In this episode, I welcome back returning guest Jason Fry, author of National Divorce: A Plan for Peace and a sixth-generation Texan, for a deep-dive conversation on Texas sovereignty and the practical path to a peaceful, legal separation from the federal system. We discuss why America’s core ideas—freedom, limited government, and God-given rights—aren’t the same as today’s federal apparatus, and how a “national divorce” can mirror a civil, negotiated split rather than war. We unpack state-level readiness (like the Texas Stock Exchange), fiscal realities, defense and currency considerations, the role of local leadership, and why a democratic referendum—not force—is central to any legitimate path forward. We also revisit recent border showdowns, post-election polarization, and how independence movements across states (and worldwide) illustrate that decentralization can reduce cultural conflict by letting regions self-govern. We touch on Jason’s faith and family perspective, his career and craft as a knifemaker, and the importance of preparing personally and politically: build strong families, support capable local leaders, and insist lawmakers let Texans vote on their future. Jason shares where to get his book (and a signed copy) and makes the case that a thoughtfully negotiated transition—much like Brexit—can protect prosperity and peace while aligning government with Texas values.
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(00:04:10) Opening from Eagle Pass and week-in-review
(00:06:23) Weekend shows: crypto picks and Bible study on wisdom
(00:11:19) Guest intro: Jason Fry on National Divorce
(00:13:06) Tech hiccups, Starlink chat, and warm-up banter
(00:15:16) Getting to know Jason: background, hobbies, family
(00:20:00) Faith, family, and politics: roots of Jason’s views
(00:21:32) Texas politics frustrations: taxes, speakers, priorities
(00:25:16) Outside money in Texas elections and state sovereignty
(00:27:30) California-Texas migration and cultural friction
(00:29:00) Upcoming guest tease and 2025 sovereignty signals
(00:29:38) Gold depository, TX Stock Exchange, and preparedness
(00:32:33) Does a friendlier DC slow independence movements?
(00:35:08) Polarization, violence concerns, and the ‘Judges’ analogy
(00:41:24) Shelby Park standoff: near-miss cautionary tale
(00:43:25) National Divorce explained: the marriage metaphor
(00:49:52) Addressing ‘civil war’ and treason accusations
(00:51:14) Can independence reduce polarization across states?
(00:55:23) One-size-fits-all governance vs. diverse states
(00:57:36) Perpetual union, realism, and consent of the governed
(01:04:03) America as an idea vs. the U.S. government
(01:08:36) Federal overreach and the case for robust federalism
(01:12:42) Post-breakup cooperation: trade and defense possibilities
(01:14:43) Independence movements beyond Texas
(01:17:37) ‘Post-TEXIT’ worries: Social Security and practicality
(01:20:51) Ballot access hurdles and party platform irony
(01:22:23) Who really funds what? Federal taxes and returns
(01:25:32) Donor states, spending priorities, and defense costs
(01:27:06) Keeping Texas dollars in Texas
(01:34:34) Immigration: borders, rules, and enforcement swings
(01:36:54) Executive orders, rule of law, and systemic drift
(01:38:15) How to prepare: personal resilience and local politics
(01:41:42) Let the people vote: referendum vs. legislature’s fear
(01:45:25) If it passed: process, not tanks—Brexit as model
(01:51:10) Negotiating currency, defense, and bases post-exit
(01:51:15) Why D.C. violence makes no sense against a vote
(01:54:40) Final case: divide on purpose, negotiate in peace
(01:56:36) Book plug: National Divorce and where to buy
(01:59:22) Show wrap, calls to support, and programming notes
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:04:11]
Unknown:
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Rouge show. The show where we talk about anything and everything. Where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down,
[00:04:28] Unknown:
and nothing is PC. Alright. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos. It is nineteen zero four hours on Monday, 09/22/2025. And it is great to be with you guys once again from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And we are going to do the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Well folks, it is Monday. Another week together. Looking forward to spending another week with truly amazing guests, amazing conversation, and important topics of discussion.
So folks, I hope you guys had a great weekend. Hope you enjoyed it, and, I really hope you were able to catch the show on Saturday, the live show we did Saturday with our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee, talked about a bunch of things. We talked about Algorand, and we talked about XRP, ICP, a bunch of different, cryptocurrencies that are that are gonna be pretty hot to come by in the, in the upcoming months. So I hope you're able to check that out, and, it was really very informative. As always, I always, like, take notes. I don't know if you noticed that or not, but I always take notes during the course of the show when we do it with her because, so far, everything that she's told me to get, she's been spot on with me, so it's been pretty good.
Really, really happy with that. And I hope you guys are too, and I hope you're able to check it out. And then, of course, Sunday Sunday, we did our Sunday bible study show. We talked about, we talked well, we're going through a series right now on wisdom, and we're teaching through the book of Proverbs. So that's, that's a lot of fun. And, yesterday's show, we talked about, the wisdom of, soul winning. The wisdom of soul winning. Remember the Bible says, he that winneth souls is wise. So great conversation with that yesterday too. We had I thoroughly enjoyed that lesson. It was a lot of fun. And, and then tonight, we have a we have a guest waiting for us in the wings here. We'll bring him on here momentarily.
His book is right here, National Divorce. He was actually our fourth or sixth guest on the show. So we're talking back in January. So this he's a returning he's a returning victim, I mean, guest, to the show. So, we're we're looking forward to talking with, Jason Fry when we when we can bring him on up. Alright? But, of course, as always, before we do anything, we have some housekeeping that we do need to do. So head over to the website, joeroos.com. If there we go. If, if if fencing works tonight, joeroos.com. Just head over to the website and, go to the contact section, open up the web form that's right there, and just click on that thing, and send us over a message. Let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you might have, any issues you might be having, any complaints you might be having, there better not be any complaints. But if you do have one, send them on over to us and let us know. You could also let us know if you if there's a particular topic that you'd like to discuss on the show, because we would love to hear from you guys on that as well.
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Alright. And, that brings us down to our sponsor for tonight's show, Ezra Healing. Ezrahealing.com. Folks, Ezra Healing is a substantial part of the new wellness paradigm currently being born in North America and around the globe. The global citizenry are no longer satisfied with the sick care version of so called health care. Band aid medicine, endlessly treating symptoms rather than root causes, must be abandoned as soon as possible. Patient centric care must be the priority. We need to transition to the do no harm model of private care that places humanity at the forefront of real health and wellness care. In this new model, your entire lifestyle is examined and analyzed to promote and support the totality of your body's integrated systems. Ezra Healing is a solutions based health promotion and disease prevention grassroots movement that is always evolving to best serve you and your family. So for more information, just head over to ezrahealing.com.
That's ezrahealing.com. They have some great products, great great, programs and such that they're offering right now, especially if you can check out their, their BAM that's going on the, the binaural audio meditation program they're doing. Great stuff. I tried it out, just a couple of days ago and really, really did enjoy it. It was, it was, you know, something I I used to use binaural beats quite a bit, back in the day, but, kinda drifted away from that a little bit. And now here we are. We're doing it again. And, it is a tremendous, tremendous program. So you need to check it out. It's all right there on ezrahealing.com.
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Alright. Now tonight, I need a drum roll track. I gotta I gotta do that. I gotta I gotta get one of those things. But tonight, we have with us again Jason Frey, a sixth generation Texan who has joined who joined us back in 01/02/2025 to talk about his book, National Divorce, a plan for peace. He's a behavior analyst by day. Jason crafts custom knives on weekends, blending function and artistry. He's all he was also a forged in fire runner-up season five episode 26, by the way. He's president of the Texas Knifemakers Guild and author of knife making hacks. Jason and his wife both live in, Wolford, Texas along with their four boys. His daily life is spent balancing family faith and passions like hunting and fishing.
He is also a supporter of Texas independence. Texas independence for many years. Jason now openly champion state sovereignty, advocating practical peaceful steps for a national divorce. Jason, it is great to have you back here on the Joe Russo. It is fantastic. Now a lot has changed since you've been with us last. So, the name of the show has changed. The layout here has changed. We're doing video instead of just audio. So, so quite a quite a bit has changed. But, how you been?
[00:12:44] Unknown:
What you said about where I'm from changed.
[00:12:47] Unknown:
Oh, did it really? Okay. Well, we'll have to talk to, anonymous Angela about that because that's what she sent me for your bio. So
[00:12:55] Unknown:
Yep. All good.
[00:12:57] Unknown:
So what's going on with you, brother? How you been? It's been a lot it's been a while, man. You look great. You look fantastic. You look, look like you've been living the good life.
[00:13:05] Unknown:
Know that for sure. But now things are things are going well. I, I've been out, on the podcast circuit again just talking to folks like you, with the same message, honestly, that I've been saying for a while, that America seems to be, and that's air quotes. It's really obvious. America seems to be, fairly divided already.
[00:13:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. And I think and I think it's getting worse. The one thing though, brother, you are frozen in place right now. And, That's bad. At least you're smiling though in in the in the freeze.
[00:13:37] Unknown:
Okay. I'm frozen smiling, but you can hear the audio? Yeah. Got the audio clear, clear as day. So, I can see. I'm moving. But
[00:13:47] Unknown:
You might be moving on your end, but on this end, all I see is a big cheesy smile.
[00:13:51] Unknown:
That's bad. Well, I can be cheesy. That is sort of what I do. Yeah. I gotcha.
[00:13:57] Unknown:
Okay. Alright. Well, well, hopefully, your Internet will clear up a little bit, and we'll get you back on here. You're on Wi Fi or you're on your, data plan?
[00:14:06] Unknown:
I'm actually on Wi Fi. Interesting. So it should
[00:14:08] Unknown:
Well, there you go. You're moving again. Okay. Well, cool. Sure. Thanks Elon Musk for, Starlink. Are you are you using Starlink?
[00:14:16] Unknown:
Yeah. I am. I'm slightly rural now. Okay. A little way from town, and so, there were not many options. Alright.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
And and this is the quality of Starlink that we see,
[00:14:26] Unknown:
Well, yeah.
[00:14:31] Unknown:
Well, you know, I was I was actually thinking about because where where I where I live, my Internet goes out quite regularly. And nine out of 10 times, it's usually five to ten minutes before the show starts. So, I was thinking about actually the and there's no other provider in my area right here that I can get. I was actually looking at Starlink. But,
[00:14:53] Unknown:
no. No. I don't mind endorsing it. We, we have had it for three months now. And, kinda like you said, every other provider has said, no. No. We don't even have service out there. Mhmm.
[00:15:05] Unknown:
Not too bad. Well, it looks bad, but it may not be bad. I'm just messing with you, brother. Well, you're frozen again, but that's okay. We'll we'll, we'll we'll carry on here. So, one of the new things that we do with the show is that we like to ask some questions to kinda get the audience to know a little bit more about you. So so what's something about you that most people don't know but should?
[00:15:30] Unknown:
Oh, they don't know? Again, you you already gave away most of my good secrets. So I I have a couple of master's degrees, and I work actually in state government. I do nerd stuff all day long. And so usually when I say, also, I make knives, like, people think that's new and amazing. But you you gave me that in the intro. Let's see. I've written, four books, including this one. I got a nobody knows this. I got a fifth one on the way. Alright. It's another knife making book. But what else did people not know? I bass fish. I used to turn them and fish a lot. People don't know that because I lived in the desert for the last eight years and pretty much gave it up.
[00:16:12] Unknown:
But I think that would probably prudent to try to have to give that up.
[00:16:17] Unknown:
Gone out there. But I when I moved a couple months ago, I moved three minutes from the lake Nice. On purpose. I just did it early three minutes to the boat ramp. So trying to
[00:16:28] Unknown:
regain my old self. You're spending more time fishing again?
[00:16:31] Unknown:
Little bit. Little bit. Nice. So I don't have shop at my new place. I'm having to build that and process it. Okay. Just got put in doing slab next month and, you know, I'm right in it. So, yeah, I can't can't make a knife right now, so I might as well go to lake. Alright. Alright. I still wanna get a knife from you though, because I I've seen some of the work you do and it does some you're amazing work, so I got I have to get one. So, so what's your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day? I'm a sweet tea guy. I mean, I, grew up churches of Christ, man. We don't we don't,
[00:17:02] Unknown:
we don't do much of that. That's okay. That's alright. You know, there there aren't very many guests that I asked the question of that that actually come back with anything other than usually water. I've got a couple of Mountain Dews. Yeah. I got a couple of, you know, glass of wine here or there and whatnot, but but, you know, I've I've I've slowed down on my bourbons, so I'm not doing the bourbons so much. And it was interesting when I slowed down with the bourbon, all my hair fell out. So, but, but, we no. Seriously, though, yeah. But right, like, tonight, I am having my, my green tea with, with honey and lime, and it's doing it's doing well. It's doing well. It's alright. We're good. It's, you know, I I like I said, I I got carried away with the bourbons, and it was just way too much. And not not like it was out of control, like I was like an alcoholic or anything like that, but it was, you know, expensive.
So, yeah. So we have did I have so I had to, you know, kinda ease my way out of that a little bit. So this is good. It's it's either coffee or tino. So it's it's not bad. It's not too bad. Not too bad. So, so Jason, you're a dad. You you juggle you you juggle work, knives, church. Where when do you carve out any time just to breathe and and and think, you know, big picture stuff like independence?
[00:18:26] Unknown:
So on my commute sometimes, honestly, in between things. But no. You you to me, all these things are are sort of tied in together. I mean, that's why I'm constantly stewing some of the other idea. So I have four sons. I've got 20, 21, and eight year old twins. Okay? So when it comes down to, somebody on Twitter spouting off civil war, It is my kids. Like, two of my my older men, my my grown boys are in the military right now. Okay? So, thinking about politics and war and let's not have a war and all that. I mean, that's the same as thinking about my kids to me. Mhmm. So it's it's all right there. The other thing you mentioned, was was religion. So once upon a time, I was a youth minister. I went to basically seminary. We don't call it that church of Christ, but, went to Bible College, got a master's degree in that, did that full time for six years. So so the interchange of what is God trying to tell me today, or what does scripture say about what I'm supposed to be doing today, or what's God doing in the world right now is a part of my default mode kind of. Right? So, I mean, I was I was raised that way. I was trained that way. So, to to come to a point where I I think maybe the government's not awesome and maybe let's not have a war. And maybe my primary allegiance isn't to the flag.
You know, those kinds of things.
[00:20:01] Unknown:
Again, it all just meshes naturally in my my head. It's a weird place to be, but that's that's where I am. Well, I don't think it's a weird place to be. We have to look at government right now. Government is just out of control. The general government I'm talking about. Well, the actually, the state government too, and and and I really kinda wanted to get into that a little bit with you because I know you're very you're you're very you're very Texas oriented, you're very interested in what's going on in the state here, and at which you should be. Anybody in any state wherever you live, you should be very interested in what's going on at your state house because that has a direct impact on you, more than what you might think the federal government has on you.
So, one of the things that that really, that really drove me crazy with with we'll talk Texas stuff first, and then we'll get into the rest of the world stuff. Okay. But, one of the things that drove me nuts this last, this last session of the Texas House is how much authority the Texas Republicans gave to the Texas Democrats, and how many issues of significance were pushed aside, tabled, and, and not even voted on. For example, one of the big debates right now are is the property taxes. And, I know, representative Brian Harrison, state representative Brian Harrison has been has been pushing to to get this on the floor to, do away with property taxes here in the state of Texas, but they won't even address that.
[00:21:31] Unknown:
So it's in the it's actually in the Republican Party platform. Mhmm. And body seems to want to address it. Incidentally, also in the Republican Party platform is Texas independence, by the way. But but your your point is a valid one. You know, Texas government has been read on paper for a long, long time. Mhmm. And yet we haven't had a speaker elected by the Republican caucus, also in a long, long time. Right? The fact that we we need a multiparty coalition to elect our representative speaker in a majority situation is a little bit goofy. It's yeah. It doesn't make much sense. But Does it? And and here's my theory on that.
I think that part of the problem is that Texas politicians are treating their current job like it's the JV team for the federal government. Okay? That's a great point. That really is. That is a great point. Yeah. The Texas representative or senator, if you ask them, say, are you Texas first? Will you sign a pledge to to work for Texas first? By and large, many of them will say no, which is inconceivable. Right? You are a representative for Texas. Why would you not represent Texas first? Right? Why would your primary interest be what they're doing in DC or California or anywhere else in the universe if you're representing Texas in the legislature?
Right? So I think that's a piece of the problem. You know, whether it's Dustin Burrows or Dave Phelan or or Joe Strauss, you know, part of it, they're they're trying to make Texas not look so whatever they think is bad. They're trying to make Texas, fit in somehow on this national bipartisan gridlock mess. I don't understand their motivations exactly, but it it can't be to represent Texas or do what the voters are interested in. Well, my kids are losing their mind because of autopilot.
