TexasCHLforum.com

SherwoodForest wrote:It occurs to me that marital harmony is akin to political harmony. It is more often than not the simple recognition of the separation/divorce option , and the spectre of domestic destruction that invariably follows that holds most marital unions together.

If one member of the marital union increasingly becomes oppressive of the other in violation of a contract that expressly, and quite specificly defines individual boundaries of each - the subject of divorce will eventually be addressed.

A contract is executed through the mutually affirmed consent of the parties. That contract determines the legal rights, prerogatives, and remedies available - or not available - in the event of nonperformance or malfeasance on the part of the parties to the contractual agreement.

The U.S. Constitution forbids the states from entering into separate alliances with one another such as the Confederate States of America, but it does not forbid the states from secession. Secession amounts to separation for the purpose of independence. The only recourse to prevent secession by a state is by force of arms, and there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution for the use of force to prevent secession - only to suppress rebellion WITHIN the union. Secession by definition is a condition WITHOUT the union.

The expectation implicit within the Constitution of these United States is that adherence to its provisions is absolutely essential to the preservation of the very union established by those provisions.

OK....well argued and stated and a nice analogy by the way. Nits to pick.........

"THESE United States" is a term which—not coincidentally—finally fell out of favor at the end of the Civil War. The nation has been referred to by most people within and without government as 'THE United States ever since, as well as before (see below). Words have meaning in the context of conversation and for communicative purposes, but they may not have the same meaning in the courtroom or Congress. Often the change in usage over time is reflective of social trends and nothing more. "Gay" no longer means "gay." Instead, it means "gay"........if you catch my drift. "High" and "stoned" no longer mean the same thing they did 235 years ago. But in the case of "these" versus "the," it reflects two completely different views of the meaning of the Union. The former implies a loosely bonded alliance of sovereign nation states for common purposes.....which was pretty close to the truth in 1776. The latter implies a top-down federation of provinces with no autonomy, which for better or for worse, is the de-facto current state of affairs in the United States of America. It is no longer these United States of America......if indeed it ever was, which can be legitimately questioned. If you look at our diplomatic efforts in foreign courts immediately post Revolutionary War, in both our own diplomatic communications to foreign governments, and those of foreign nations to our own, those communications referred to our nation as THE United States of America. Diplomacy being what it is, words are always chosen very carefully. There is always the risk of offending a whole other nation by not showing it a proper respect of naming conventions. Therefore, it is no accident that these communications refer to our nation as "The United States of America" as opposed to "These United States of America." I'm not saying I like it, but the fact is that the Federalists won that discussion almost from the outset. I am happy to talk about what is, and about what should be. But I'm not as much interested in talking about what isn't and then saying that it is.

The Constitution may allow a state the right to secede peacefully, but given a government that uses the Constitution for toilet paper every day and twice on Sundays, does anybody think for one minute that this government would not use violence to prevent a secession if it could ......or at least, attempt to use violence to prevent it?

John75 wrote:TAM, I get what you're saying now and we're on the same page. Just differences in semantics. For you they are divine principles and values, and for me they are the true and original American values. Those principles are what I believe in. We hold those values dearly but there are many that don't so I don't think divine is as accurate a label. It's hard for me to understand but some people would prefer to live with big government and less freedom. Laziness and fear is probably why. For them it's easy to be told what to do and how to live their life. And safer too because if they fail, they are taken care of by others.

I do think a break up of some sort is possible. Not just by Texas but it could be a number of states. There will be "haves" and "have nots". The "have nots" will be the cities and states that have over-spent. They will expect assistance to fund their irresponsible policies.

If such a thing were to happen, I think it would be the union breaking up into semiautonomous or entirely autonomous regions of like-minded states. For instance, the New England states have more in common with one another than they do with the rest of the country. Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma have more in common with one another than they do with the Pacific Northwest. Northern California, Washington, Oregon, and a large chunk of Idaho have more in common with one another than they do with New England......etc., etc., etc.

