Texians Draw Fire

As is often the case, any argument in favor of an independent Texas usually draws heated responses.  Most run to the fact that Joint Resolutions of Congress fairly annexed Texas into the Union, and that the election of 1845 was fair and legal, both points of which are patently false.  But, let's allow one of our more articulate readers make the points:

I have no problem with your opinions as expressed on your blog - we are all entitled to our own opinion. We are not, however, entitled to our own facts.

"The US president Polk was elected partly on a platform to get Texas into the Union.  The only problem was that Texians had no desire whatsoever to join.  Any vote that came up was soundly defeated."

This is a complete falsehood. The referendum on annexation received 94.4% of the vote in favor of joining the USA.

OCTOBER 13, 1845
Annexation ordinance and state constitution submitted to the Texas voters for approval. (The vote tally on November 10, 1845, was 4,254 to 267 in favor of annexation; the total vote, compiled January 1, 1846, was 7,664 to 430 in favor of annexation.) 
Sure, you can claim that was illegal as well, but you certainly can't use the argument that the people of Texas were against annexation. And, if you claim that was illegal, you can't turn around and say that secession was OK because of a referendum.

As far as annexation via resolution being unconstitutional in the US:

DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901)
"A treaty made by that power is said to be the supreme law of the land, as efficacious as an act of Congress; and, if subsequent and inconsistent with an act of Congress, repeals it. This must be granted, and also that one of the ordinary incidents of a treaty is the cession of territory, and that the territory thus acquired is acquired as absolutely as if the annexation were made, as in the case of Texas and Hawaii, by an act of Congress."

And as far as secession, it was illegal once Texas' government and people chose annexation:

Texas v. White, United States Supreme Court, (1868) 
"The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States."
Q. E. D.

Sorry, but by the standard of "the Will of the People," the people of Texas consented to annexation in 1845, and the nation they chose to join did not have an opt-out clause. They should have read the fine print. Actually, not even the fine print - the preamble says "to form a more perfect union." You don't get a "more perfect Union" by allowing states to leave at a whim.

Texas can be independent via the 49 other states agreeing to it, or by fighting and winning a war of independence. Good luck with either option.

One more small detail (and believe me, I skipped a LOT of items that are inaccurate in your post): Texas did indeed join the Confederacy. 

On March 23, 1861, the Texas Secession Convention ratified the CSA Constitution.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/23march1861.html

The people of the State of Texas assembled by delegates in Convention, ordain, That the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, adopted March 11th, 1861, by the Congress of the Provisional Government of said Confederacy, for the permanent government thereof, subject to ratification by the respective States, is hereby ratified, accepted, and adopted for the purposes therein expressed on the part of this State, acting in its sovereign and independent character.

This reader did a fine job of making my points, and I wish to thank him or her (was not clear from the information provided).  And to finish the argument, I simply need to point out that the words, "annexation of foreign countries" do not appear anywhere in either the Constitution of the united States or of The Republic of Texas.  Therefore, Joint Resolutions of Congress have no validity under either system of law.  It was no more legal or valid than the annexation of Iraq, which is also a captive nation of war.


So, let's examine the points one at a time, shall we?

The vote tally on November 10, 1845, was 4,254 to 267 in favor of annexation

 I re-iterate the point that annexation has no force under either Texas nor US law, nor under international law. Furthermore, 4,521 votes were registered in that referendum.  At the time, Texas had a registered population of roughly 200,000 people.  Damn it, Jim!  I'm an artist, not a mathematician, but that looks to me like about 97% of the population opposed, or at least didn't give a rat's (expletive) about joining the US.  And that assumes that the election was fair and lawful, which they rarely are.


Strike three comes with the vote to secede in 1861, which saw a 4-to-1 ratio vote in favor of independence a mere 18 years later.
Just to close the case, there were several attempts to vote Texas into the Union before the one cited by the reader, and those were completely rejected.  Thus, I question the veracity of the election, since the turn-out was so low and since it went in favor of Union, which had been rejected so many times before.


To address the reader's other point here, I did not claim that the 1845 election was illegal, I said that the 1865 election was, since only those who swore allegiance to the Union were allowed to vote.  Hardly a fair referendum, I'd say.