[00:23:29] Unknown:
I hear it. Sorry. You wanna go take you wanna go take care of it? Or or I can no more control my eight year old's misbehavior than I can the Texas legislature. So there's your segue way back to context. Perfect. Okay. Wonderful. See, that that's the great thing about having a seasoned podcast veteran with you on the show, because they they know how to little tricks to get you redirected.
[00:23:50] Unknown:
But now so when it comes to, you know, Texas politicians doing Texas stuff, they're bad at it. You know, some of my friends that are not, as pro independence as me or you, they'll say, well, the Texas government, man, they're lousy too. Why do you want them to be in charge? Right? They're not wrong. My hope is that in an independent Texas, when we're not, beholden to outside funding, when we're not beholden to outside political influence, that these guys can get their crap together, honestly. You know, we on the national level, people have thrown a a fit about even the appearance of Russian interference in our election process. Right? Mhmm. Even the has has caused major turmoil.
And yet, we're not allowed to throw that same kind of shade, at Californians financing Texas candidates. Right? You would have never heard the name Beto O'Rourke without out of state money. And we're we're supposed to be okay with that. Right? So that's that's a piece of my answer to how do we deal with the Texas government being also ineffective. It's we're we're still participating in some pretty damn ineffective systems. We're tolerating things for ourselves, like out of state money and not being you're actually representing. We're tolerating that amongst ourselves in ways that I don't think we will as much, should we be independent. So,
[00:25:18] Unknown:
anyway Well, I actually and I'm glad you mentioned California because this is a question that's kinda been on my mind for a little while, is, is why does the state of California have a tax collection agency here in Texas?
[00:25:34] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know. Didn't have any, jurisdiction on Texas income, personally. They seem to. I mean, California has banned everything. Right? And, you look every every label you'll ever find on anything is this this this is known to cause cancer in the state of California. Right. So I think they were the weren't they the pre inventors of the mandated gas cans?
[00:25:57] Unknown:
I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:59] Unknown:
Well, they're terrible.
[00:26:02] Unknown:
Kinda stuff. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right on that. But, but the the the problem here too is is that you have all these another issue with California and Texas is you have all these people fleeing California, and they're coming to Texas. And, and they're bringing their California failed policies and politics with them.
[00:26:23] Unknown:
That is that is partly true. I also know some, some political refugees from California. New York is people that are, you know, from Northern California. The guy was that I'm talking about was literally a pig farmer. Okay? And then he worked, as a school maintenance man. Like, this is not, you know, not too not too snooty, by any stretch. And he moved here because we understand pig farmers and maintenance men a lot better than Los Angeles does.
[00:26:55] Unknown:
Got it. Okay. That makes sense.
[00:26:57] Unknown:
There are there are a group of folks that that move here from Northern California in particular that don't necessarily bring with them the baggage. That said, a lot of the tech folks, moving in for computer stuff. Mhmm. A lot of people who made a bunch of money selling a house and wanna live someplace cheaper that's still awesome. They they're bringing their baggage with them. But, you know, I've always felt a little bit like you have a responsibility to make your house your house, but that only extends to the area that you control. Right? So if I'm gonna move to Switzerland, I'm not gonna make all my neighbors speak English if they don't. Right. I'm not gonna say, I'm bringing my dollars with me and forget y'all if you don't wanna use them. Right? Right.
When you move someplace, you have a responsibility to either isolate or assimilate in my mind. The problem with with a lot of Californians is that they won't do either one.
[00:28:01] Unknown:
I got you. As a matter of fact, I think this week, it it might be it might be Wednesday, I think. I'm gonna I'm gonna have as as a guest, a gentleman who is running for Congress, who if I'm not I think this is the gentleman. He he actually was a mayor in a town in California, and, he moved here to Texas, and now he's looking to run for Congress, to represent the district. And as part of the redistricting plan, I think he's 35, if I'm not mistaken. But I I I was trying to log in to my calendar to take a look at it, but it's it's telling me I'm on a different device than it's used to, and it's gonna maybe go through all these checks, and I'm not gonna have enough time. So, so, yeah. So he's gonna be on the show this, I think some I think it's this week. Is it either Wednesday or Friday this week? And, so if you have any questions that you'd like to be, to to throw towards him, you can check out the show or send them over to me, and I'd be happy to answer them ask them for you.
But, so I'm looking forward to that. I wanna hear what he has to say. Now in in, in in 02/2025, so far, Texas passed several bills, signaling a push toward greater Texas greater state sovereignty. Which of those bills actually stand out as surprising in terms of passing? Like, what caught you off guard? Which didn't you think would pass?
[00:29:25] Unknown:
So the, the gold depository thing is a couple of of cycles ago. Right? But the fact that there are people in Texas government interested in, what if this all goes sideways? Do we have sound money? Do we have a backup plan? Right. Excited to see the, the Texas Stock Exchange come about, in Dallas.
[00:29:46] Unknown:
You know, we Which I think is huge, by the way. Yeah. 27,
[00:29:50] Unknown:
28,000,000 people. We are the number eight or nine largest economy in the world, by ourself. Mhmm. Right? We should have those things. Agreed. We should be prepared to, to function as well as we can, without without outside support. Right? If we're already the eighth largest in the in the world, there's no reason that we need or that we couldn't have some redundancy built in. Right? Because even though I I hope America doesn't fail, I think I, hope I win the lottery too. One of these is more likely than the other. Right? I mean True. We're, we're headed down a sketchy path. So everything's Texas does to prepare for that. You know, whether it's, saber rattling at the border saying, nope. We're actually gonna take care of this ourselves because you guys seem incomp incapable and incompetent.
You know, whether it's redistricting or or taxes or any of the things that a state can do, we should be thinking about what can we do that will set us up for better, independence. So when Greg Abbott goes to Denmark or something or India, and he's he's doing economic partnership diplomacy kind of trips. Some of us roll our eyes. Like, people people think that's silly. But then there's guys like me and maybe you that are like, heck, yeah. He's making a deal in advance. That's right.
[00:31:14] Unknown:
But, sideways, I've got friends in India or Denmark. Right? Well, yeah. That's exactly that's exactly when I when I saw the trips over overseas, and I saw that the types of arrangements that were being made, even though most of them are mostly ceremonial. You know, that's that's that's huge. That that's a very, very important step. You know? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And now prior to the election, the last election cycle, when when, president Trump was, one reelection, I think that was in January. You were on the show, I think, right before the inauguration. Mhmm. And, you know, there was, you know, the country put a lot of hope in president Trump's election as a whole. You know?
Now here here we are. We're talking about Texas independence. We're talking about, you know, you know, we we were looking at during the course of the Biden administration, I think the push was even stronger because we saw how ineffective government could be, how oppressive government can be, how dangerous government can be to the individual. And so I I feel like there was more of a momentum for organizations like the Texas nationalist movement, the the push for state sovereignty, the the push for, for this national divorce. And then president Trump comes in and puts the brakes on a lot of stuff, and there's seems to be a different feeling now within the country.
How do you think that affects these these separation movements, these independence movements? Because it's not just Texas. You know, there are other states also that have these things in place and they're that are exploring these options. But, I guess the the the thing is, you know, now that the country is kinda moving into a better direction, how does that affect what we're trying to do?
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Better for who? Right? So our our secessionist friends in California are fired up right now because the government is doing the opposite of what they like, just like it was for us two years ago or five years ago. Right? So that's number one is that the impulse never goes away. It may shift sides a little bit, but the the idea that maybe we we we would be better off our own or maybe we should take care of our own business, that never goes away. But my real answer to that is that the fundamentals never change either. Right? The the weather may be sunnier today, but the climate is still terrible. Right.
Pull an analogy out of nowhere. So the national that no. The federal debt, I didn't own it. I didn't vote for it. They did it. This federal. The federal debt continues to grow. What are we at? $37,000,000,000,000
[00:34:01] Unknown:
or something? Yeah. It's close to it. Yeah.
[00:34:04] Unknown:
And it did that under Trump the first time. Mhmm. It did that on Biden. It did that it's still doing that under Trump now. The fact that we are headed towards an an unsustainable no. That we we are already in an unsustainable spending environment. Yeah. That Change depending on whose jersey what color jersey the leader was wearing. Right? The fact that, you know, there are some states that really do want, abortions and free marijuana. There are other states that really do want, low taxation and the government not to be involved in some in some things. There are even some states, I would say Texas is dangerously close to this, that want to enforce a conservative set of morals. Right? So let's outlaw transgender in a bathroom. Right? Or let's outlaw some some other moral thing.
Again, that that's a symptom, not a cause to me. So all of those symptoms that are are making us divided, all those issues are which either the right or the left is challenged sometimes, the fundamentals of those haven't changed at all. Okay? The fact that, you know, people have been asking, of course, with the Charlie Kirk tragedy last week. People have been asking the question of how does that impact, national divorce or secession, discussions. And my answer is it's one more. It's one more of a I agree. Some the camel won't be too loaded, and he will collapse. But we had a a disputed election in 2020. We had the uninvited capital tour.
We had we've had all the time. It's never stopped. Okay? The fact that it was a popular guy this month, it was some state legislators out of Michigan, or Montana, Michigan, three months ago. Right? It it the the cycle of chaos is the part that we are in right now. Yeah. They sometimes that if,
[00:35:58] Unknown:
if America were in the book of judges, we would be well past Samson and into the weird stuff. Right? Yeah. I that's a great analogy, brother. I love that. I I am gonna steal that one from you. That is great. That is great.
[00:36:10] Unknown:
That's the point where the leaders that come up are good. We're even past the point where, like, Samson okay. Sure. Samson did did the world a favor. He also married a prostitute and, ended up, you know, killing himself. So we're we're we're path even past the point of really flawed leaders that do a good job. We're off into the everyone everything is chaos section.
[00:36:33] Unknown:
You mean we're not in we're you mean we're not in the best presidency ever? And you mean you mean president Trump president Trump's not fixing everything all at once? I mean, come on.
[00:36:44] Unknown:
But president Trump didn't mess up everything all at once either. True that. Yeah. I was being facetious, by the way. No. But, you know, part of my, part of my stuff that I deal with at work, right, is that if if it took us ten years to make this mess, I can't sleep in two weeks.
[00:37:00] Unknown:
Right? So And that's a great point too because I'll I'll tell you honestly, I I was talking to somebody, I think it was on Saturday's show, when I was talking with, our our resident crypto psychic. You know, the point was is that, you know, it took it took four years of the Biden administration to wreck the economy. It's it's you're not you're not gonna be able to fix it overnight. It's gonna take a few years to it's like it's like you you get an ocean liner, you get one of those big cruise ships out there in the middle of the ocean, and it doesn't stop on a dime. You have to slow down before you can turn it around.
So, it it it will take time. The the question is how much time is it gonna take to fix it? And in in reality, you know, I I don't I don't I don't see it getting fixed. I because I don't I don't I don't see the spending stopping. I see more money going to Ukraine. You know, another another foreign intervention, something we should not be involved in in the first place, and I know the president campaigned on getting us out of that and stopping all that stuff, but yet still seems like the checks are going. There's a lot of things that are that that have not been addressed. I think I think, Pam Bondi is is a is a disaster as the attorney general.
You know? Well Yep.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
That I'd like to point out that have been a disaster. Administration one after another. Right? Yeah. That Trump doesn't solve. So, ruling by executive order. Okay? So Yes. Not pass anything meaningful except omnibus spending bills, and they do that poorly. Okay? They have not changed any law in a while in any significant way. That's true. It's been the Supreme Court flip flopping precedent or it's been, the presidents themselves directing differential enforcement of rules. A rule didn't change. We're just gonna interpret it differently. Right? Granted that's their purview as the executive. I understand that.
[00:38:57] Unknown:
But that's not how this government is supposed to work. No. It's not. Because all the executive orders, all of that stuff, all that does is bring more and more instability because all the executive orders that Donald Trump is doing right now is all gonna get overturned in the next administration. Just like he overturned all of Biden's, executive orders. Just like Biden overturned all of his and and Obama you know, it never ends. There's no stability.
[00:39:22] Unknown:
Okay. That's a symptom of the dysfunction of the whole system. Okay? So I don't get super caught up in, again, what jersey is the leader wearing today. Is he red or is he blue? That doesn't change the fundamental facts that America is still on an unsustainable trajectory.
[00:39:37] Unknown:
Agreed.
[00:39:38] Unknown:
So that's where I come in with with, honestly, with this book. I've mentioned I have kids that are in the military. I don't want a civil war because that's my children fighting. I'm too old for this. Right? I have also resigned myself to the fact that I will die in the first wave because I will be out there in the middle saying, woah, dude. Just chill out. We don't have to do this, and then somebody's gonna shoot me. That'll be the end. Right? I mean, I get that about
[00:40:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I get you. I I understand that. I I I would hope I would hope not to I would hope to survive at least the first wave. You know, that's that's at least my plan. But, and just and just for the record, so anybody listening, clipping all this stuff, we are not actively planning anything. This is just kind of hyperbole here. We're just talking in in abstracts.
[00:40:24] Unknown:
Hypotheticals. And here's something that is not hypothetical to me coming from those hypotheticals. Okay? So there must be people. There must be you. There must be me. There must be others that are willing to say something different besides the government is awesome and America's the best and, you know, whatever brainwashed propaganda, whatever. There have to be people that acknowledge that things are not that great and that there is real potential for disaster. You're from Eagle Pass, so y'all have Shelby Park in your town.
[00:40:56] Unknown:
Right. Five minutes away from where I live? Exactly. So let's refresh,
[00:41:00] Unknown:
that story in the minds of of the listeners. So down there in five yard five minutes from, from Joe's house, two two years ago now, there was the park where the feds were letting people through, willingly, from all over the place. No vetting, no anything. And the state of Texas did some research and figured out, well, that's a public park, but it's not a federal park, like, so they don't have automatic jurisdiction. So the state of Texas locked the park. They put up fences and closed the park down. They literally locked out the fence from the boat ramp they were using to put their boats on the river to watch people by and not stop them. And what you ended up with was Texans on one side of the fence, feds on the other side of the fence. Everybody's law enforcement carrying. Right? Mhmm. And they're, oh, it's our part. No. It's our part. Right? And I'm fully convinced and very happy that that nobody intended violence out of the situation. K? Well, thank god for that. Nobody wants to escalate.
But I felt like at the time, we were one bad guy in the bushes from every going sideways. Yeah. So we Absolutely. In the gangster movies where you get the two two gangs lined up against each other, and they're all they're all pull their guns out. You put it down. No. No. No. You put it down. You know? And and some little bug eyed kid in the back twitches, and then everybody dies instantly. Right? I mean, it's safe for a reason. I was afraid, and I am still afraid, that America is really, really close to that. As we continue to escalate and polarize and as people keep killing people from the other side, again, totally against. But we're we're we're just getting closer to that time when everything goes nuts. In spite of everybody saying calm down, no. You put yours down. No. I'll put mine down. There's gonna be some time at which metaphorically, not violently, things go totally sideways and we get out of control. Yeah. I agree. So that's going from what this book is. If we see the dysfunction in the government, we see from both sides. We see the meddling in cultural issues from both sides.
We see a trajectory that is not changing, from one guy or one new president. You can't the ship is too big. We're headed the wrong direction. If we see all of that, what are we gonna do about it right now to make sure that it doesn't go sideways from one bug I'd get in the back and one bad guy in the bushes? So that's where I come in with the national divorce idea. So
[00:43:30] Unknown:
let's talk about Now you describe you describe this in in a in a very clear way. You you you you put it in the context of a marriage relationship. Mhmm. And and you you you basically say that, you know you know, there there comes a point where all the flowers in the world, and I'm paraphrasing it, of course, you know, that all the flowers in the world aren't gonna aren't going to, ease the tensions and the problems between an in an abusive relationship. And we are in an abusive relationship with the federal system without a doubt. I mean, you have basically having and I don't care you can disagree with me on this or not, but, you know, taxation without any representation.
Okay? Every single paycheck, the federal government has their sticky fingers in my paycheck. Mhmm. And they're giving that money to places that I would never even consider giving my money to. Yeah. And, I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. I'm not the only who thinks that way. I think the whole federal taxation system is is is immoral, and it it needs to it needs to come to an end. And I was very happy when I heard president Trump talking about abolishing the IRS, you know you know, all of these, tariff what was the word? I did the word just flipped out of my head.
All of these dividend checks from from from the tariffs that we're we've been collecting, so on and so forth, which I still haven't seen a penny on. Have you? Have you gotten your cut yet? If we if we owe 37,000,000,000,
[00:45:14] Unknown:
there is no such thing as a refund. Trillion. Yes. Yeah. One. I mean, it's pandering. It's the same pandering as, BlackRock.
[00:45:20] Unknown:
Exactly. It's an it's an abusive system.
[00:45:24] Unknown:
Yeah. And and that abuse perpetuates or continues regardless of which side of the aisle you're on. Right? So the Californians, man, they're we're spending, federal money on stuff California doesn't want also. We're spending stuff, we're sending money overseas all over the place. Yeah. We're not taking care of our own people. And it doesn't matter, again, which side of the alley you're on. That's that's still true. Right? So we're we're to the point where, you know, if this were a marriage, we, we're already in separate bedrooms. We're already running separate bank accounts. We may still live in the same house because we don't have a better idea right now. Right? Most of our fact is negative.
