Texas Guv says state can secede if it wants

[Regis Philbin]

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/gen/ap/TX_Perry_Tea_Party.html

Perry fires up anti-tax crowd

By KELLEY SHANNON

Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas' economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess." Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "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, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

[WannaBreatheYou]

And stated that there's no reason that they should. Do you even read the things you post?

[Sinister]

Dear Regis,

Holy post whore Batman! 6 threads? Don't you have a tea party to go to?

[Sasha Reigne]

Wait a minute didnt Texas and some other states try this back in the 1860's? I vaguely remember something bad happening because of that but darn if I cant remember

[DoubleEdgeSword]

Perry's just kicking up dust, hoping to rile up the spitfire rightwing GOP members because he knows he's facing Kay Bailey Hutchison in a run for his office. Whatev...

[Annoyedlistner]

Thirty-one percent (31%) of Texas voters say that their state has the right to secede from the United States and form an independent country.

However, the latest Rasmussen Reports poll in the state finds that if the matter was put to a vote, it wouldn’t even be close. Three-fourths (75%) of Lone Star State voters would opt to remain in the United States. Only 18% would vote to secede, and seven percent (7%) are not sure what they'd choose.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/states_general/texas/in_texas_31_say_state_has_right_to_secede_from_u_s_but_75_op t_to_stay

I pulled this from your favorite website Regis (Drudgereport).

Perry is out of step with the rest of his state. I do find it interesting that our previous president (Gov. Perry's predecessor) hailed from Perry's state and walked around saying "In Texas, this is how we do it.....". Only a few months after he leaves office all of a sudden Perry is sick and tired of Washington, DC telling Texas what to do.

Its not the United States of America and Texas. Its the United States of America.

I'm a proud American, I find Perry's comments offensive.

[pinky]

I wouldn't necessarily be against it, on the condition that they take Bush with them. :p

[Richard Tafoya]

Well, just leave us Austin.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

Yeah. Austin can stay. The rest of the state? Pffft.

[Sinister]

Why stop at Texas? I'm all for giving them Utah as well.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

Oh, excellent idea! :)

[Annoyedlistner]

If I were a Texan I'd be fired up. Id be trying to find a way to get Gov. Perry out of office right now.

[Richard Tafoya]

Here's on glimpse of how it's playing in Austin:
Dallas Morning News:
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/04/house-to-rick-take-this-secess.html
The House by acclamation just slashed the budget of the governor's office by $22.7 million over two years. The House's move left Gov. Rick Perry with only $900,000, money from interagency contracts, to run his office in the next budget cycle, not counting more than a half-billion his office doles out to law enforcement, businesses and filmmakers.

The first whack at Perry's budget was by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jessica Farrar, D-Houston. She took $4 million for veterans' programs. The biggest hit, though, was proposed by Rep. John Davis, R-Houston. His provision would switch $18.7 million from Perry's office to community mental health "crisis services" that try to keep the mentally ill out of jail and hospital emergency rooms.

Without mentioning Perry, Davis said the move would "fully fund" last session's push to do better by the seriously mentally ill who can live successfully at home, if treated. But a leading Democrat sauntered by the press table and said the move was a jab at Perry, who has garnered national publicity for comments about Texas' seceding from the Union.

Said Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, "That's the headline. Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget."

[Richard Tafoya]

And in Houston:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6377858.html
Poor Rick Perry! He got his knickers so bunched up while speaking at the Austin Tea Party on Wednesday he not only raised the possibility Texas would secede from the Union, he suggested that we gained the right to do so when we became a state in 1845.

I have to think the professors at Texas A&M taught Perry better than that. The federal act that admitted Texas to the Union did not give the state permission to secede. We all know what happened when Texas did just that.

...

Perry’s slender grasp on history was exposed during the angry speech he delivered minutes before his secession remark.

He quoted our “seventh governor, Sam Houston,” as saying: “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may!”

But Perry, with secession apparently on his mind, neglected to note that as governor Houston bitterly opposed Texas’s secession from the Union, and was booted from office when he refused to sign a loyalty oath to the Confederacy.

Perry again showed his lack of regard for the not-so-subtle nuances of history when he expressed his anger at the federal government by chopping the air with his fist and chanting: “I’m talking about states’ rights, states’ rights, states’ rights!”

...

The crowd loved it, but there is a large segment of Texas citizens who know bitterly that the term “states’ rights” was long militantly employed to fight the melting away of such “rights” as state sanctioning of slavery, enforcement of school segregation and, in Texas, the definition of political parties as private associations permitted to exclude non-whites primaries.

[Sasha Reigne]

My city is technically a part of Texas but we like to think of ourselves as part of New Mexico.

[db44]

If only it had actually carried through on this threat the last time the cry-baby state used this one. You know, with the Bush-Gore election?

Yeah, leave us Austin and go away! I'd be very happy. No more Big Oil to keep us from exploring deep into the benefits of renewable energies. No more artificially inflating gas prices... Heh, let's see how well the country of Texas would do being the only place where fossil fuels are the norm, and having no place to export them.

...And didn't I hear Mrs. Palin was suggesting succession as well? After all that fighting to deny she was connected to a Free Alaska group?