The reader goes on to quote DeLima v. Bidwell, which was decided 40-odd years after the fact and is the basis for the globalist take-over of the US at the present time through treaties such as Kyoto and Agenda 21, which any red-blooded Unionist would surely point to as treasonous.  I hardly find that conclusive, since grandfathering is considered illegal in our current system of law.  It's akin to outlawing the use of cars and then throwing anyone in jail who once used one before the enactment of the law.  And none of that argument makes the word "annexation" appear in the Constitution.  My copy is still bereft of any mention of the word.


Under international law, only a treaty has any force of law.  Joint Resolutions of Congress do not appear anywhere in the ICC or other international codes.  We are talking about relations between nations.  The reader is assuming a relationship akin to statehood.  Quite different beasts, that.


The reader goes on to say that the Union does not have an opt-out clause, yet in the First Amendment, the right of the people to associate is well understood and has considerable precedent.  The right of contract is also a fundamental part of Western law.  Joining an organization involves both association and contract.  If one party fails to live up to its obligations, then the other party has the absolute right to dissolve its bond.


This concept is at the very heart of the Declaration of Independence.  By the reader's argument, the colonies did not have the right to dissolve their bond with England, and so the very existence of the Union is without substance, therefore it does not have the power to annex or otherwise create States within itself.


By extension, if I were to join the Kiwanis Club under certain obligations and conditions, and the Kiwanis failed to meet their part of the bargain, I would not be allowed to quit the Club.  This argument is false prima facie.


The reader points to the concept of 'a more perfect Union.'  Yet, I would argue that not only was the Union dysfunctional at the time Texas and the Confederacy seceded, but in fact has become more so since that time.  Therefore, since the Union has failed to perfect itself, and has devolved from its original state, therefore ipso facto the States have not only the right but the obligation to dissolve from the Union, and seek to form yet a more perfect one outside the existing bounds.


As for the point about joining the Confederacy, the reader points to Texas' ratification of the Constitution of the CSA.  To that, I simply state that Texas acted in every way as a soverign nation, with president and Congress whose powers and activities were in every way equal to the president of the Confederacy and the US.  Does that sound like a subordinate state to a union to you?  I didn't think so.


I thank the reader for his or her well-reasoned argument and citations.  I agree that it is hard to sort out the truth in a land where autocratic fascism has rewritten the history books.  However, I also have the advantage of being a seventh generation Texian and the son of a politician/historian.  My information comes a bit more direct from the horses' mouth than most textbooks dare provide.


My family's root far exceed those of either the US or the Republic of Texas.  We helped found the Republic.  We also support and uphold the autonomy of the indiginous nations of the Comanche, Kickapoo, Lupan Apache, and Navajo, as well as others.  As conquered peoples of the American empire, we can certainly sympathize with their plight.


Sailing around planting flags does not claim the soil, any more than five flags on the face of the Moon make it the sole possession of the US.  The native rights of those who live on and work the soil are supreme, in any course of law.  That is something established in English law as far back as the Magna Carta, and even as far as Roman administrative law.  While the reader presents a fine argument, there are numerous holes in it, including presumptions and prejudices that hold no weight.  


I have posted the email in toto and I leave it to the good folks who come here daily to decide.  I clearly stated in my original post that I had neither the time nor the space to present the entire argument.  Therefore, there are many parts missing.  I invited the reader to examine the facts for themselves, just as I did.  I hope it is clear that I do not make decisions lightly or without ample proof.


In summary, I offer the words of Thomas Jefferson, who built a fine argument in favor of dissolving ties with England, that most Americans can find little fault with:

"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."

And from the Texas Declaration of Independence:

"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression."

I see no further need to argue the point.  

A Shark By Any Other Name

Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.

--Shakespeare, Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

From the moment Man created Law, he created his own worst enemy, the lawyer.

There has always been a class of people who have insinuated themselves into the middleman position between us and Justice. In the Bible, God reached down and etched The Law on some stone tablets (which if you've read Joseph Farrell's The Cosmic War, then you know what those are). Almost immediately, there arose a class of folks who began interpreting what exactly God meant by 'false gods' and 'keeping holy the Sabbath.' Biblical readers will know these folks as Pharisees.