You know? So in that kind of a scenario, there's not a ton of options. Now let me point out two other things that I like to mention in this case. So number one, there is not a national marriage. Right? My wife and I picked each other out of a crowd. We stood up before God and our friends and family and said, me and this one forever, till death do us part. There is no such thing, between any of us and the United States federal government. Okay. So so national divorce is a metaphor that does not imply, like you're somehow unfaithful to your wife if you leave. Right? That that there's no national marriage. But another key point about divorce, though, is that we get it.
We understand it's not it's not an ideal outcome. It's not, great. It's not what people wish they do. I mean, nobody gets most people, I don't think, get married and think, nah. I'm sure glad I got a good exit strategy on this one. Right? I mean, most people come in with good intentions. But we understand the reason I like this metaphor, we understand that it is a an unraveling of a of a formal relationship Mhmm. Based on nobody getting their mutual needs met anymore. Right? So in a divorce, you've got you've got assets to divide.
You've got who gets custody of the kids or the cat. You've got who takes the debts, who takes the the house. And all of that goes down, all over the world, all over our country, and it's against the law to kill the other guy in that situation. Right? Right. If I still cannot beat you up and take the house, I still cannot kill you so that I can have the kids. Right? There is there is no expectation. In fact, it's the opposite. There's an expectation that there is no violence in a divorce. Right? Because that violence then becomes a separate criminal issue. That's why I like national divorce as a metaphor. Right? Because we can get to this point where the differences are irreconcilable.
Yeah. There is no other path forward besides separation. But we don't have to have a civil war. What the heck? What do we have to have one for? And the interesting thing is that that's the first thing. Anytime you talk to somebody about
[00:48:23] Unknown:
Texas independence or any state's independence, that's the first thing they they they bring up is, well, and so you're talking about another civil war. You're you're you're, a seditionist. You're, you're trees you're committing treason, and all they throw all that stuff out at you. And that's not the case at all, you know. The Yeah. States voluntarily join the union. They can voluntarily leave the union.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
Well, now are you in from a position of of violence and coercion? Exactly. All that is we won the war last time. We killed you more than you killed us. Mhmm. Okay? Yeah. And you lost by our violence being stronger than your violence. And therefore, you must stay or else we will violence you again. Mhmm. That's not a you understand what I'm saying? When they say or all they're saying is, we will kill you before we let you do that again. That's all it is. Right? They they they wanna pretend like they're being all wise and say, well, there's a historical precedent. Yeah. But the precedent's bad.
Yes. It doesn't you know, we're not we're not saying that. We're not advocating for any kind of violence at all, the opposite, in fact. The fact that they immediately go to violence, tells us that the relationship is broken. Yes. Right? It tells us that this was bad to begin with. Because if their answer is I'll kill you if you try to leave again, well, what kind of relationship is that? Who wants to be in that relationship? Right? Exactly. That that response just reinforces my
[00:49:48] Unknown:
conviction that, yeah, we need to get away from these people. It's time to go. Now but but here's the thing, though. Like, do you think that, because obviously and and especially we see it now too with with, with with this with this whole horrible thing that happened with Charlie Kirk. There is a tension in the country. I mean, it is palpable. You feel it. You know? I I'm trying to think how I can phrase the question. With all the polarization, I guess, is is the word I'm looking for. With all the polarization that's taking place right now in the country as a whole, in in this in this American union that we're part of. Because I I like to refer to it like the European Union, the American Union.
It with with with the the state of politics, with the state of of of the the the the viciousness that goes on between the right and the left, what do you think how would Texas independence shield us from that type of polarization? Do do you think that that's possible?
[00:51:03] Unknown:
I do, or I would be advocating for something else. But here's my take on that. Both sides of the aisle are are facing these same issues depending on who's in charge, with cultural stuff. Let me chase a thread. Okay? So slavery, bad across the board. No denying that. None whatsoever. Very serious social issue, at the time. And in the ten year decade of of bleeding Kansas, the time when they were fighting over whether Kansas would be a slave state or a a free state, during that time of unchecked violence, there were about 250 people murdered, just terrible stories of people literally killing their neighbors over this slavery issue.
And then the government got involved and said, let's pick a side. Let's fix this for the universe. And 650,000 more people were killed in that war. So pure unchecked chaos, 250. Terrible. All of it bad. Yeah. Government fix it. Half a million. Right? So over a social issue. Next, you get prohibition. Right? So alcohol, it's bad. Let's ban it. Oh, wait. No. Let's unban it because that was a dumb idea. And then you get, segregation. You got some states, you know, are seriously, let's ban interracial marriage or let's, you know, let's ban black people from from the water fountain. Mhmm. I mean, all the way down to to silly levels.
But the federal government said, no. I want a piece of that action, and they got in and and made some determinations. And that didn't go too well. That's how we got the whole, chaos of the sixties. Right? And then we got feminism, and now we've got the transgender stuff. And my point is not that there's a right or wrong to any one of those issues. My point is there will always be social tension because the government will always stick its neck into social issues that are nobody's business. That doesn't change. Mhmm. Right? So that's that's a piece of it. When we are able to separate into more homogeneous groups, the external authority cannot come and violate my sincerely held beliefs quite as easily.
Right? They can't say this thing that I believe is fundamentally right. Now we're gonna call it wrong.
[00:53:32] Unknown:
Right. I gotcha.
[00:53:34] Unknown:
In slavery and prohibition and feminism and segregation. Pick pick an issue. Doesn't matter what side you're on. The government steps in and picks a side. If we were homogeneous, that wouldn't happen as much. And I think that the political tension that we have, the polarization that we have right now comes from that history. Right? California is mad because Texas wants to ban abortions. Right? Texas is mad because California wants to let, trans people be in, you know, in public or or whatever. Guess what? They can have it their way over there if we can have it our way over here. The whole reason there's tension is because we are stuck in this one federal house that wants to intervene and wants to make us do it the other way. Right. The whole deck the course of structure. Well, that that that also feeds into, you know, the that old thing. The
[00:54:25] Unknown:
what's good for California is not good for Texas. What's good for Texas is not good for New York because everybody's people are different. You know, different Power
[00:54:35] Unknown:
The problem is when you take all of those differences and insist on one power structure. One cookie cutter answer to everything. Yeah. Find me another nation. Find me another nation that covers an entire continent from coast to coast. Mhmm. It doesn't exist Right. To my knowledge. Right? You know, Australia, sure. But they're an island. It's just a big one. But we are so large. Nowhere else in the world is there this insistence on diversity by coercion, right, or or uniformity by coercion of diversity. We have a government that clamps down on all the differences and makes us wanna be all the same, and they suck at it, which is why we have all this polarization and flip flop and back and forth. Right. Right? And I think that's how we got to this point.
You know, there there are, what, about a 180 nations worldwide, and there were about 90, I believe, prior to World War two. So where did all those extra countries come from?
[00:55:44] Unknown:
Oh, they were they were they were manufactured by the, the the the the victors of the conflicts. Yeah. Yeah. Or something. Right? No. No. In some way like that. Yeah.
[00:55:55] Unknown:
They did no new land. They created no new people. Mhmm. But over the last century, we now have or there's three quarters of a century. We now have more countries than we used to. We have more people that have said, nope. Me and my guys, we're gonna be independent now. And the world has tolerated that. What's that joke about every five minutes, some country celebrates, its independence from Great Britain? Right? Right. I mean, I mean, everything used to be a British colony. Everybody's got an independence day from those guys. Right? And the world has not or implode either one. You know, that idea that, there there's some kind of a critical mass maybe. Right? Does anybody say, Luxembourg?
I know you're independent, but you're really too tiny, so we're gonna take you know, you you have no right to exist anymore. Mhmm. No right to exist. Sorry. Right? We allow those small places their sovereignty. They might have 200,000 people, and we say, okay. You can be an independent country. But, boy, only in America do you take 27,000,000 people and say, what if I was independent and people lose their ever loving mind? Right? Where that that insistence on forced unity is is a, I think, a uniquely American construct Yes. That we force on the rest of the world.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
Yeah. I I agree with you on that. You know, when they they talk about the perpetual union. You know, that's it's it's not the context is not what and and and I think we we talked about this once before, and I think you had a really good take on it. You know, if that's not exactly what a perpetual union doesn't mean necessarily forever. You know? And,
[00:57:37] Unknown:
okay. Perpetual. We know there's there's no there's no perpetual motion machine that doesn't violate the laws of physics. Correct. Even though I believe most of us that are married got up there and in good faith said, yep. Me and this one till the end. We also understand that, you know
[00:57:55] Unknown:
Things happen. Yes.
[00:57:57] Unknown:
Thing. Right? Perpetual is a nice idea, but it doesn't work in reality. Exactly. That And and
[00:58:05] Unknown:
use and using your analogy of of a of a marriage relationship, a divorce, you know, yeah, we all get up there, we all say this, we all say the line, you know, until death do us part, you know, for better or for worse, till death do us part. Well, you know what? I don't necessarily wanna die, but, you know, it it it we have to part. This isn't working. It's an abusive relationship, and it's time to go. And, I I I was gonna make another point, but it's it sounded better in my head before it came out of the mouth. So I got one I like that goes with this content. So Good. So,
[00:58:39] Unknown:
you know, again, coming from a Christian background, divorce is bad Right. In my mind. When I hear the word, I don't think this is good. We should advocate for this. Fifty one percent of marriages end in divorce now. Do you know that? I wouldn't doubt it. But but from a Christian perspective, most of us are trained to believe that's not okay. That's bad. That's a a sign of dysfunction. Of course. But when when we talk about a national divorce, you know, when we're when we're talking about a marriage, we think, well, you should go to counseling. You should get some help. Right? That would be better than breaking up. Right? So what does what does that look like? It looks like a neutral third party with some skills to help the two parties navigate their differences.
Right? And a good counselor, even a Christian one, their job is not to get the marriage back together. Their job is not to break the marriage up. Their job is to help these two people navigate towards what they think is the best outcome. That's correct. Ethical obligation of the counselor in the middle Mhmm. Is to help these two parties get to where they think they wanna go with peace and smoothness and Right. Resolve Right? Find me. Tell me. Where where would the, national marriage counselor come from? What would that what would that even look like in this situation? We've got this abusive relationship between the states and the feds or between states and each other, however you frame it. Who sits in the middle and mediates that?
Right. That's a good point. There's no such person. There's no such chance, for several reasons. Number one, you know, there might be a 150,000,000 people on each side. This is not two parties.
[01:00:20] Unknown:
Right.
[01:00:22] Unknown:
Jason and Joe or me and my wife. This is not two individuals. This is two huge groups. And so while you can kinda negotiate or mediate in between individuals, there's no such way to do it on on that large of a scale. Number two, who would do that? Right? Who has, you know, when I go to a counselor, I'm I'm looking for a good one. Right? One that's got a a degree in experience, maybe even a license. Right? Not just like some random homeless guy or whatever. Of course. But who would be who would stand in the gap and negotiate the national dysfunction?
What does that person look like? What would their qualifications be? I mean, could it be I mean, you you have to at least theoretically acknowledge that there could be an individual that could come in with that spirit of reconciliation and and figure it out. Problem is it hasn't happened yet in our whole entire history. Mhmm. But, yeah, I guess, theoretically, you could say it could. Would it be another country? Like, you know, we, we are famously nonintervening by funding one side of Ukraine. Right? Yeah. We're we're funding one side. We're inviting both sides over the house and trying to make a deal like we're we're some kind of mediator, but, really, we're funding one side. So so there is some precedent, I guess, for this pretense of of neutrality, in a conflict. So could England send some representatives over and say, you guys are jacked. We all are messed up. We're gonna intervene and keep you from whatever.
I mean, theoretically, you must admit that that's that's possible. There could be an intervention. But it's it's only theoretically possible. It's inconceivable. Like, I can't imagine of what that guy who that person would be or what that country would look like or how they would justify that intervention. Mhmm. I
[01:02:12] Unknown:
just I don't see it. I don't either. I I don't think it would I don't think there is anything possible that could do that. Yeah. I don't I don't think so. United Nations, maybe?
[01:02:23] Unknown:
No. We we pay we we are them. I mean, we pay for all of that. I know. I know. You know, you like the kid asking the dad to to mediate it. You know? It's, no. It's we're we own those guys. They wouldn't be able to they can't even do their own fundamental job, much less step in Right. On this when we're funding them.
[01:02:44] Unknown:
I just I don't know. I I don't brother, you know, I'm I look at I look at what's going on in our country, in in The United States, in this American union of which we are part of. And, you know, I I like like, you put in your book, you know, the the the idea of America, of that that founding principle, that that spirit of being in a of of of America is not how do you put it? I gotta find it. Unless unless you know what I'm talking about, where I'm getting to.
[01:03:18] Unknown:
An independent will be more American than America. Right? Yeah. That the principles of freedom and limited government and, god given rights that the government doesn't mess with, you know, all of that stuff has been defended across the world by our people. Right? We've stepped our stuck our nose against against Germany and other other places, to defend those ideas. Okay? And those ideas are not represented by the federal government in Washington, DC. K? So I I am loyal to freedom. I am loyal to the constitution. I'm not loyal to the guys in the offices up yonder, k, is is one way that I think about it.
[01:04:04] Unknown:
Okay. So I I found what I was looking for. It's it's it's the first chapter of your book. It's called America is Not The United States. There you go. So, explain that to us because I'm gonna mangle it because, I'm I'm all tongue tied tonight for some reason.
[01:04:18] Unknown:
What I was saying, like, when when people say what do you like about America, they'll talk about freedom or they'll talk about rights or they'll tell stories about old dead guys like, well, George Washington. And we told we told the British to stick it with that because we didn't have any representation. Right? Right. We don't, you know, it's whole nostalgia. It's all principles. It's not. Man, I really like this governor of my state. I really like this president. Right? We're we're loyal to the ideas, not to the federal government of the United States of America.
That's what I mean. I mean, the ideas that we're we sing a song about, you know, for hand over our heart if we're good Americans. Right? Mhmm. That's not about pledge allegiance to the government. These knuckleheads that spend money like it's going out of style because they're printing it on the side, by the way. It doesn't actually exist. Right. You know, we're we're we're not pledging allegiance to that. We're pledging allegiance to the idea. Exactly. I argue also that pledging allegiance is a bad idea. But Agreed. But for for this for the purpose of this, you know, we are not loyal to I'm not loyal to, the government structure represented by The United States Of America as much as I am loyal to the concepts of of America,
[01:05:40] Unknown:
that have been fought and died for. Now exactly. And and that's exactly what I was trying to get to with this is is that America is is it's it's an idea. It's America is a, is, you know, liberty. It's freedom. It's independence. America was founded by the independent spirit. This country, you know, we enshrined in our constitution, and and again and and just to back up for a second on this one because Tim Kaine I don't know if you've if you heard Tim Kaine's comment, senator Kaine from, in Virginia. Yeah. He he made a comment that he found it disturbing that that we believe that our rights derive not from government, but from a creator. He finds that to be very disturbing, and he said that during a a hearing with, I think, I think it was, was it Cash Patel or was it, Bobby Kennedy Junior?
But he said that, and I heard it, and I was like, what? What do you mean? You're a sitting senator, you're a lawyer, and you don't know that? Well, but that's the thing. See, the and people on the right think this way too. They think that government is the one that provides your rights, that that and this so they can just easily, but that's not the case. Our rights are inherent. Our rights come from God. They come from our creator. Every human being was born with those inalienable rights. Our founding generation were brilliant and wise, and put those things and codified those things, not as the government is giving them to you, but charging the government to protect those rights. Correct. These are these are sacred things that belong to you, and the government shall not infringe them. Exactly. And though and that's what America is. That's what the
[01:07:28] Unknown:
not guarantees of anything except for a lack of government intervention on our rights. Exactly.
[01:07:32] Unknown:
But fast forward here two hundred fifty years later, people are under the impression that that everything that we have is because government gives it to us and allows us, so therefore, they can take those from us, those rights from us when they can't. And that's the that's that's the point I was trying to make, is that America is not the federal government. America is not this union of states. America is an idea. America is independence, liberty, it's freedom. It's it's, you know, not to make a mock of it, but, you know, apple pie, hot dogs, you know, and and, and baseball. But Right. America, because it's not a government, this union of states came together voluntarily.
It was 13 it was 13 colonies that became states. Now let's you're frozen, so I can't tell when you're starting to talk, so I'm sorry if I'm stepping on you.
[01:08:36] Unknown:
Entities that decided to join together for their own mutual good. Exactly. It was for common defense and and trade. That that's that's all it was. Now Just a all if all The United States did in its territory was mutual defense and free trade, My goodness. How much better would it be Absolutely.
