because the people that can actually think, and instead of letting themselves be duped, and brainwashed, know it bogus. Try intellectualism it works!
I’m a life long Civil War buff. I had ancestors fighting on both sides of that fray. I do not and will not condone nor support secession or those pushing for the same. It failed in the 1860s and it’ll fail if attempted again. Right now to do so would lead to economic, political, and cultural suicide.
rightradical—I see you are a gay basher as well as a barbaric social Darwinist.
Yonv–Damn right. Beyond all that, it’s treason plain and simple.
The legality of succession is completely irrelevant. It matters not in the slightest if a state has a “right” to succeed or not. No independence movement in history was legal. Nowhere in the English law was the revolutionary war sanctioned. Yet it happened. The idea that states when they joined the union signed an agreement that they will never leave is foolish. No contract can be for eternity not between peoples and not between governments.
This article is not about law however. This article is about principles. This is about acknowledging defeat when required and seeking victory when it is realizable. Part of the dream of democracy has failed us. One idea of democracy was that somehow, someway groups of people with all their differences would somehow find compromises. Somehow they would find a way to live together peacefully under one government.
On this point we must acknowledge defeat. We have lost and its time to build anew. The country is not only divided on several issues but rather is divided on all issues. Every idea is now being seen in simple right-wing or left-wing terms. It is near impossible for man for example: to be pro-choice and not pro-gun control. The country is becoming instead of pluralistic democracy a two-sided war for supremacy, where no issue is sacred, where no issue is agreeable, and conflict dominates all parts of the political landscape.
This is not a scenario that could have been predicted. The founding fathers most likely couldn’t even have imagined it. Its almost as if we have become the computers we adore. Seeing the world in 1s and 0s. Bound between a damn if you do damned if you don’t. Congress has transformed from a circus to a cold war with a few “moderates” acting like disputed territories. As the political temper rises less and less does it become an option to opt out. To stay home on election day, or to (shudder) vote for a third-party.
The solution is at once painful and simple. Lets agree to disagree. We need to start talking about succession. The states that want to leave must be allowed to do so. Any state that wants to stay may. The independent states must be treated with fairness and seen not as cowards and back-stabbers but rather the truest expression of democracy in action.
Compromise at this point is impossible, with our president taking office with a third of the country already hating him, how much hope do we have? How can a compromise solution be arrived at for the great abortion debate when one side wants it on demand and the other side wants it outlawed? It cant, not without offending large groups of people. How about war? Can we half-commit troops? Can we send them for half the time required? No absolutely not. We must present a unified front to the world.
If we are going to war, we need to go with full strength. If we are committed to climate change we need stronger laws. As for abortion it needs to be on-demand or not at all. We cant unify our nation with half the country hold us back. Half the country opposing our rules at every turn.
To split or to allow some states to leave would birth at least two new nations. It would allow to great democratic experiments to be tried. Two new Americas that never could have existed under our stifling federal regime.
Rick Perry is basically a politician but first and foremost an opportunist. He knows that secession of Texas is impossible but he is playing the political game and trying to rehabilitate his image as paternal dictator to populist tax protestor after turning many in his own party away from him since he is facing reelection in 2009 and possibly facing U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in a primary election and thereby being eliminated. It is time for another party to take the governor’s office in Texas.
He got caught up in the easy money floating around from Merck to promote the Gardasil shots for school girls and mandating their parents to get them vaccinated a series of shot against a form of cancer caused by sexually transmitted diseases. Although the medicine was still considered very experimental for debilitating side effects all of which are not known yet Mr. Perry decided to become paternal dictator and throw the power of the governor’s office into the mess. However looking back at the reason for all this: what kind of sexually transmitted diseases happen at school or on school property?
THE CIVIL WAS NOT ABOUT SLAVERY!!HELLO…IT WAS NOT ABOUT SLAVERY…IN FACT SLAVERY CONTINUED IN THE NORTH. THE CIVIL WAR WAS ABOUT A GOVERNMENT OUT OF CONTROL AND TELLING THE STATES WHAT TO DO. READ YOUR HISTORY BOOKS…LOOK AT YOUR MONEY…ACROSS THE TOP IT READS “FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE”. I’M SICK OF DUMB CHOWDERHEADS THAT HAVE WATCHED THE DOLLAR LOSE ITS VALUE, THAT WAS DONE ON THE FEDERAL LEVEL…NOT STATE…SCREW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE ARE GENERALLY CORRUPT. OF COURSE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. BUT THE TRUTH IS EVERY AMERICAN OWES A FORTUNE FOR DEBTS THEY HAD LITTLE TO NO CONTROL CREATING…IF YOU THINK DIFFERENTLY YOU PROBABLY THINK THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE.
one day the hole world will see what all free TEXANS are capable of> take this any way you choose it dont matter anyway
David–I take it as that you are silly.
Texas is a great state and for those who say ” Texas ruined the country” think again people Texas has kept economy going here. we help our neighbors.
I agree that if the current president can’t abide by the United States Constitution then Texas should leave the Union, I say this as a proud Texan! I grew up in oregon and have lived in texas for nearly 10 years now. I am against the current presidents turn towards robbing the poor to line their own pockets.
and last but never least ” DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS” isnt’ just slogan it’s who we are!
Proud Texan and Proud security officer!
I will serve Texas for she is my home!
I am thinking aboput moving to Texas , great Govenor
People need health insurance and education in our State of Texas, and Rick Perry is not the person to help deliver these things to hard-working Texans.
omg what abunch of liberal nutt jobs in here, liberlism is a cancer..
PLEASE PULL OUT AND TAKE GEORGE BUSH JR. WITH YOU! I JUST PRAY WE DONT END UP WITH THIS CLOWN AS PRESIDENT SOMEDAY