The Pharisees' job was to take fairly clear, simple language and obfuscate the hell out it. Keeping holy the Sabbath meant that you couldn't walk more than so far from your door, and you had to follow a certain script when praying, and you had to wear certain clothes, and if you were a woman, well forget you. You don't get no preachifying.

The Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Greeks, and most importanly (to us), the Romans, all had this class of 'know-betters' who told us they were necessary to interpret Law, as well as speak for us ignorant rabble in the Holy Courts of the Land.

Certainly, Babylonian law, at least in terms of form and function, are still deeply rooted in Western culture to this time. However, the most influencial law today is Roman administrative law, which informs everything from traffic court to civil tort in our modern system.

The law is basically divided into two primary classes: The Organic or Natural Law, and the Administrative Law. The Natural Law makes complete sense, of course. It deals with big concepts of fairness and justice. The civil administrative code are all the stupid little infractions that serve as revenue generators in modern society. Even the use of the word 'code' is a clue as to what is going on.

The Natural Law, as has been eloquently expounded on by far greater minds than mind, is summed up in a few basic concepts: don't murder, don't steal and leave your neighbor's stuff alone. These are things that are pretty much hard-wired into humans. We have a natural abhorrance to things like murder and theft. It violates out sense of fair play and equality. It applies in the jungles of Borneo, as well as the jungles of Manhattan. It is universally enshined in every legal system everywhere throughout all history.

Civil or Administrative Code, on the other hand, is a creature of society. It springs from the concept of 'contract.' In Texas, we say a man's word is his bond, but in actual practice, a lot of people welsh on agreements. Thus, the contract was born. This is a document which spells out the precise terms and performance of an agreement, no matter what the subject. There is a proscribled form in most legal systems.

Herein lies the problem. Once you introduce the concept of contract, then you must build up an infrastructure to enforce it, which in turn introduces a sub-class of human whose job it is to parse and interpret every little nuance of the contract to find loopholes and force performance.

Contract further opens the door to a thing called 'citizenship.' This is often referred to as the 'social contract.' I call myself a citizen and pay taxes, and in return, the 'system' provides me certain services, such as enforcement of contracts. The 'social contract' leads to 'citizenship,' which leads to 'obligation,' which leads to 'conspription.' Conscription can take many forms.

Once you are a citizen of some abstraction called a 'nation,' then you can be compelled, through contract, to perform certain duties. These duties many involve taxes, armed forces service, compulsory education, and obeying speed limits. Whatever whims strike the 'government,' as dreamed up by 'lawyers,' can be enforced on the 'citizenry' because of 'social contract.' Key words include that little gem, 'enforced,' as in at the point of a gun.

Once we've established this thing called a 'citizen,' which in fact in NOT a human being, but a construct of administrative code, then the next step is to create 'artificial' persons called 'corporations,' from the Latin corpus, meaning 'body.' Corporations are, in the eyes of the administrative code, the same as a 'citizen.' They have rights and obligations to the state, just like 'citizens.'

This is why concepts, such as 'civil rights,' are so dangerous. It implies that the civil authority confers such rights and that it can give them to any entity it wants, or conversely, take them away. Civil rights are NOT Natural Rights. They are granted by a civil authority, and can be taken back at the whim of civil authority. This is why Thomas Jefferson made the statement:

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.

Often mispronounced, the word "unalienable" is not 'un-ALIEN-able,' but 'un-a-LIEN-able,' as in a lien on your car or house. In other words, the rights are part of being human and can not be given away or taken away. Natural human beings have 'unalienable' rights, 'citizens' have civil rights as part of their contract with 'authority.' If you violate the 'civil contract,' your right to 'liberty' is taken away and you are promptly thrown in jail. Obviously, civil authority thinks it is higher than the Creator/Universe/God.

To continue building on our theme, the British developed the Law of the Seas, which was founded on centuries of thought and practice. The Law of the Seas eventually became the Law of Admiralty, making the Admiral of a fleet the ultimately authority under the Crown when on the 'high seas.' The Law of Admiralty evolved into the Law of Nations, which is the foundation of the UN's supposed authority.