[01:08:55] Unknown:
Instead, you have a federal government that regulates how much water's in your toilet bowl.
[01:08:59] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Or how fast your car can go or how much gas mileage it's gonna get or what chemicals, it can or can't emit on a given day. Right.
[01:09:10] Unknown:
Now, unfortunately, we're in this federal system, so I believe in federalism. I believe that, you know, it is the states should have the final say in what goes on in that state. The federal government should be so small, so insignificant, it doesn't affect your life or mine on a daily basis. That's what I want in my government, and that's what our founding generation set this up as. Right. That the that the general government, that as what they called it, the general government would be so small and so insignificant, you wouldn't even know it existed.
[01:09:42] Unknown:
And again, that works for both sides. Exactly. Formula are much happier if all us Texans, weren't messing up their gas mileage rules. Fine. Exactly. You
[01:09:54] Unknown:
can make electric cars. Cool. Do what you wanna do. Your state, do what you gotta do. Don't bring it don't force it on me. I don't I don't agree with that. Right. You know? Let us
[01:10:05] Unknown:
let us be us. And another thing I sometimes bring up, there's this really weird story where Jesus says, unless you hate your mother, you can't be my disciple, paraphrasing. Mhmm. And it's pretty dang on direct. Right? Yeah. Unless you you hate your mother, you can't be my disciple. Does Jesus mean that I should hate my mom? Of course not. I think hyperbole to say that your faith in God, your should be so important to you that compared to how much you love even your mother, your mother's way down here. Right? I think that's understood widely as as a hyperbole. You don't really hate your mom, but that's what he said. Right. Right?
When I talk about Texas independence, people say, well, you hate America.
[01:10:53] Unknown:
No. I don't. You get that a lot. Yeah.
[01:10:55] Unknown:
I value independence way up here, and the idea of America as a is way down here. Right? I value freedom and independence and liberty and personal responsibility and have it my way, and you should also have it your way. I value all of that way up here. And the idea of The United States Of America is way down at the bottom. So I guess if we wanna use Jesus's analogy, yes. Sure. I hate America, but I don't hate America. Don't take that clip out of context later. Yes. By contrast, I value freedom and Of course. Much more. I'm not loyal to United States so much to aim for the principles that made America great in the first place.
[01:11:34] Unknown:
That's it. That's exactly that's the clippable moment right there. I just wish you I just wish you weren't frozen like this.
[01:11:43] Unknown:
Sounds about right. Sounds
[01:11:46] Unknown:
No. But but that's a valid point. And and again, just just to just to wrap up what I was thinking before is that, you know, this country was founded by 13 individual colonies that became states. State is another way of saying country. So 13 individual countries compacted together in for mutual defense and common trade. That's the foundation of the country, of The United States, of this American Union. States voluntarily joined the union. The states these these independent sovereign countries created the federal government, not the other way around. Right. Absolutely. The federal government needs to be subservient to the states, not the other way around.
[01:12:28] Unknown:
Well and so think about it after after things fall apart. Right? So let's just say we'll just pick the arbitrary number of 50. Let's just say we end up with 50 independent countries. Each state independently says I'm out on my own country. Mhmm. I don't that happening, but but, again, theoretically. Could those states then make deals with their neighbors? Of course, they can. Mhmm. Nobody's Switzerland can't. Right? Nobody says New Zealand can't. Right? So might decide. Hey. Me and Massachusetts, we're gonna do free trade, and, if you pick on him, you pick on me. Right?
You know, people always wanna say, well, you're gonna let China and Russia take over the world if you break up The United States. Not necessarily. No. Free trade and mutual defense does all the jobs that keep China and Russia at bay. You know, only by adding all the federal dysfunction that we have do we get to this point. Yeah. So, you know, again, I think it could look very similar to what it looks right now on the good side of things. Mhmm. We already appreciate free trade mutual defense. I think it's funny that they just renamed the Department of War. You know, we hadn't defended jack crap over here in forever. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're we're we're in a perpetual state of war since World War two ended. Somewhere else. We're not the Department of Defense.
No. But, you know, an independent Texas wouldn't necessarily feel obligated to blow up countries on the other side of the world. It's only the federal United States government that does that. That. That's
[01:14:05] Unknown:
right. And and just and just for the argue and just and just for the sake of argument, you know, Texas and you know this. I'm I'm telling folks that are listening that might not know this. Texas is not the only state in this union of states that have, independence movements. Oh, definitely not. You know, we already talked about California, but there are several other states.
[01:14:28] Unknown:
At least that I'm aware of. New Hampshire, that's a good one. They got their bills through the legislature a couple of times. Mhmm. Progress. Alaska has had it before. Yeah. There I think there were six or eight, active ones by the time I counted. And that's just within The United States. That's not counting like, Scotland wanting to be independent from Great Britain or Northern Ireland or, you know, worldwide, there are independence movements everywhere everywhere.
[01:14:55] Unknown:
Because it's a natural thing. It's it's not something that says fringe. It's not something that's abnormal. It's a natural occurrence throughout the life the lifespan of a of a of a country and a people. You know? If it wasn't if it wasn't for separation or or, or or I'm gonna use a bad word. Okay? Secession. If it wasn't for secession, The United States wouldn't exist. Right. The 13 states seceded from Great Britain.
[01:15:26] Unknown:
Right. They did. And I I think about I use the analogy in the book about about sending our kids off to college. Okay? So we understand that we raise our children with the expectation that they are gonna go away, please. Right? They go do something else somewhere else. Right? We don't say my kids seceded from my household. No. We say he grew up, and he went to college. Right? Right. You know, only in political terms do we feel obligated somehow rhetorically to hold on. Right? The idea that we would grow something up and then let it go on its own and be better than it was living in our house. Right? Be free or independent. We accept that in society. We accept that with our children, but in the government, man, melts people's brains.
You can't talk about that without people getting cross eyed. Right. Exactly. Another fun analogy of that. Right? We send our kids to college, and they do dumb stuff. Right? And college kids are famous for being for just getting by, you know, the group of guys that they they have furniture that they found in the alleys all over town. Right. You know? They're drinking out of Yahtzee cups, you know, because, they're eating raw noodles, you know, every day, all the time, but can't afford real food. Right? But nobody says those knuckleheads doing all those things, nobody says they have no right to be independent. They need they they we have to hold them back to their mom and dad's house by force. Right? That's true. No. No. Nobody says that. It's irrational. It's so it's funny that it's people would even think to do that that way. But when it comes to the idea of maybe we have a country, a state that has matured enough to the point where we wanna step out on our own and be independent, they say, well, you're not an adult. You can't do all the adult stuff yet. You know, you're not a millionaire. How are you gonna retire or whatever? Exactly. Well, I'll never be a millionaire with the federal government over my shoulder. We're gonna do some dumb stuff. We're gonna make some mistakes. We're gonna have have some hiccups. We're gonna suffer through some of the consequences of our choices. Of course.
And that's a part of becoming independent. That is not, you know, that that's a reasonable expectation. Agreed. The sessionist will say, well well, you can't you what are you gonna what's text what's an independent Texas gonna do about China? Nothing. Right? Or what's an independent Texas gonna do about Social Security? Well, we're not gonna have it because we we seceded from that. Right? You know, all all these issues, sure. It it'll be hiccups. It'll be, you know, sleeping on huge couches from an alley. It it'll be what it is. Right. But that develops character and makes you better down the line. We allow that of our children, but nobody wants to seem to allow that of our states.
[01:18:13] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I noticed a lot of the objections also come from a a a post texted viewpoint. Well, what about social security? What about getting, what about military protections? What about this? And what about that? You know, yeah. Okay. That that's all stuff that'll get worked out through the whole process of this separation that's gonna take place. Just like in a marriage relationship, you work out the details, through arbitration. You you get the things worked out, and okay, so you're gonna be responsible for this after after we're done, and we're gonna be responsible for this, and it's gonna take this long to get to get to this point. And that's I I think that's what's gonna end up how it would end up happening. So so things like those post texted concerns and comments, you know, well, Social Security, what's gonna happen to my social I've been paying into it for so long. Well, you're not getting it anyway. I mean, what's the difference?
[01:19:06] Unknown:
Yeah. That's that's point number one is right. Everybody under about 50 has been told their whole life that it's insolvent and it's gonna die. Mhmm. And yet, we still insist, what about my Social Security? But it it's a it's a house of cards. Right. It's a Ponzi scheme, maybe even. You know, it is attainable. So why do you think, 20 year old man, that you're even gonna get it? Why do you even think it's relevant? Right? We already are spending 37,000,000,000,000 more dollars than we have,
[01:19:36] Unknown:
but sure. Yeah. Okay. Sure. In in forty years, they're gonna pay you just like they said. We're paying for the pensions for people in in in Ukraine right now. Yeah. I know. They're not. We can't even we can't even get our Social Security that we paid into for our entire life.
[01:19:51] Unknown:
But number two, there already are some precedence. So if I if I pay into Social Security and then I decide I really like the weather in in Canada or Venezuela or Mexico or wherever, if I move somewhere else to another country after I've paid into Social Security, do you know what happens to your Social Security, Joe? You continue to get it. You get it. You know why? Because you paid in. Right? They have a an obligation to keep the terms of the agreement that we're under. That's right. That changes if Texas becomes independent. It's the same as if I moved to Costa Rica. I think it's reasonable to say that in the negotiation of who gets what. Right? That there there will be some provision for that. Right. Well, these citizens have paid into your system. How are we gonna reconcile that? You know, the most obvious answer is they get a proportional payout based on how long they've paid in. And we turn it off on Tuesday, and then it stops after that. Right? But, I mean, there are ways. There are ways. It doesn't require war. It doesn't require fancy accounting. It just requires
[01:20:52] Unknown:
no None of it does. None of it does. The the look. The the look. The organizations like the Texas Nationalist Movement that are pushing for a national divorce, okay, to to use the name of the book, you know, they are all about going through the legislative process to separate from the American Union, and that's the way it it that's the only way it's gonna work, is to go through the legislative process. Now we've come close to getting it on the ballot for the folks in the in the state to vote on, but, of course, you know, this the the Texas GOP, even though it's in their party platform, Texas independence, seems to pull all the stops out to, to make sure it doesn't get on the ballot. They'll come up with they can't they last time, they came up with some crazy thing about signatures and and,
[01:21:39] Unknown:
They'll not do their job. Absolutely.
[01:21:41] Unknown:
Yeah. But It it makes you wonder why why are they so insistent on not adhering to their own party platform?
[01:21:51] Unknown:
Because they they have this idea that all the money comes from mom and dad up in DC. And if I'm a good boy, then I can get a promotion.
[01:21:59] Unknown:
That's that's what I think. Why? And and you're not you're not I don't think you're off. I don't think you're far off. I think and I think there's other things involved also, but, I think I think they get some kickbacks and and whatnot. But I I can't prove that. I but I think so. Correct.
[01:22:13] Unknown:
But here here's something I I like to talk about. So where where does The United States federal budget come from? Simply enough, it's taxes. Right? They don't generate anything. They just take from from other people. So so taxes. Where do taxes come from? Joe's pocket.
[01:22:36] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:22:38] Unknown:
Right? Every tax comes from some person. Even if it's a business tax, it comes from some person
[01:22:45] Unknown:
eventually. That's right.
[01:22:47] Unknown:
So when you when you talk about getting federal funds, where do those come from? From the people of the state.
[01:22:55] Unknown:
Right? That's right.
[01:22:57] Unknown:
My theory here, if Texas were to take the same amount of taxes and give them back to Texans,
[01:23:06] Unknown:
would we not break even on federal funds? Of course. Because there's no federal funds. It's all money taken from us. That's right. Right? Every every state has the opportunity to keep their own money at home. That's right. Every state contributes to the federal government. Alright? And and and supposedly it goes to it goes into a pot and all gets spread out and so on and so forth. And so they're giving you back your own money, but you never get back what you put into it. Right. So so that I I think what's it's I I forget how I forget the number, but I think it's like something like like like $15,000,000,000 or something like that that never comes back to Texas.
[01:23:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Now They they have to absorb some of it administratively. Right? Mhmm. There's no they're actually giving back to the states what the states paid in. Right. They're assuming some of those resource. But the other thing to think about, you know, there there's this idea that there are some states that pay in disproportionately more. There are other states that are, like, leeches on the system or something, and they they take all the benefits and the other states have to pay for it. Right? Both of those concepts. Okay. Sure. We let's just let's just say they're true. Okay.
Number one, the the the data is impossible to find. The machine has a very vested interest in you not finding out if you pay too much tax or not. That's right. But let's just say, what what does that look like? So California, sort of famous for being a donor state. They pay more taxes than they receive back in benefits, supposedly. So if they leave the federal government, what happens? They get to keep more money. They pay equal taxes to what they receive in benefits instead of paying more taxes for what they receive in benefits. So if you pay too much in taxes to the federal government compared to what you get, then leaving is the obvious answer.
Right? If you break even, if you if you pay in at about the same rate that you take out, it was your money anyway. Right? So you don't lose anything by leaving because you keep the money that you're sending in because you break even, and that's what break even means. Right? Exactly. And it's only the to consume more than they pay that would even have any hint of a problem. Okay? But here's how you address that. Mississippi, again, famous for, you know, consumption of resources relative to what it pays in. Definitely the outlier on that.
But what are they really paying for? They're paying for blowing up Ukraine. Right? They're paying for transgender studies in California. They're paying for oil subsidies. They're paying for farm subsidies. Paying for, what's the transgender studies in Pakistan. I mean, you know, half of the reason to leave is because we're paying for dumb stuff that we don't believe in. So all of the people have to do that would receive less federal money back is quit doing some of the dumb stuff that the feds are doing with our money. Right? Right. You know, The United States spends, roughly 4% of gross domestic product on defense, which is roughly twice the rate of everybody else in the world.
Okay? So if if, if any state became its own country and spent the the international average on defense, it would be a 50% cut of what they're spending right now. Mhmm. Right? So, again, even the the states who who on paper might be worse off, they're only worse off because the feds are doing too much anyway. So by succeeding from that and getting to start over, again, they're fine. Nobody says Switzerland can't exist or New Zealand can't exist because they don't have all these services. Right. They with what they have just like everybody, every other household.
[01:27:06] Unknown:
So I found a number here. So, $207,000,000,000 in general revenue in 2022 from Texas to the federal government. K. And Texas received back 78,000,000,000. Right. Now don't you think that that 207,000,000,000, if it stayed here in Texas, would be able to fund all of the things that
[01:27:34] Unknown:
the federal government supposedly does for the people of the state of Texas? You would think. The the challenge there, again, is that the numbers even though I agree with your point, I don't agree with it on the numbers. Let me follow this. So, if the state of Texas collects money and sends it up yonder Mhmm. And then the feds send it back to the state of Texas. Right? Those numbers are about what you're saying, I believe. Yeah. But does does everything that the state of Texas remit belong back to the state, or do some of those benefits go to the individuals? Right? Do I get to drive on an interstate highway? Do I, get a pretense of Social Security eventually? Right? Those benefits are paid out to individuals, not the state specifically, or or through other other entities. So I'm okay, honestly, even though I agree totally in principle with the numbers not matching between what we send and what we receive. Well, no. My point is more of not not not so much the the matching.
[01:28:38] Unknown:
My my point is is that the money that that is collected here in the state of Texas and sent to the federal monstrosity Would we not? Would be better served here in Texas and used by the Texas government and the and the people of the state of Texas to to and and the the the municipalities to to to serve the people of the state and the municipalities.
[01:29:01] Unknown:
Again, you recognize I'm I'm doing the devil's advocate argument that the left uses too. Oh, I understand. Yes. I see. Yep. Other benefits. Right. But your point is the key. Right? If you just kept your own money, you could just have it. Right? You don't have to send it up there and then send it back. Yeah. You could just right?
[01:29:20] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm with you there. So it it's it's just a dis it's a dysfunctional system. It it's an abusive system, and it goes all back to what you said in your book. You know, it's an abusive relationship, and after a while, the abusive relationship has to come to an end. It
[01:29:36] Unknown:
it does, or or the outcomes just get worse.
[01:29:39] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, Now right now, we may have a little bit of a of a reprieve. We do. If I could I could say that, but what's gonna happen in in three and a half years when when, Donald Trump is out of office, and and, and and the Democrats steal, that election cycle, and and then what? And then we're right back to Biden two point o, and it's, of course, it's gonna be even worse. Right. Because the left is so completely radical and so so completely far left. The the it the it's it's insanity.
[01:30:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Like you said earlier, some flowers or a a nice vacation don't change the trajectory of the thing. Right. Right now, sure, we're in a decent spot. I mean, better than we've been Yeah. In wow. I believe. But that, again, hasn't changed the fundamentals that the whole relationship is is dysfunctional and coercive. Yeah. Right. We were not. Texas isn't fighting as hard against the feds because we're in a better place. California in the opposite scenario, though, because the relationship itself between the states and the feds is is not right.