Within those autonomous regions, there would still be political disagreement (we still have Houston/Austin/DFW/San Antonio, despite the rest of the state being much more conservative), but there would be a lot of cultural similarities that would ameliorate the political differences.

But truthfully, the best solution by far is to restore constitutional government to the whole union.

Quick drive-by.......

A picture of the future of the United States of America: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/ ... 8W20130311

The ability of young people to study and work anywhere in Europe as part of the EU's single market ideal was also supposed to deliver vastly improved opportunities for all.

But instead, as a result of the banking and debt crisis that has cast a shadow over Europe since 2008, those sunny prospects never materialized for millions of young people.

"Greece, Spain and Italy have perhaps the best educated generations they have ever had in their countries, their parents invested a lot of money in the education of their children, everything they did was right," said Schulz.

"And now they are ready to work the society says, 'No place for you'. We are creating a lost generation."

Asked how he would tackle the issue, the Socialist party leader said it was in part about cutting through bureaucracy and putting money to work directly where it was needed.

He gave the example of Greece and investment in solar energy. If traditional methods are followed, a decision is made in Brussels, money is mobilized somewhere else, an investment program is drawn up, the money is disbursed to the central government in Athens, then goes to several ministries, and finally ends up with a local or regional authorities to invest.

"By that time, we are much older," he said.

"In my mind, direct links between the European Union and regional and local authorities is more needed than ever."

I don't think we'll ever secede from the Union. The US will fall apart from its on bureaucratic inertia the same way the EU is falling apart, and for largely the same reasons—socialist policies which discourage capitalism, a growing culture of looters, and a state apparatus which cannot recognize that IT is the source of all the problems and lacks the courage to admit that they were wrong.

LSUTiger wrote:As a courtesy to the other members, a PM has been sent to you to discuss other matters.

I saw it, read it, and sent you a reply which I hope you will find satisfactory.

John75 wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:You cannot advocate for succession without equally renouncing being an American. If you are prepared to do that, you may claim to be a Texas patriot, but you can no longer claim to be an American patriot. And by the way, you can't promote and defend the "Constitution of the United States" (the document's actual title) by advocating for succession from the nation on which it is founded.

I disagree. To me an American believes in the values that this country was founded on and the Constitution as it was written. It is those set of values that made this country great and defined what America is. It's not in a name or location. When I look at the socialists in this country, I don't see them as true Americans. If land boundaries or a name has to change so that the constitution can work again, then so be it.

I understand where you're coming from, but the problem is that they have such a distorted idea of what America is that they no longer see people like us as Americans either. And in the current political climate, they outnumber us. I submit the fact of the Obama presidency as exhibit A.

You guys have got to understand something about me here........as I pointed out to LSUTiger in my PM'ed reply to him, there is a often a very big disconnect between what I think ought to be and what I know to actually be. It's the difference between the perfection of ideals which I hold dear, and the situational realities in effect at any given time. Right now, the ideals I hold dear and the realities of the DC cesspool could not be further apart. I want to reiterate that the OP in this thread is about a post on a website which advocates for Texan secession. As I said previously, that idea has a certain romantic appeal, but one cannot seriously consider it without equally seriously considering all of the implications thereof. John75, you say that those are "American" values. I believe they are divine values and divinely inspired.......whether or not the men who wrote them down were themselves religious people.......and as such, they transcend being American values. The cause of human liberty knows no geographical boundaries, and it is simply an accident of history—and our great blessing—that God caused them to be enshrined in our American Constitution...........and not Romania's or Portugal's..........see what I mean? To put that in terms of Biblical history for the purposes of illustration, God could have chosen any Mesopotamian. He chose Abraham. When Abraham left Mesopotamia, divinely inpsired, it was to be the founder of the nation of Israel. He was no longer Mesopotamian, and he no longer followed the gods and beliefs of Mesopotamia. But the principles/beliefs he followed were as ancient as God.