Under the Law of Nations, there is a thing called the Law of Flags, which is this annoying habit of Europeans to run around the world sticking their flags in everything and calling it 'theirs.' The first thing Apollo astronauts did on the Moon, after setting up cameras to record the events, was stick a flag in the Moon to clain it for the USofA. Anyway, under the Law of Flags, any Court of Admiralty must disply the flag of the host nation with a gold fringe, or Admiral's Flag. Thus, when you walk into any courtroom, classroom or Kiwanis hall, there's always a gold-fringed flag. You are no longer under the 'organic' law of your native land, you are now under the Law of Nations, or Admiralty.

Out of this was born the Universal Code of Commerce, or UCC. The UCC is a far-reaching set of administrative laws that govern just about everything done in commerce, which lawyers will tell you is anyting you do in public. Driving to work, shopping for food, going to the doctor are all governed by the UCC, which is why it all requires 'licenses.' A license, as defined by code, is permission to do something which is otherwise illegal. So, your health, your mobility and your food are all illegal and must have the permission of the 'Crown' in order to perform these actions.

As a 'citizen,' you are given a 'birth certificate.' Without it, you don't 'exist.' You are a natural human being on the land and are not part of the civil contract. However, if you have one, then you are bound from birth to the civil contract and must perform certain actions under that contract, or lose your civil rights. This 'citizen' concept is often referred to as the 'straw man.' Corporate charters are 'birth certificates,' and the 'by-laws' function as the conscience of these artificial 'persons.'

This all leads to the final point. Under the law, there are 'words' and there are 'terms.' Words are understood to have the 'common' or dictionary meaning, while terms have special definitions under the law. If you read laws, you will usually see at the beginning something like, "For the purposes of this section, the term 'vehicle' shall mean..."

The concept of Natural Rights can be summed up as, I am free to do whatever I want as long as it doesn't iminge on your right to do the same. So if I want to shoot up heroine, smoke opium and sit in the corner of my room drooling and masturbating, that is my right, as long as I don't interfere with your right not to do those things and you don't interfere with my right to continue.

There are so many concepts to cover within this topic, things such as: Freedom of Expression in NOT Freedom of Speech; The Right to Travel cannot be licensed or regulated, even on public roadways; Taxes are NOT an inevitable part of life. It's all very complex, thanks in whole to those creatures called 'lawyers.'

It all boils down to exactitude of language being purity of thought. If you are aware of how you are manipulated through the use of words and terms, then you are 90% of the way home. The rest is acting on that knowledge. Therein lies the rub.

Most of us would rather sit around watching 'American Idol' than reading the law and studying the development of our current enslavement. It's hard to complain about imprisonment when you can endlessly entertain yourself with knick-knacks and geegaws. But, distraction is not solution, and as long as we think that we are free inside of our prison, we will watch our natural rights and our true wealth leech away until one day (sooner than later, I think) we will have nothing. Except, maybe, a gaggle of lawyers.

Are all lawyers bad? In intent, no. In practice, yes. Every lawyer, no matter how well-intentioned and high-minded he is, is part of the problem and can never be part of the solution. Every legal solution adds yet another layer to the onion of our captivity. There is only one way out.

As the old, tired saying goes, “Ignorance of the law in no defense.” Therefore, it stands to reason that knowldge of the law is the perfect defense. For the most part, we are profoundly ignorant of something that affects every single aspect of our lives. It behooves us to take some part of our lives to learn about and act upon something that is that far rooted. Certainly, if you have the time to worry about the life and times of your favorite pop star or the vaguest stats of your favorite sport hero, then you have time to learn about the invisible net that has entrapped and enslaved you.

Remember the next time you go to court, and you hire a lawyer, what you have done is declared yourself 'incompetent' in the eyes of the law. You have rendered yourself 'mute before the bench' and basically told the court that you are mentally incompetent to stand up for yourself. In other words, hiring a lawyer is, IN FACT, a plea of insanity.

Don't believe me? Look it up.

Latest developments on the 'Strawman Argument.'