It's not right. So what frustrates me a little is that the folks on on the the political right become complacent in times like this. Yeah. Exactly. They get that their guy won. Oh, good. My guy is in. We're gonna do all the things. He didn't do all the things last time either. Right? No one guy can do all the things, but they they get complacent and lose lose sight of the fact that it's it's actually the whole system that's the problem. It's the the behemoth, the machine that's bigger than one man or one woman who's driving the school bus off a cliff. Right? Yeah. He cares what color the jersey is on the school bus driver if he's driving the school bus off a cliff either way.
[01:31:30] Unknown:
Exactly. And and look, you know, I I I appreciate what this current administration is doing. If I was if I was to give them a grade, like a school grade, I would give them an a minus. There there have been there have been missteps. There have been mistakes, and there's some problems, and I'm I'm still not in agreement with some of the decisions that they're making. Am I happy with the border situation? Yeah. Absolutely. Are you kidding me? I'm in a border town for crying out loud. I'm very happy, you know, with with the change in the in the border policies and and and the work that they're doing. Do do I love to see the amount of deportations that are taking place under under Tom Homan and ICE? And, yeah, you know what?
I don't think they're gonna be able to get out as many as they claim they would because it it's it took a while it took four years to get him here. It's gonna take a long time to get him out. You gotta find him now. You know? One of the numbers that I saw recently was I they were talking I I saw a a clip that Tom Homan did with, Bill Maher, and he said something about, like, 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 came in over the four years or or so. But there there there were another number I saw was there were 52,000,000 illegal aliens in this country right now.
52,000,000. How are you I'm sorry. You're not gonna there's you're not gonna get them all out of here in four years.
[01:32:52] Unknown:
And and maybe you don't maybe you need to, maybe you don't. Right? Mhmm. You know, part of the problem again, I'm I'm nontraditional here. Surprise. I believe in a lot of things that people don't take for granted. Sure. But, you know, my ancestors moved here from somewhere. Mhmm. Your moved here from somewhere. Sure did. They didn't, and now we're part of this thing. Right? And I can say six generations ago, this became my thing, and now it's my thing because I've been here forever. Right? The people that are like that, the people that say, you know, there are better opportunities over there, and I can make a better place for myself and my people over there.
I can follow the rules over there and win instead of following the rules and having arbitrary governmental mess, like maybe, El Salvador or Venezuela or some, you know, Guatemala, some place that they're coming from. Right. We're corrupt as our government is, it does still manage to function because the rules don't suck too bad. There are other places that the rules and the constitution, the freedoms are worse, and the government sucks. Right? So, I mean, I get the idea that I want I wanna move over there and make something better for myself. Those folks, okay.
It's the ones that are you know, well, they have more free stuff over there. Right? Their taxes will pay for me to get a phone when I get there. You know? The or the ones who are like, I have no actual skills, and so maybe I'll go up there. Right? That's not to me, that's different. My challenge with, with the Biden administration on immigration was not that it existed. It said it was unregulated. Right? They were letting in everyone willy nilly. No screening, no vetting, no nothing. Right? You know, I think human beings have the right to try to make themselves better or try to get themselves into a better position.
Again, a little libertarian. Right? But but migration of peoples is, is a natural right. Borders are made up by governments. Right? But all that to say, you know, the way I say it sometimes is, you know, if someone knocks on my door and says, can I come in your house? K. I have the choice to be hospitable or not. I can judge them based on whatever appearance or credentials or whatever kind of interview, and I can say, yeah. Yeah. You can come in my house. Right? Everybody understands that. You're not obligated to let someone in your house. I I do immigration that same way. You know? If someone comes through the proper channels, someone knocks on the door, then I have the opportunity to say, yes. I would like to help you. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's It's not like enter my house ever. It's you gotta come through the door. Because what happens, Joe, if you go through the window?
[01:35:42] Unknown:
Oh, you you come through a window in my house, you're gonna get shot.
[01:35:45] Unknown:
Bingo. Right? We we understand that, you know, coming into my house, I did unannounced through improper channels, you know, that puts me at risk of my life, and I have the authorization by law to use deadly force there. Correct. Right. That's to me not the same as coming to the door and knocking and saying, hey, may I? Even if the answer is no, you may not. Right? Correct. That's the way I look at immigration. You come up my door, you knock on it, you ask to come in. If I say no and you leave, you're fine. Yeah. But you push your way into my door, then you're gonna get shot. Yeah. If you come through the window at night, it's really, really gonna be different. Yeah.
[01:36:22] Unknown:
Exactly. So I
[01:36:24] Unknown:
what what's interesting to me is that the law hasn't changed at all. Right? It goes back to my previous point about the law never actually changes because the government's bad at its day job. All they do is just flip how they enforce it. Yeah.
[01:36:38] Unknown:
So And that's the that that that goes back to what we said earlier about the instability in between administrations. You get, you you know, one administration says, okay, we're not gonna enforce these laws. Next administration comes in, and all by executive order, of course. You know, that's that's the point. You know, now I'm gonna sign all these executive orders saying we're gonna enforce the law. There shouldn't have to be executive orders to whether force enforce a law or not. The law is the law. This is a republic. It's a constitutional republic. It's founded in law. It's based in law.
The law is the law. You know? It should. If you don't like the law, then change the law.
[01:37:13] Unknown:
Right. The fact that we we have a presidential system where who's in charge makes a huge difference in terms of which way the policies go. That was never designed that way. You know, we are, as a federal system, we were not designed to have an authority up there that could just change the way the rules are interpreted. That wasn't that wasn't the game. The game was best representatives, and we negotiate and make deals. It's the best for all of us collectively.
[01:37:41] Unknown:
That's right. Right. And and then and the exec and the chief executive officer of the land executes the or the laws of the land.
[01:37:48] Unknown:
That has not happened in my lifetime. Never. No. No. You know, it's been broken a while.
[01:37:56] Unknown:
So, as as as people like us who, support Texas independence in the future, near future, I hope, my lifetime at least, what should we be doing to prioritize and prepare for that potential independent Texas?
[01:38:16] Unknown:
So number one would be, things go well when you are better prepared. Right? The ants and the grasshopper story or any of any of any of those things. If you are fiscally responsible in your own life Mhmm. If you raise your kids to think and act like you, right, if you get married to someone and you stay with them and have stability, Right? Everything that you could do that makes you a better person makes you a better citizen of a new country. And when it goes poorly, if it goes poorly, if things unravel some way, I have this feeling, that the people who already have will keep having. The people who already have not will continue to have not. Right? So number do the best you can by your family. Do the best you can for yourself.
You will not get to a point where you say, I wish I was less prepared than I am right now. Right? Right. But number two would be, you know, there's a saying that all politics is local. Right? How many how many mayors does it take to say, no. We're not doing that COVID restriction crap. Only takes one. Only takes one. Only takes one. Small town mayor can say, no. We ain't playing that stuff down here. Right? You know, how many police chiefs does it take to say, no. We're not confiscating the guns in this this county. That's right. Take Right? That's right. So so the, Lee County, New Mexico down in Hobbs and Lovington, their their sheriff's department actually declared one time that we are not enforcing unconstitutional gun laws here.
So that that idea of choosing capable representatives who support the things that you support at the most local level is important. Yeah. Because it it yeah. It'll be some governor. Sure. It'll be some, senators or whatever. But if it comes down to is there violence on my street, it's gonna be my local guy.
[01:40:18] Unknown:
That's right.
[01:40:20] Unknown:
Right? So, again, as we prepare for future, challenges, you know, picking the best local guys, I think, is a viable strategy. I I would also say, you know, at no time in America's history have the voters thought, well, I don't really like this guy. He's the second best candidate, but I'm gonna vote for him. Right? We have always had the pretense of putting our best candidates out there and voting for the one that we think will serve us the best. Right? This this one this one's gonna represent me the best, and that's why they get my vote. How's that working out? That has gotten us to exactly this point. That's right. Okay. Yeah. So the idea that somehow if we could just select the right president, if we could just select the right senators, if we could just select the right state reps, we would fix all this. Well, guess what? That's been the strategy from day one. That's the strategy that got us to this point. You know, there's a an axiom in in counseling that if you do what you've done, you get what you've got.
Right? Another way to frame it is if nothing changes, then nothing changes. Right? If we Yeah. If we want you know, just voting our best guy will not get us there because that's what got us to this point. We've gotta do some other stuff. And I get local focus as one. You know, getting a getting a coalition, is another you know, we've had, I think, twelve twelve Texas state reps that have signed the Texas First Pledge saying that they will support, an independence referendum when the time comes. Not that they support Texas independence, but they support the people having access to the question. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. That's a that's a that's a difference. You know? We don't we don't have to win. We don't have to win the hearts and minds of the legislature in favor of our position.
Right? I don't have to to have a legislature that's in favor of Texas independence. All I have to have is a legislature that's not scared to ask the people what they wanna do. Right now, we don't even have that. No. We don't. Right. But the idea that somehow we should we should take over the legislature with Texas independence people. Cool. I would love that. Hasn't happened yet, and we've been trying that strategy. Right?
[01:42:29] Unknown:
True that. Very true.
[01:42:31] Unknown:
You gotta do is get people who will say, you know, maybe maybe this representation thing that we're supposed to be for, maybe let's try that. Maybe let's put it to a vote, and then we'll just see how it goes, and we'll figure it out. Right? That that's, I think, a piece of the of the answer as well, to get people that are willing to follow democracy.
[01:42:51] Unknown:
Yeah. But the quest but then then the question becomes, so if the people do voice their opinion because, you know, I I I forget how long ago it was, but it was there was a a a poll that I saw, where people where people were were asked, about Texas independence, and and 60% of the people that were polled were in favor of Texas independence. The question is, say that number's accurate, say that that's even projected forward here, and and you say say it's even, a little bit less than 60%. It gets to the Texas legislature. It gets put on a ballot. People vote for it.
I want this. Mhmm. Do you think the Texas legislature is gonna actually go through with it and implement it?
[01:43:39] Unknown:
I think the Texas legislature has proven that they are scared to ask the people questions. Mhmm. When was the last time okay. There there are 17, I believe is the number, ballot propositions coming on the next election, constitutional amendment. They're all made up bullcrap like. I I agree that the constitution should be amended so that we can spend some money on water. Like, there there has never been a question of any significance posed to the people for a vote again in my lifetime. That's where the breakdown is. The the breakdown is that they don't ask questions that mean anything. They don't believe in democracy to the point where they'll take an unacceptable answer. They're only gonna ask us to vote on things that they can't that they already have decided are inconsequential.
[01:44:24] Unknown:
Yeah. That's my take on that. No. That's a good that's a great point too. I mean, because I I do agree with you on that. I think, in my experience here, and and even up in New York, you know, where I'm from, you know, they're they're not gonna ask the tough questions. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Because they because they don't wanna upset the Apple card. You know? They they they got a good Yeah. They got a good thing going there. You know? They they get some nice little perks. They get some recognition. They get some extra money. They get, you know, all that's great. All these little great perks of being up up at the State House. And, you know, why would why we wanna change that then? But, you know, if we if we have to you know, if if we actually do become independent means, oh my god, we're gonna actually have to work.
[01:45:08] Unknown:
Right? You know? We can't wait on daddy war books to solve all our problems that they made in the first place. Exactly. Exactly.
[01:45:15] Unknown:
So if a referent if a referendum protects it were held tomorrow and passed, What do you what what do you think the sequence of events is that that would follow?
[01:45:26] Unknown:
Yeah. So, let me tell you how to start a war first. The way you start a war is you get all your weapons and you claim a territory and say, this one is mine. Mhmm. It's not yours anymore. I've got guns. It's mine. Okay? That's exactly what, you know, Iraq rolled into Kuwait. How did that work out? Right. Rolled into Ukraine. How did that work out? Right? In none of those scenarios, did the people of the state vote as authorized by the legislature to to say we are on our own. Every one of those scenarios was tried trying to take by force, what you weren't really entitled to. Fort Sumner, honestly, the same thing. Mhmm. Right? And that there was a lot of gamesmanship behind that, and both sides were you know, that whole situation was set up because there were forces that wanted war. But my point is, if you want a war, you get some tanks.
You say this one's mine. I'm independent now. Yes. Right? Nobody's proposing that. Nobody's proposing that. Joe Biden is making fun of that. Oh, if you wanna take on the government, you don't need AR fifteens. You need f 15. Right? Right. Yeah. I remember that. This idea of violence and and forceful coercion. Nobody's talking about that. Right? So what what the Texas independence movement is talking about is we use the existing channels. We use the elected legislature to authorize a vote on voting day, not some made up extra vote. Mhmm. We just vote when we vote. Right? And then that vote triggers a legislative process.
So the the proposal by the Texas Nationalist Movement is that the bill passes, the vote passes, and the bill establishes a committee whose job is to go upstairs and say, hey, boss. We've got these 13 different issues that we've got to resolve before independent five years from now. Right? Right.
[01:47:19] Unknown:
There is no text at Tuesday where, oh, we voted yesterday, so we're independent now. Bye. You know? And I think a lot of people think that too. Like, if, oh, you know, if if, you know, if we did if we did actually succeed in achieving independence, that it would be instantaneous. No. There's a transition period that's gonna take place.
[01:47:38] Unknown:
So when when Brexit passed? Okay. 2000 what? '16 or '18? So when Brexit passed, I'm sitting with my teenage sons at the breakfast table. I said, guys, guess what just happened. Right? You will never believe that England decided they didn't wanna be part of the European Union anymore. You know what that means. Right? That means Texas is gonna be independent because watch. On the other side of the world is a country that's fixing to disentangle itself from a union that it thinks doesn't serve a century. Right? The world really knows what this looks like.
It's only the American politicians that think it's gonna be different. Yeah. And they're
[01:48:18] Unknown:
here because they understand Brexit work too. And Brexit and Brexit clearly showed that it could be done nonviolently.
[01:48:25] Unknown:
Clearly. Clearly. And, you know, the the predictions that the sky was gonna fall and the whole economy of England was gonna die and I mean, everything was gonna fall apart, that didn't come true. It didn't go go that way. And I would say even if it had, they still have a right to be independent in those circumstances. Right. Right? The idea that there's gonna be some big catastrophe is just fear mongering, because catastrophes happen all the time. People deal with them all the time. We don't say that gift of no autonomy, no authority. Right? So, you know, when when I can look at the international stage and say, you know, democratically voting to start a negotiation process to leave later, what about that says war?
Not a damn thing. That's correct. To to believe that The United States would somehow respond with tanks and bombs. To what? To us voting? To us saying, we would like to be independent based on a majority vote of, of our citizens. I think they call it democracy.
[01:49:34] Unknown:
Right? Yeah. It smacks a bit. Yeah.
[01:49:37] Unknown:
Like that. So the The United States to respond with violence would have to take the role of Russia against Ukraine. They would have to take the role of China against Hong Kong. They would have to flip everything that they say is their values to respond with violence to Texas secession. Now do I trust them? Do I think they're gonna be upfront? No. Don't. Otherwise, I wouldn't wanna leave. But at least on paper, at least logic, it makes sense that they have no good reason to escalate to force because we are following the rules. Unlike the previous iteration where we said, oh, these guys all suck. Let's make a new convention, and let's just get together and decide on Tuesday that we're out of here. Right. Yes. Yeah. Now that we're out that fort yeah. That one's mine. I'm gonna blow it up if you don't leave. Right? Those are two good ways to get a war.
We are not proposing quick ways too. Yeah. We're not proposing that at all. We're proposing we do the democratic process through the existing channels, to get to a negotiated settlement, that requires absolutely no violence. That's why my subtitle is a plan for peace. Right? Not because national divorce is supposed to be smooth or awesome, but because we understand it intuitively, we know that there are ways to unravel this thing that don't result in violence and war. That's where I'm coming from.
[01:50:58] Unknown:
Alright. So, what what actions do you think, would need to take place in Texas, and what kind of negotiations with the federal government would be essential to maintain or enhance Texas economy?
[01:51:11] Unknown:
So you have to solve the currency problem. How do what by what units shall we trade? Right? There are I think I I looked it up. I think there's eight countries that specifically use the US dollars and another 25 that use a currency called something else that's linked to the US dollar. Right. Right? What does that mean? That means I don't need Texas dollars Mhmm. Because there's already an international precedent for I'll use the the the currency of my neighbor. Right? Right. We don't have to problem. We just have to agree on an exchange meeting. Same thing with defense. Right?
You know, Luxembourg probably doesn't need nuclear submarines because they're tiny. Another angle would be, if if Texas left The United States and then, Russia decided to invade Texas, what do you think would happen? I think The United States would be obligated to be involved. In some way, shape, or form. Yeah. Like, pick on my little brother. Right? He he may be he may be disabled, but he's my brother. Right? Is the is the way I look at it.
[01:52:23] Unknown:
You know? And then, of course, neighboring states would come to defense too because they they're not gonna wanna take a chance of being, of of becoming part of that invasion.