So when anyone argues for Texan independence, one cannot divorce oneself from American political control without also divorcing oneself from the hold of the The Constitution of the United States over Texan public affairs. It's divine principles must then be enshrined in a new Constitution of Texas. That's just the truth of the situation. You cannot claim to be an independent nation (Texas) AND to be obligated by the constitution of a separate independent nation (the USA). At that point, those are no longer American values, they are Texan values..........in the same way that the founders adopted ancient principles in writing the current Constitution.

Does that make more sense? Anyway, I've got work to do. Gotta go.

(Edited to fix a broken "italics" tag)

LSUTiger wrote:Some would have us believe the US Constitution is irrelavant too. But I believe the political climate we live in today makes it as relevant as ever. Perhaps the same with HCR-77, regardless of what happen in the past. Perhaps we need to start fresh. In anycase, the feds are not just going to let states leave the union without a bloody battle, so it makes the legal grounds moot in my opinion. I am sure it was illegal to rebel against the King and Queen when the first revolutionaries organized and took action. If you're looking for legal grounds to fight tyranny then you will always lose, "they" make the rules and can change them or interpret them any way "they" like. Revolutionaries, right or wrong will always be outlaws.

That better not be aimed at me for my previous post. Texas' record of adhering strictly to the Constitution is not perfect either. It's better than most, but it isn't purist. If it were, there would be no explanation for recent pronouncements about an AWB from the mayors of our largest cities. When I say that Texas' admission to the union as a sovereign state which, apocryphally anyway, alleges the right to succeed if it doesn't like the way things are going is constitutionally, legally, and historically irrelevant, it is because that is an actual fact. When the Union won the "war of northern aggression" as some are wont to call it, the southern states were re-assimilated into the Union under the same terms of unification as existed for all of the northern states.........ALL of the southern states, including Texas, were so re-assimilated. The idea of Texan political independence from the national body politic has been nothing more than theory and speculation since April of 1965 when Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, bringing an end to the war. The federal government asserted, uncontested, the same degree of control over Texas as it did over Alabama and Georgia........and New York and Connecticut, for that matter.

Those are the facts which make Texas' previous status as a sovereign nation irrelevant today, other than as an interesting time in history, and facts are stubborn things. You don't have to like it, but it is true, and no rational discussion can ignore the truth. That previous sovereignty has no particular legal relevance, and today, Texas has no more or no less "right" to succeed than does Vermont or Ohio. I wasn't stating a personal opinion one way or the other about the desirability of succession.

By the way, TexasCHLForum management generally frowns on discussions of advocacy for succession, so as a piece of friendly advice I would be discreet about what is said and not let it cross over from speculation into advocacy. I love Texas. I love living here. I admire it in every way. But this Texan (by choice) is an American (by birth), and any patriotic American ought to always defend and promote the United States of America. You cannot advocate for succession without equally renouncing being an American. If you are prepared to do that, you may claim to be a Texas patriot, but you can no longer claim to be an American patriot. And by the way, you can't promote and defend the "Constitution of the United States" (the document's actual title) by advocating for succession from the nation on which it is founded.

In terms of general speculation, and applicable to any state, not just Texas, I think that the idea of succession ought to be nothing less than a last desperate measure to preserve liberty. We're not there yet, and while the idea has a certain romantic appeal, vocal advocacy simply relegates the advocate to the same fever swamp of political ideology as any hardcore leftist.....just another part of the swamp. You think that liberals—particularly liberal gun-grabbers—don't read these kinds of posts and conclude that "those gun nuts are not only crazy and dangerous, but they're unpatriotic too?" When you put this stuff out there, it contributes to the further marginalization of liberty, gun rights, and the Constitution, because those very same liberals own and control the national media.....and that media has a huge impact on public opinion. Don't believe it? Just look at who is our president right now.

For better or for worse, whatever terms were in effect in 1845 when Texas entered the Union were likely forever buried by the outcome of events just 20 years later, which pretty much put paid to any notions of independent sovereign states. Not saying it couldn't happen again, but whatever existed in the mid 19th century is pretty much irrelevant to whatever might happen in the early 21st century.