The Course of Human Events

If you live in Texas and not under a rock, you may have heard Gov. Rick Perry endorsed secession as a possibility for Texas. More specifically, he said that while it hasn't come to that yet, it might.

The usual suspects are screaming and wailing. Everyone's favorite ridiculous news-muppet, Geraldo Rivera, called Perry's statements treason and sedition. A sizable contingent have claimed his statements are "Anti-American".

Heh. I will simply remind everyone of some words from the past.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So, it's apparently treasonous for Rick Perry to voice the same sentiments in regards to the current federal government? Silly me. As I read this document, it's our right as free men and women to discuss the possibility. More importantly, it's our birthright as Americans. We're the only country going to have a violent revolution and come through it better than before. The right, indeed the duty, to try it again if necessary is one of the principles on which America was founded. Rick Perry's statements may be unwise and may cause him to lose an election, but they aren't treason and they aren't unamerican.