[01:52:31] Unknown:
Exactly. Even if we weren't on great terms, there are there are advantages to The United States maintaining defense of its previous territories. Right? You don't necessarily want the bad guys in your backyard.
[01:52:42] Unknown:
Right. So defense makes sense for everyone. And then and then you could also use you argue the same logic. You know, The United States has military installations in in a 150 countries around the world.
[01:52:53] Unknown:
God, we should bring those back.
[01:52:55] Unknown:
We should. Absolutely. But the point is is that
[01:52:59] Unknown:
they're defending other countries and other countries' borders. Why not this? But what about people always say, what about Fort Hood, Fort Cavazos? Right? A big military installation right in the middle of our territory. Well, guess what? They got big military installations in the middle of all kinds of other countries. Mhmm. It works somehow. Is it an overreach? Yeah, probably. Is it a good idea? No. It's not. But does it result in violence in all those countries? No. Not at all. Right? We could we could make some agreement that you keep the ones or we get this one and you get that one. I mean, it it becomes a negotiation.
[01:53:30] Unknown:
Well, the military the the installations, the land and the installations doesn't belong to the federal government at all. It belongs to the state. So they're actually leasing that land. Right. Yeah. Good luck getting to believe, though. No. I I understand that. I'm just saying, you know, if you wanna be technical about it. Negotiating the settlement there is a better move. Of course. Oh, absolutely. But I'm just saying, you know, just for point of argument that, you know, it it belongs to us in the first place.
[01:53:53] Unknown:
Mhmm. Exactly.
[01:53:54] Unknown:
Things you work out in a divorce. You know? You can keep this, and I'll keep that. Who are you that? So what what is the,
[01:54:01] Unknown:
how do you define the proportion of the assets and liabilities that belong to Texas? Is it one fiftieth? Is it based on GDP? Is it based on population? Mhmm. How do you decide, you know, what what proportion belongs to Texas and what doesn't? Yeah. That's a negotiation. It's in ridiculously complex. Like, I don't even pretend to understand the ins and outs of many of those discussions. Sure. Right? But that's not my job. My job is to stand in the middle and say, let's work it out peacefully.
[01:54:35] Unknown:
There are other people. I I need to trust the experts to figure that stuff out. Yeah. I got you. Alright. So final thoughts here. So what do you hope the audience takes away from this cold conversation that we this sprawling conversation that we had tonight?
[01:54:49] Unknown:
If you've made it to this point without understanding, here's here's the summary. Okay. I believe that the federal government is dysfunctional and abusive to states on both sides of the aisle. And so America's best move, our best way forward is to divide on purpose. We'll let California be California. We'll let New York be New York. We'll let Texas be Texas as independent countries that can then make deals for mutual trade and mutual defense if they want to. Meddling in social issues is what has brought us to this point of polarization. So by following the existing legal processes and using this amazing tool called voting and democracy, right, we can get to a point where we negotiate and exit just like Brexit or just like, other things worldwide in ways that does not require a violent response.
I'm very interested in Texas independence and not in civil war. Okay? So those those listeners who immediately might jump or their friends might jump to, well, yeah, we already fought that or, you know, you just wanna, no. I don't. I just wanna have a good day with my family and my friends. Right? That's right. No. No war in my backyard, doing things the way I like it without California being able to tell me how to do it and without me having to worry about what they're doing over there either. Right? So that that that would be my final word is that, you know, all we really want is independence, is autonomy that we we're supposed to have, but we don't.
So we're we're just gonna use democracy to get there, is is is the final goal.
[01:56:27] Unknown:
Well said. Very well said. I like that was very good. That that might be the clip for the day. Anything else that we have that we, haven't covered that you wanna talk about?
[01:56:37] Unknown:
So we've talked about the book tangentially. Can I sell a few maybe? So the book is called National Divorce, a plan for peace. It is available at national-divorce.com. National-divorce.com. You can buy it on Amazon if you think Jeff Bezos needs more dollars. But if you buy it at national-divorce.com, you can get them from me. I'll send them out autographed. That'll feed my kids. It'll be awesome. So National Divorce, A Plan for Peace. Can you see it?
[01:57:08] Unknown:
I don't think you can. Yeah. I think this the the lights yeah.
[01:57:12] Unknown:
Lighting the white is pretty The lights white it wetted it up.
[01:57:16] Unknown:
But, this is actually my second copy. That was nice. I bought the first one, and then I bought this one. And, bought the first one from Amazon. I got the second one from you. And I gave I actually gave my other copy to the now mayor of the city of Eagle Pass.
[01:57:35] Unknown:
That's where it's at. So Right. That's that. I gave copy to Ted Cruz's minion and said, hey. The boss man really needs to see this. I like Awesome. I'll give the way to people that that are willing to, to take the message. Also appreciate the support if you wanna buy one. You you joke about it. I have mine. Mine is heavily annotated
[01:57:54] Unknown:
so that, again, when I'm doing these things, I can find the key points faster. Yeah. Well, that's why I I couldn't find because in the other in the other one, I already had it marked and all that stuff, so I'm not gonna give him my, you know, my autograph copy. So, you know, you know, so I had a hard time finding what I wanted to look for. But, but it's a great book, folks. Honestly, I've read the book. It's it's it's it's written in in just such an easy to follow logical way. You gotta get a copy of this. National Divorce, Jason Fry. Jason, thank you, man. I appreciated you coming on the show tonight. I I I got some great screenshots of your of your frozen faces. So I'm Yeah. I'm gonna send them I'm gonna send them to you later.
Well, I'll send you my favorite one later. The other ones yeah. They're okay. Yep. Very good. Very good. Alright. Well, Jason, you already told us basically where, your website, national dash divorce dot com. We have all of that in the show notes. They'll all be in the, in the hyperlinks on the audio and on the, on the video side of it. And, Jason, this is great, man. I I really appreciate you coming on the show again. It's been I mean, we haven't we really haven't spoke much since since the last time you were on. So it was great getting caught up with you. It's a lot of fun, and, we'll definitely have you on again soon. You'd let me know when when it's good for you, and we'll work it out. And, thank you. Appreciate you.
[01:59:17] Unknown:
Thank you.
[01:59:19] Unknown:
Alright. Jason Fry, ladies and gentlemen. Alright. Pod home. Podhome.fm is the most modern and easy to use podcast hosting platform in the market today. Use it to publish your episodes, enhance your audio, and automatically generate transcripts, chapters, titles, show notes, and more. And you can even podcast live. You could also get your own website through Pod Home. Everything that you need in one affordable subscription of only $15.99 a month, just $15.99 a month. And if you go to podhome.fm today and sign up, you get thirty days free. So thirty days free and then $15.99 a month after that, and you get a whole team working for you. That's exactly what it feels like. When you publish your episodes, you got, it feels like you have a whole team working with you. So try them out, podhome.fm. That's podhome.fm.
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Alright. I think I covered everything. So thanks again for taking the time to be with us tonight. Don't forget the website, joeroos.com. Send us over any messages, questions, comments, cares, or concerns. And, folks, don't forget, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride and keep talking. Good night, folks. We'll see you tomorrow night. Have a great one.
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Rouge show. The show where we talk about anything and everything. Where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down,
[00:04:28] Unknown:
and nothing is PC. Alright. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos. It is nineteen zero four hours on Monday, 09/22/2025. And it is great to be with you guys once again from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass. And we are going to do the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Well folks, it is Monday. Another week together. Looking forward to spending another week with truly amazing guests, amazing conversation, and important topics of discussion.
So folks, I hope you guys had a great weekend. Hope you enjoyed it, and, I really hope you were able to catch the show on Saturday, the live show we did Saturday with our resident crypto psychic, Marissa Lee, talked about a bunch of things. We talked about Algorand, and we talked about XRP, ICP, a bunch of different, cryptocurrencies that are that are gonna be pretty hot to come by in the, in the upcoming months. So I hope you're able to check that out, and, it was really very informative. As always, I always, like, take notes. I don't know if you noticed that or not, but I always take notes during the course of the show when we do it with her because, so far, everything that she's told me to get, she's been spot on with me, so it's been pretty good.
Really, really happy with that. And I hope you guys are too, and I hope you're able to check it out. And then, of course, Sunday Sunday, we did our Sunday bible study show. We talked about, we talked well, we're going through a series right now on wisdom, and we're teaching through the book of Proverbs. So that's, that's a lot of fun. And, yesterday's show, we talked about, the wisdom of, soul winning. The wisdom of soul winning. Remember the Bible says, he that winneth souls is wise. So great conversation with that yesterday too. We had I thoroughly enjoyed that lesson. It was a lot of fun. And, and then tonight, we have a we have a guest waiting for us in the wings here. We'll bring him on here momentarily.
His book is right here, National Divorce. He was actually our fourth or sixth guest on the show. So we're talking back in January. So this he's a returning he's a returning victim, I mean, guest, to the show. So, we're we're looking forward to talking with, Jason Fry when we when we can bring him on up. Alright? But, of course, as always, before we do anything, we have some housekeeping that we do need to do. So head over to the website, joeroos.com. If there we go. If, if if fencing works tonight, joeroos.com. Just head over to the website and, go to the contact section, open up the web form that's right there, and just click on that thing, and send us over a message. Let us know whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, any questions, comments, cares, or concerns that you might have, any issues you might be having, any complaints you might be having, there better not be any complaints. But if you do have one, send them on over to us and let us know. You could also let us know if you if there's a particular topic that you'd like to discuss on the show, because we would love to hear from you guys on that as well.
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Alright. Now tonight, I need a drum roll track. I gotta I gotta do that. I gotta I gotta get one of those things. But tonight, we have with us again Jason Frey, a sixth generation Texan who has joined who joined us back in 01/02/2025 to talk about his book, National Divorce, a plan for peace. He's a behavior analyst by day. Jason crafts custom knives on weekends, blending function and artistry. He's all he was also a forged in fire runner-up season five episode 26, by the way. He's president of the Texas Knifemakers Guild and author of knife making hacks. Jason and his wife both live in, Wolford, Texas along with their four boys. His daily life is spent balancing family faith and passions like hunting and fishing.
He is also a supporter of Texas independence. Texas independence for many years. Jason now openly champion state sovereignty, advocating practical peaceful steps for a national divorce. Jason, it is great to have you back here on the Joe Russo. It is fantastic. Now a lot has changed since you've been with us last. So, the name of the show has changed. The layout here has changed. We're doing video instead of just audio. So, so quite a quite a bit has changed. But, how you been?
[00:12:44] Unknown:
What you said about where I'm from changed.
[00:12:47] Unknown:
Oh, did it really? Okay. Well, we'll have to talk to, anonymous Angela about that because that's what she sent me for your bio. So
[00:12:55] Unknown:
Yep. All good.
[00:12:57] Unknown:
So what's going on with you, brother? How you been? It's been a lot it's been a while, man. You look great. You look fantastic. You look, look like you've been living the good life.
[00:13:05] Unknown:
Know that for sure. But now things are things are going well. I, I've been out, on the podcast circuit again just talking to folks like you, with the same message, honestly, that I've been saying for a while, that America seems to be, and that's air quotes. It's really obvious. America seems to be, fairly divided already.
[00:13:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. And I think and I think it's getting worse. The one thing though, brother, you are frozen in place right now. And, That's bad. At least you're smiling though in in the in the freeze.
[00:13:37] Unknown:
Okay. I'm frozen smiling, but you can hear the audio? Yeah. Got the audio clear, clear as day. So, I can see. I'm moving. But
[00:13:47] Unknown:
You might be moving on your end, but on this end, all I see is a big cheesy smile.
[00:13:51] Unknown:
That's bad. Well, I can be cheesy. That is sort of what I do. Yeah. I gotcha.
[00:13:57] Unknown:
Okay. Alright. Well, well, hopefully, your Internet will clear up a little bit, and we'll get you back on here. You're on Wi Fi or you're on your, data plan?
[00:14:06] Unknown:
I'm actually on Wi Fi. Interesting. So it should
[00:14:08] Unknown:
Well, there you go. You're moving again. Okay. Well, cool. Sure. Thanks Elon Musk for, Starlink. Are you are you using Starlink?
[00:14:16] Unknown:
Yeah. I am. I'm slightly rural now. Okay. A little way from town, and so, there were not many options. Alright.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
And and this is the quality of Starlink that we see,
[00:14:26] Unknown:
Well, yeah.
[00:14:31] Unknown:
Well, you know, I was I was actually thinking about because where where I where I live, my Internet goes out quite regularly. And nine out of 10 times, it's usually five to ten minutes before the show starts. So, I was thinking about actually the and there's no other provider in my area right here that I can get. I was actually looking at Starlink. But,
[00:14:53] Unknown:
no. No. I don't mind endorsing it. We, we have had it for three months now. And, kinda like you said, every other provider has said, no. No. We don't even have service out there. Mhmm.
[00:15:05] Unknown:
Not too bad. Well, it looks bad, but it may not be bad. I'm just messing with you, brother. Well, you're frozen again, but that's okay. We'll we'll, we'll we'll carry on here. So, one of the new things that we do with the show is that we like to ask some questions to kinda get the audience to know a little bit more about you. So so what's something about you that most people don't know but should?
[00:15:30] Unknown:
Oh, they don't know? Again, you you already gave away most of my good secrets. So I I have a couple of master's degrees, and I work actually in state government. I do nerd stuff all day long. And so usually when I say, also, I make knives, like, people think that's new and amazing. But you you gave me that in the intro. Let's see. I've written, four books, including this one. I got a nobody knows this. I got a fifth one on the way. Alright. It's another knife making book. But what else did people not know? I bass fish. I used to turn them and fish a lot. People don't know that because I lived in the desert for the last eight years and pretty much gave it up.
[00:16:12] Unknown:
But I think that would probably prudent to try to have to give that up.
[00:16:17] Unknown:
Gone out there. But I when I moved a couple months ago, I moved three minutes from the lake Nice. On purpose. I just did it early three minutes to the boat ramp. So trying to
[00:16:28] Unknown:
regain my old self. You're spending more time fishing again?
[00:16:31] Unknown:
Little bit. Little bit. Nice. So I don't have shop at my new place. I'm having to build that and process it. Okay. Just got put in doing slab next month and, you know, I'm right in it. So, yeah, I can't can't make a knife right now, so I might as well go to lake. Alright. Alright. I still wanna get a knife from you though, because I I've seen some of the work you do and it does some you're amazing work, so I got I have to get one. So, so what's your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day? I'm a sweet tea guy. I mean, I, grew up churches of Christ, man. We don't we don't,
[00:17:02] Unknown:
we don't do much of that. That's okay. That's alright. You know, there there aren't very many guests that I asked the question of that that actually come back with anything other than usually water. I've got a couple of Mountain Dews. Yeah. I got a couple of, you know, glass of wine here or there and whatnot, but but, you know, I've I've I've slowed down on my bourbons, so I'm not doing the bourbons so much. And it was interesting when I slowed down with the bourbon, all my hair fell out. So, but, but, we no. Seriously, though, yeah. But right, like, tonight, I am having my, my green tea with, with honey and lime, and it's doing it's doing well. It's doing well. It's alright. We're good. It's, you know, I I like I said, I I got carried away with the bourbons, and it was just way too much. And not not like it was out of control, like I was like an alcoholic or anything like that, but it was, you know, expensive.
So, yeah. So we have did I have so I had to, you know, kinda ease my way out of that a little bit. So this is good. It's it's either coffee or tino. So it's it's not bad. It's not too bad. Not too bad. So, so Jason, you're a dad. You you juggle you you juggle work, knives, church. Where when do you carve out any time just to breathe and and and think, you know, big picture stuff like independence?
[00:18:26] Unknown:
So on my commute sometimes, honestly, in between things. But no. You you to me, all these things are are sort of tied in together. I mean, that's why I'm constantly stewing some of the other idea. So I have four sons. I've got 20, 21, and eight year old twins. Okay? So when it comes down to, somebody on Twitter spouting off civil war, It is my kids. Like, two of my my older men, my my grown boys are in the military right now. Okay? So, thinking about politics and war and let's not have a war and all that. I mean, that's the same as thinking about my kids to me. Mhmm. So it's it's all right there. The other thing you mentioned, was was religion. So once upon a time, I was a youth minister. I went to basically seminary. We don't call it that church of Christ, but, went to Bible College, got a master's degree in that, did that full time for six years. So so the interchange of what is God trying to tell me today, or what does scripture say about what I'm supposed to be doing today, or what's God doing in the world right now is a part of my default mode kind of. Right? So, I mean, I was I was raised that way. I was trained that way. So, to to come to a point where I I think maybe the government's not awesome and maybe let's not have a war. And maybe my primary allegiance isn't to the flag.
You know, those kinds of things.
[00:20:01] Unknown:
Again, it all just meshes naturally in my my head. It's a weird place to be, but that's that's where I am. Well, I don't think it's a weird place to be. We have to look at government right now. Government is just out of control. The general government I'm talking about. Well, the actually, the state government too, and and and I really kinda wanted to get into that a little bit with you because I know you're very you're you're very you're very Texas oriented, you're very interested in what's going on in the state here, and at which you should be. Anybody in any state wherever you live, you should be very interested in what's going on at your state house because that has a direct impact on you, more than what you might think the federal government has on you.
So, one of the things that that really, that really drove me crazy with with we'll talk Texas stuff first, and then we'll get into the rest of the world stuff. Okay. But, one of the things that drove me nuts this last, this last session of the Texas House is how much authority the Texas Republicans gave to the Texas Democrats, and how many issues of significance were pushed aside, tabled, and, and not even voted on. For example, one of the big debates right now are is the property taxes. And, I know, representative Brian Harrison, state representative Brian Harrison has been has been pushing to to get this on the floor to, do away with property taxes here in the state of Texas, but they won't even address that.
[00:21:31] Unknown:
So it's in the it's actually in the Republican Party platform. Mhmm. And body seems to want to address it. Incidentally, also in the Republican Party platform is Texas independence, by the way. But but your your point is a valid one. You know, Texas government has been read on paper for a long, long time. Mhmm. And yet we haven't had a speaker elected by the Republican caucus, also in a long, long time. Right? The fact that we we need a multiparty coalition to elect our representative speaker in a majority situation is a little bit goofy. It's yeah. It doesn't make much sense. But Does it? And and here's my theory on that.
I think that part of the problem is that Texas politicians are treating their current job like it's the JV team for the federal government. Okay? That's a great point. That really is. That is a great point. Yeah. The Texas representative or senator, if you ask them, say, are you Texas first? Will you sign a pledge to to work for Texas first? By and large, many of them will say no, which is inconceivable. Right? You are a representative for Texas. Why would you not represent Texas first? Right? Why would your primary interest be what they're doing in DC or California or anywhere else in the universe if you're representing Texas in the legislature?
Right? So I think that's a piece of the problem. You know, whether it's Dustin Burrows or Dave Phelan or or Joe Strauss, you know, part of it, they're they're trying to make Texas not look so whatever they think is bad. They're trying to make Texas, fit in somehow on this national bipartisan gridlock mess. I don't understand their motivations exactly, but it it can't be to represent Texas or do what the voters are interested in. Well, my kids are losing their mind because of autopilot.
[00:23:29] Unknown:
I hear it. Sorry. You wanna go take you wanna go take care of it? Or or I can no more control my eight year old's misbehavior than I can the Texas legislature. So there's your segue way back to context. Perfect. Okay. Wonderful. See, that that's the great thing about having a seasoned podcast veteran with you on the show, because they they know how to little tricks to get you redirected.
[00:23:50] Unknown:
But now so when it comes to, you know, Texas politicians doing Texas stuff, they're bad at it. You know, some of my friends that are not, as pro independence as me or you, they'll say, well, the Texas government, man, they're lousy too. Why do you want them to be in charge? Right? They're not wrong. My hope is that in an independent Texas, when we're not, beholden to outside funding, when we're not beholden to outside political influence, that these guys can get their crap together, honestly. You know, we on the national level, people have thrown a a fit about even the appearance of Russian interference in our election process. Right? Mhmm. Even the has has caused major turmoil.
And yet, we're not allowed to throw that same kind of shade, at Californians financing Texas candidates. Right? You would have never heard the name Beto O'Rourke without out of state money. And we're we're supposed to be okay with that. Right? So that's that's a piece of my answer to how do we deal with the Texas government being also ineffective. It's we're we're still participating in some pretty damn ineffective systems. We're tolerating things for ourselves, like out of state money and not being you're actually representing. We're tolerating that amongst ourselves in ways that I don't think we will as much, should we be independent. So,
[00:25:18] Unknown:
anyway Well, I actually and I'm glad you mentioned California because this is a question that's kinda been on my mind for a little while, is, is why does the state of California have a tax collection agency here in Texas?
[00:25:34] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know. Didn't have any, jurisdiction on Texas income, personally. They seem to. I mean, California has banned everything. Right? And, you look every every label you'll ever find on anything is this this this is known to cause cancer in the state of California. Right. So I think they were the weren't they the pre inventors of the mandated gas cans?
[00:25:57] Unknown:
I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:59] Unknown:
Well, they're terrible.
[00:26:02] Unknown:
Kinda stuff. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right on that. But, but the the the problem here too is is that you have all these another issue with California and Texas is you have all these people fleeing California, and they're coming to Texas. And, and they're bringing their California failed policies and politics with them.
[00:26:23] Unknown:
That is that is partly true. I also know some, some political refugees from California. New York is people that are, you know, from Northern California. The guy was that I'm talking about was literally a pig farmer. Okay? And then he worked, as a school maintenance man. Like, this is not, you know, not too not too snooty, by any stretch. And he moved here because we understand pig farmers and maintenance men a lot better than Los Angeles does.
[00:26:55] Unknown:
Got it. Okay. That makes sense.
[00:26:57] Unknown:
There are there are a group of folks that that move here from Northern California in particular that don't necessarily bring with them the baggage. That said, a lot of the tech folks, moving in for computer stuff. Mhmm. A lot of people who made a bunch of money selling a house and wanna live someplace cheaper that's still awesome. They they're bringing their baggage with them. But, you know, I've always felt a little bit like you have a responsibility to make your house your house, but that only extends to the area that you control. Right? So if I'm gonna move to Switzerland, I'm not gonna make all my neighbors speak English if they don't. Right. I'm not gonna say, I'm bringing my dollars with me and forget y'all if you don't wanna use them. Right? Right.
When you move someplace, you have a responsibility to either isolate or assimilate in my mind. The problem with with a lot of Californians is that they won't do either one.
[00:28:01] Unknown:
I got you. As a matter of fact, I think this week, it it might be it might be Wednesday, I think. I'm gonna I'm gonna have as as a guest, a gentleman who is running for Congress, who if I'm not I think this is the gentleman. He he actually was a mayor in a town in California, and, he moved here to Texas, and now he's looking to run for Congress, to represent the district. And as part of the redistricting plan, I think he's 35, if I'm not mistaken. But I I I was trying to log in to my calendar to take a look at it, but it's it's telling me I'm on a different device than it's used to, and it's gonna maybe go through all these checks, and I'm not gonna have enough time. So, so, yeah. So he's gonna be on the show this, I think some I think it's this week. Is it either Wednesday or Friday this week? And, so if you have any questions that you'd like to be, to to throw towards him, you can check out the show or send them over to me, and I'd be happy to answer them ask them for you.
But, so I'm looking forward to that. I wanna hear what he has to say. Now in in, in in 02/2025, so far, Texas passed several bills, signaling a push toward greater Texas greater state sovereignty. Which of those bills actually stand out as surprising in terms of passing? Like, what caught you off guard? Which didn't you think would pass?
[00:29:25] Unknown:
So the, the gold depository thing is a couple of of cycles ago. Right? But the fact that there are people in Texas government interested in, what if this all goes sideways? Do we have sound money? Do we have a backup plan? Right. Excited to see the, the Texas Stock Exchange come about, in Dallas.
[00:29:46] Unknown:
You know, we Which I think is huge, by the way. Yeah. 27,
[00:29:50] Unknown:
28,000,000 people. We are the number eight or nine largest economy in the world, by ourself. Mhmm. Right? We should have those things. Agreed. We should be prepared to, to function as well as we can, without without outside support. Right? If we're already the eighth largest in the in the world, there's no reason that we need or that we couldn't have some redundancy built in. Right? Because even though I I hope America doesn't fail, I think I, hope I win the lottery too. One of these is more likely than the other. Right? I mean True. We're, we're headed down a sketchy path. So everything's Texas does to prepare for that. You know, whether it's, saber rattling at the border saying, nope. We're actually gonna take care of this ourselves because you guys seem incomp incapable and incompetent.
You know, whether it's redistricting or or taxes or any of the things that a state can do, we should be thinking about what can we do that will set us up for better, independence. So when Greg Abbott goes to Denmark or something or India, and he's he's doing economic partnership diplomacy kind of trips. Some of us roll our eyes. Like, people people think that's silly. But then there's guys like me and maybe you that are like, heck, yeah. He's making a deal in advance. That's right.
[00:31:14] Unknown:
But, sideways, I've got friends in India or Denmark. Right? Well, yeah. That's exactly that's exactly when I when I saw the trips over overseas, and I saw that the types of arrangements that were being made, even though most of them are mostly ceremonial. You know, that's that's that's huge. That that's a very, very important step. You know? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And now prior to the election, the last election cycle, when when, president Trump was, one reelection, I think that was in January. You were on the show, I think, right before the inauguration. Mhmm. And, you know, there was, you know, the country put a lot of hope in president Trump's election as a whole. You know?
Now here here we are. We're talking about Texas independence. We're talking about, you know, you know, we we were looking at during the course of the Biden administration, I think the push was even stronger because we saw how ineffective government could be, how oppressive government can be, how dangerous government can be to the individual. And so I I feel like there was more of a momentum for organizations like the Texas nationalist movement, the the push for state sovereignty, the the push for, for this national divorce. And then president Trump comes in and puts the brakes on a lot of stuff, and there's seems to be a different feeling now within the country.
How do you think that affects these these separation movements, these independence movements? Because it's not just Texas. You know, there are other states also that have these things in place and they're that are exploring these options. But, I guess the the the thing is, you know, now that the country is kinda moving into a better direction, how does that affect what we're trying to do?
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Better for who? Right? So our our secessionist friends in California are fired up right now because the government is doing the opposite of what they like, just like it was for us two years ago or five years ago. Right? So that's number one is that the impulse never goes away. It may shift sides a little bit, but the the idea that maybe we we we would be better off our own or maybe we should take care of our own business, that never goes away. But my real answer to that is that the fundamentals never change either. Right? The the weather may be sunnier today, but the climate is still terrible. Right.
Pull an analogy out of nowhere. So the national that no. The federal debt, I didn't own it. I didn't vote for it. They did it. This federal. The federal debt continues to grow. What are we at? $37,000,000,000,000
[00:34:01] Unknown:
or something? Yeah. It's close to it. Yeah.
[00:34:04] Unknown:
And it did that under Trump the first time. Mhmm. It did that on Biden. It did that it's still doing that under Trump now. The fact that we are headed towards an an unsustainable no. That we we are already in an unsustainable spending environment. Yeah. That Change depending on whose jersey what color jersey the leader was wearing. Right? The fact that, you know, there are some states that really do want, abortions and free marijuana. There are other states that really do want, low taxation and the government not to be involved in some in some things. There are even some states, I would say Texas is dangerously close to this, that want to enforce a conservative set of morals. Right? So let's outlaw transgender in a bathroom. Right? Or let's outlaw some some other moral thing.
Again, that that's a symptom, not a cause to me. So all of those symptoms that are are making us divided, all those issues are which either the right or the left is challenged sometimes, the fundamentals of those haven't changed at all. Okay? The fact that, you know, people have been asking, of course, with the Charlie Kirk tragedy last week. People have been asking the question of how does that impact, national divorce or secession, discussions. And my answer is it's one more. It's one more of a I agree. Some the camel won't be too loaded, and he will collapse. But we had a a disputed election in 2020. We had the uninvited capital tour.
We had we've had all the time. It's never stopped. Okay? The fact that it was a popular guy this month, it was some state legislators out of Michigan, or Montana, Michigan, three months ago. Right? It it the the cycle of chaos is the part that we are in right now. Yeah. They sometimes that if,
[00:35:58] Unknown:
if America were in the book of judges, we would be well past Samson and into the weird stuff. Right? Yeah. I that's a great analogy, brother. I love that. I I am gonna steal that one from you. That is great. That is great.
[00:36:10] Unknown:
That's the point where the leaders that come up are good. We're even past the point where, like, Samson okay. Sure. Samson did did the world a favor. He also married a prostitute and, ended up, you know, killing himself. So we're we're we're path even past the point of really flawed leaders that do a good job. We're off into the everyone everything is chaos section.
[00:36:33] Unknown:
You mean we're not in we're you mean we're not in the best presidency ever? And you mean you mean president Trump president Trump's not fixing everything all at once? I mean, come on.
[00:36:44] Unknown:
But president Trump didn't mess up everything all at once either. True that. Yeah. I was being facetious, by the way. No. But, you know, part of my, part of my stuff that I deal with at work, right, is that if if it took us ten years to make this mess, I can't sleep in two weeks.
[00:37:00] Unknown:
Right? So And that's a great point too because I'll I'll tell you honestly, I I was talking to somebody, I think it was on Saturday's show, when I was talking with, our our resident crypto psychic. You know, the point was is that, you know, it took it took four years of the Biden administration to wreck the economy. It's it's you're not you're not gonna be able to fix it overnight. It's gonna take a few years to it's like it's like you you get an ocean liner, you get one of those big cruise ships out there in the middle of the ocean, and it doesn't stop on a dime. You have to slow down before you can turn it around.
So, it it it will take time. The the question is how much time is it gonna take to fix it? And in in reality, you know, I I don't I don't I don't see it getting fixed. I because I don't I don't I don't see the spending stopping. I see more money going to Ukraine. You know, another another foreign intervention, something we should not be involved in in the first place, and I know the president campaigned on getting us out of that and stopping all that stuff, but yet still seems like the checks are going. There's a lot of things that are that that have not been addressed. I think I think, Pam Bondi is is a is a disaster as the attorney general.
You know? Well Yep.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
That I'd like to point out that have been a disaster. Administration one after another. Right? Yeah. That Trump doesn't solve. So, ruling by executive order. Okay? So Yes. Not pass anything meaningful except omnibus spending bills, and they do that poorly. Okay? They have not changed any law in a while in any significant way. That's true. It's been the Supreme Court flip flopping precedent or it's been, the presidents themselves directing differential enforcement of rules. A rule didn't change. We're just gonna interpret it differently. Right? Granted that's their purview as the executive. I understand that.
[00:38:57] Unknown:
But that's not how this government is supposed to work. No. It's not. Because all the executive orders, all of that stuff, all that does is bring more and more instability because all the executive orders that Donald Trump is doing right now is all gonna get overturned in the next administration. Just like he overturned all of Biden's, executive orders. Just like Biden overturned all of his and and Obama you know, it never ends. There's no stability.
[00:39:22] Unknown:
Okay. That's a symptom of the dysfunction of the whole system. Okay? So I don't get super caught up in, again, what jersey is the leader wearing today. Is he red or is he blue? That doesn't change the fundamental facts that America is still on an unsustainable trajectory.
[00:39:37] Unknown:
Agreed.
[00:39:38] Unknown:
So that's where I come in with with, honestly, with this book. I've mentioned I have kids that are in the military. I don't want a civil war because that's my children fighting. I'm too old for this. Right? I have also resigned myself to the fact that I will die in the first wave because I will be out there in the middle saying, woah, dude. Just chill out. We don't have to do this, and then somebody's gonna shoot me. That'll be the end. Right? I mean, I get that about
[00:40:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I get you. I I understand that. I I I would hope I would hope not to I would hope to survive at least the first wave. You know, that's that's at least my plan. But, and just and just for the record, so anybody listening, clipping all this stuff, we are not actively planning anything. This is just kind of hyperbole here. We're just talking in in abstracts.
[00:40:24] Unknown:
Hypotheticals. And here's something that is not hypothetical to me coming from those hypotheticals. Okay? So there must be people. There must be you. There must be me. There must be others that are willing to say something different besides the government is awesome and America's the best and, you know, whatever brainwashed propaganda, whatever. There have to be people that acknowledge that things are not that great and that there is real potential for disaster. You're from Eagle Pass, so y'all have Shelby Park in your town.
[00:40:56] Unknown:
Right. Five minutes away from where I live? Exactly. So let's refresh,
[00:41:00] Unknown:
that story in the minds of of the listeners. So down there in five yard five minutes from, from Joe's house, two two years ago now, there was the park where the feds were letting people through, willingly, from all over the place. No vetting, no anything. And the state of Texas did some research and figured out, well, that's a public park, but it's not a federal park, like, so they don't have automatic jurisdiction. So the state of Texas locked the park. They put up fences and closed the park down. They literally locked out the fence from the boat ramp they were using to put their boats on the river to watch people by and not stop them. And what you ended up with was Texans on one side of the fence, feds on the other side of the fence. Everybody's law enforcement carrying. Right? Mhmm. And they're, oh, it's our part. No. It's our part. Right? And I'm fully convinced and very happy that that nobody intended violence out of the situation. K? Well, thank god for that. Nobody wants to escalate.
But I felt like at the time, we were one bad guy in the bushes from every going sideways. Yeah. So we Absolutely. In the gangster movies where you get the two two gangs lined up against each other, and they're all they're all pull their guns out. You put it down. No. No. No. You put it down. You know? And and some little bug eyed kid in the back twitches, and then everybody dies instantly. Right? I mean, it's safe for a reason. I was afraid, and I am still afraid, that America is really, really close to that. As we continue to escalate and polarize and as people keep killing people from the other side, again, totally against. But we're we're we're just getting closer to that time when everything goes nuts. In spite of everybody saying calm down, no. You put yours down. No. I'll put mine down. There's gonna be some time at which metaphorically, not violently, things go totally sideways and we get out of control. Yeah. I agree. So that's going from what this book is. If we see the dysfunction in the government, we see from both sides. We see the meddling in cultural issues from both sides.
We see a trajectory that is not changing, from one guy or one new president. You can't the ship is too big. We're headed the wrong direction. If we see all of that, what are we gonna do about it right now to make sure that it doesn't go sideways from one bug I'd get in the back and one bad guy in the bushes? So that's where I come in with the national divorce idea. So
[00:43:30] Unknown:
let's talk about Now you describe you describe this in in a in a very clear way. You you you you put it in the context of a marriage relationship. Mhmm. And and you you you basically say that, you know you know, there there comes a point where all the flowers in the world, and I'm paraphrasing it, of course, you know, that all the flowers in the world aren't gonna aren't going to, ease the tensions and the problems between an in an abusive relationship. And we are in an abusive relationship with the federal system without a doubt. I mean, you have basically having and I don't care you can disagree with me on this or not, but, you know, taxation without any representation.
Okay? Every single paycheck, the federal government has their sticky fingers in my paycheck. Mhmm. And they're giving that money to places that I would never even consider giving my money to. Yeah. And, I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. I'm not the only who thinks that way. I think the whole federal taxation system is is is immoral, and it it needs to it needs to come to an end. And I was very happy when I heard president Trump talking about abolishing the IRS, you know you know, all of these, tariff what was the word? I did the word just flipped out of my head.
All of these dividend checks from from from the tariffs that we're we've been collecting, so on and so forth, which I still haven't seen a penny on. Have you? Have you gotten your cut yet? If we if we owe 37,000,000,000,
[00:45:14] Unknown:
there is no such thing as a refund. Trillion. Yes. Yeah. One. I mean, it's pandering. It's the same pandering as, BlackRock.
[00:45:20] Unknown:
Exactly. It's an it's an abusive system.
[00:45:24] Unknown:
Yeah. And and that abuse perpetuates or continues regardless of which side of the aisle you're on. Right? So the Californians, man, they're we're spending, federal money on stuff California doesn't want also. We're spending stuff, we're sending money overseas all over the place. Yeah. We're not taking care of our own people. And it doesn't matter, again, which side of the alley you're on. That's that's still true. Right? So we're we're to the point where, you know, if this were a marriage, we, we're already in separate bedrooms. We're already running separate bank accounts. We may still live in the same house because we don't have a better idea right now. Right? Most of our fact is negative.
You know? So in that kind of a scenario, there's not a ton of options. Now let me point out two other things that I like to mention in this case. So number one, there is not a national marriage. Right? My wife and I picked each other out of a crowd. We stood up before God and our friends and family and said, me and this one forever, till death do us part. There is no such thing, between any of us and the United States federal government. Okay. So so national divorce is a metaphor that does not imply, like you're somehow unfaithful to your wife if you leave. Right? That that there's no national marriage. But another key point about divorce, though, is that we get it.
We understand it's not it's not an ideal outcome. It's not, great. It's not what people wish they do. I mean, nobody gets most people, I don't think, get married and think, nah. I'm sure glad I got a good exit strategy on this one. Right? I mean, most people come in with good intentions. But we understand the reason I like this metaphor, we understand that it is a an unraveling of a of a formal relationship Mhmm. Based on nobody getting their mutual needs met anymore. Right? So in a divorce, you've got you've got assets to divide.
You've got who gets custody of the kids or the cat. You've got who takes the debts, who takes the the house. And all of that goes down, all over the world, all over our country, and it's against the law to kill the other guy in that situation. Right? Right. If I still cannot beat you up and take the house, I still cannot kill you so that I can have the kids. Right? There is there is no expectation. In fact, it's the opposite. There's an expectation that there is no violence in a divorce. Right? Because that violence then becomes a separate criminal issue. That's why I like national divorce as a metaphor. Right? Because we can get to this point where the differences are irreconcilable.
Yeah. There is no other path forward besides separation. But we don't have to have a civil war. What the heck? What do we have to have one for? And the interesting thing is that that's the first thing. Anytime you talk to somebody about
[00:48:23] Unknown:
Texas independence or any state's independence, that's the first thing they they they bring up is, well, and so you're talking about another civil war. You're you're you're, a seditionist. You're, you're trees you're committing treason, and all they throw all that stuff out at you. And that's not the case at all, you know. The Yeah. States voluntarily join the union. They can voluntarily leave the union.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
Well, now are you in from a position of of violence and coercion? Exactly. All that is we won the war last time. We killed you more than you killed us. Mhmm. Okay? Yeah. And you lost by our violence being stronger than your violence. And therefore, you must stay or else we will violence you again. Mhmm. That's not a you understand what I'm saying? When they say or all they're saying is, we will kill you before we let you do that again. That's all it is. Right? They they they wanna pretend like they're being all wise and say, well, there's a historical precedent. Yeah. But the precedent's bad.
Yes. It doesn't you know, we're not we're not saying that. We're not advocating for any kind of violence at all, the opposite, in fact. The fact that they immediately go to violence, tells us that the relationship is broken. Yes. Right? It tells us that this was bad to begin with. Because if their answer is I'll kill you if you try to leave again, well, what kind of relationship is that? Who wants to be in that relationship? Right? Exactly. That that response just reinforces my
[00:49:48] Unknown:
conviction that, yeah, we need to get away from these people. It's time to go. Now but but here's the thing, though. Like, do you think that, because obviously and and especially we see it now too with with, with with this with this whole horrible thing that happened with Charlie Kirk. There is a tension in the country. I mean, it is palpable. You feel it. You know? I I'm trying to think how I can phrase the question. With all the polarization, I guess, is is the word I'm looking for. With all the polarization that's taking place right now in the country as a whole, in in this in this American union that we're part of. Because I I like to refer to it like the European Union, the American Union.
It with with with the the state of politics, with the state of of of the the the the viciousness that goes on between the right and the left, what do you think how would Texas independence shield us from that type of polarization? Do do you think that that's possible?
[00:51:03] Unknown:
I do, or I would be advocating for something else. But here's my take on that. Both sides of the aisle are are facing these same issues depending on who's in charge, with cultural stuff. Let me chase a thread. Okay? So slavery, bad across the board. No denying that. None whatsoever. Very serious social issue, at the time. And in the ten year decade of of bleeding Kansas, the time when they were fighting over whether Kansas would be a slave state or a a free state, during that time of unchecked violence, there were about 250 people murdered, just terrible stories of people literally killing their neighbors over this slavery issue.
And then the government got involved and said, let's pick a side. Let's fix this for the universe. And 650,000 more people were killed in that war. So pure unchecked chaos, 250. Terrible. All of it bad. Yeah. Government fix it. Half a million. Right? So over a social issue. Next, you get prohibition. Right? So alcohol, it's bad. Let's ban it. Oh, wait. No. Let's unban it because that was a dumb idea. And then you get, segregation. You got some states, you know, are seriously, let's ban interracial marriage or let's, you know, let's ban black people from from the water fountain. Mhmm. I mean, all the way down to to silly levels.
But the federal government said, no. I want a piece of that action, and they got in and and made some determinations. And that didn't go too well. That's how we got the whole, chaos of the sixties. Right? And then we got feminism, and now we've got the transgender stuff. And my point is not that there's a right or wrong to any one of those issues. My point is there will always be social tension because the government will always stick its neck into social issues that are nobody's business. That doesn't change. Mhmm. Right? So that's that's a piece of it. When we are able to separate into more homogeneous groups, the external authority cannot come and violate my sincerely held beliefs quite as easily.
Right? They can't say this thing that I believe is fundamentally right. Now we're gonna call it wrong.
[00:53:32] Unknown:
Right. I gotcha.
[00:53:34] Unknown:
In slavery and prohibition and feminism and segregation. Pick pick an issue. Doesn't matter what side you're on. The government steps in and picks a side. If we were homogeneous, that wouldn't happen as much. And I think that the political tension that we have, the polarization that we have right now comes from that history. Right? California is mad because Texas wants to ban abortions. Right? Texas is mad because California wants to let, trans people be in, you know, in public or or whatever. Guess what? They can have it their way over there if we can have it our way over here. The whole reason there's tension is because we are stuck in this one federal house that wants to intervene and wants to make us do it the other way. Right. The whole deck the course of structure. Well, that that that also feeds into, you know, the that old thing. The
[00:54:25] Unknown:
what's good for California is not good for Texas. What's good for Texas is not good for New York because everybody's people are different. You know, different Power
[00:54:35] Unknown:
The problem is when you take all of those differences and insist on one power structure. One cookie cutter answer to everything. Yeah. Find me another nation. Find me another nation that covers an entire continent from coast to coast. Mhmm. It doesn't exist Right. To my knowledge. Right? You know, Australia, sure. But they're an island. It's just a big one. But we are so large. Nowhere else in the world is there this insistence on diversity by coercion, right, or or uniformity by coercion of diversity. We have a government that clamps down on all the differences and makes us wanna be all the same, and they suck at it, which is why we have all this polarization and flip flop and back and forth. Right. Right? And I think that's how we got to this point.
You know, there there are, what, about a 180 nations worldwide, and there were about 90, I believe, prior to World War two. So where did all those extra countries come from?
[00:55:44] Unknown:
Oh, they were they were they were manufactured by the, the the the the victors of the conflicts. Yeah. Yeah. Or something. Right? No. No. In some way like that. Yeah.
[00:55:55] Unknown:
They did no new land. They created no new people. Mhmm. But over the last century, we now have or there's three quarters of a century. We now have more countries than we used to. We have more people that have said, nope. Me and my guys, we're gonna be independent now. And the world has tolerated that. What's that joke about every five minutes, some country celebrates, its independence from Great Britain? Right? Right. I mean, I mean, everything used to be a British colony. Everybody's got an independence day from those guys. Right? And the world has not or implode either one. You know, that idea that, there there's some kind of a critical mass maybe. Right? Does anybody say, Luxembourg?
I know you're independent, but you're really too tiny, so we're gonna take you know, you you have no right to exist anymore. Mhmm. No right to exist. Sorry. Right? We allow those small places their sovereignty. They might have 200,000 people, and we say, okay. You can be an independent country. But, boy, only in America do you take 27,000,000 people and say, what if I was independent and people lose their ever loving mind? Right? Where that that insistence on forced unity is is a, I think, a uniquely American construct Yes. That we force on the rest of the world.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
Yeah. I I agree with you on that. You know, when they they talk about the perpetual union. You know, that's it's it's not the context is not what and and and I think we we talked about this once before, and I think you had a really good take on it. You know, if that's not exactly what a perpetual union doesn't mean necessarily forever. You know? And,
[00:57:37] Unknown:
okay. Perpetual. We know there's there's no there's no perpetual motion machine that doesn't violate the laws of physics. Correct. Even though I believe most of us that are married got up there and in good faith said, yep. Me and this one till the end. We also understand that, you know
[00:57:55] Unknown:
Things happen. Yes.
[00:57:57] Unknown:
Thing. Right? Perpetual is a nice idea, but it doesn't work in reality. Exactly. That And and
[00:58:05] Unknown:
use and using your analogy of of a of a marriage relationship, a divorce, you know, yeah, we all get up there, we all say this, we all say the line, you know, until death do us part, you know, for better or for worse, till death do us part. Well, you know what? I don't necessarily wanna die, but, you know, it it it we have to part. This isn't working. It's an abusive relationship, and it's time to go. And, I I I was gonna make another point, but it's it sounded better in my head before it came out of the mouth. So I got one I like that goes with this content. So Good. So,
[00:58:39] Unknown:
you know, again, coming from a Christian background, divorce is bad Right. In my mind. When I hear the word, I don't think this is good. We should advocate for this. Fifty one percent of marriages end in divorce now. Do you know that? I wouldn't doubt it. But but from a Christian perspective, most of us are trained to believe that's not okay. That's bad. That's a a sign of dysfunction. Of course. But when when we talk about a national divorce, you know, when we're when we're talking about a marriage, we think, well, you should go to counseling. You should get some help. Right? That would be better than breaking up. Right? So what does what does that look like? It looks like a neutral third party with some skills to help the two parties navigate their differences.
Right? And a good counselor, even a Christian one, their job is not to get the marriage back together. Their job is not to break the marriage up. Their job is to help these two people navigate towards what they think is the best outcome. That's correct. Ethical obligation of the counselor in the middle Mhmm. Is to help these two parties get to where they think they wanna go with peace and smoothness and Right. Resolve Right? Find me. Tell me. Where where would the, national marriage counselor come from? What would that what would that even look like in this situation? We've got this abusive relationship between the states and the feds or between states and each other, however you frame it. Who sits in the middle and mediates that?
Right. That's a good point. There's no such person. There's no such chance, for several reasons. Number one, you know, there might be a 150,000,000 people on each side. This is not two parties.
[01:00:20] Unknown:
Right.
[01:00:22] Unknown:
Jason and Joe or me and my wife. This is not two individuals. This is two huge groups. And so while you can kinda negotiate or mediate in between individuals, there's no such way to do it on on that large of a scale. Number two, who would do that? Right? Who has, you know, when I go to a counselor, I'm I'm looking for a good one. Right? One that's got a a degree in experience, maybe even a license. Right? Not just like some random homeless guy or whatever. Of course. But who would be who would stand in the gap and negotiate the national dysfunction?
What does that person look like? What would their qualifications be? I mean, could it be I mean, you you have to at least theoretically acknowledge that there could be an individual that could come in with that spirit of reconciliation and and figure it out. Problem is it hasn't happened yet in our whole entire history. Mhmm. But, yeah, I guess, theoretically, you could say it could. Would it be another country? Like, you know, we, we are famously nonintervening by funding one side of Ukraine. Right? Yeah. We're we're funding one side. We're inviting both sides over the house and trying to make a deal like we're we're some kind of mediator, but, really, we're funding one side. So so there is some precedent, I guess, for this pretense of of neutrality, in a conflict. So could England send some representatives over and say, you guys are jacked. We all are messed up. We're gonna intervene and keep you from whatever.
I mean, theoretically, you must admit that that's that's possible. There could be an intervention. But it's it's only theoretically possible. It's inconceivable. Like, I can't imagine of what that guy who that person would be or what that country would look like or how they would justify that intervention. Mhmm. I
[01:02:12] Unknown:
just I don't see it. I don't either. I I don't think it would I don't think there is anything possible that could do that. Yeah. I don't I don't think so. United Nations, maybe?
[01:02:23] Unknown:
No. We we pay we we are them. I mean, we pay for all of that. I know. I know. You know, you like the kid asking the dad to to mediate it. You know? It's, no. It's we're we own those guys. They wouldn't be able to they can't even do their own fundamental job, much less step in Right. On this when we're funding them.
[01:02:44] Unknown:
I just I don't know. I I don't brother, you know, I'm I look at I look at what's going on in our country, in in The United States, in this American union of which we are part of. And, you know, I I like like, you put in your book, you know, the the the idea of America, of that that founding principle, that that spirit of being in a of of of America is not how do you put it? I gotta find it. Unless unless you know what I'm talking about, where I'm getting to.
[01:03:18] Unknown:
An independent will be more American than America. Right? Yeah. That the principles of freedom and limited government and, god given rights that the government doesn't mess with, you know, all of that stuff has been defended across the world by our people. Right? We've stepped our stuck our nose against against Germany and other other places, to defend those ideas. Okay? And those ideas are not represented by the federal government in Washington, DC. K? So I I am loyal to freedom. I am loyal to the constitution. I'm not loyal to the guys in the offices up yonder, k, is is one way that I think about it.
[01:04:04] Unknown:
Okay. So I I found what I was looking for. It's it's it's the first chapter of your book. It's called America is Not The United States. There you go. So, explain that to us because I'm gonna mangle it because, I'm I'm all tongue tied tonight for some reason.
[01:04:18] Unknown:
What I was saying, like, when when people say what do you like about America, they'll talk about freedom or they'll talk about rights or they'll tell stories about old dead guys like, well, George Washington. And we told we told the British to stick it with that because we didn't have any representation. Right? Right. We don't, you know, it's whole nostalgia. It's all principles. It's not. Man, I really like this governor of my state. I really like this president. Right? We're we're loyal to the ideas, not to the federal government of the United States of America.
That's what I mean. I mean, the ideas that we're we sing a song about, you know, for hand over our heart if we're good Americans. Right? Mhmm. That's not about pledge allegiance to the government. These knuckleheads that spend money like it's going out of style because they're printing it on the side, by the way. It doesn't actually exist. Right. You know, we're we're we're not pledging allegiance to that. We're pledging allegiance to the idea. Exactly. I argue also that pledging allegiance is a bad idea. But Agreed. But for for this for the purpose of this, you know, we are not loyal to I'm not loyal to, the government structure represented by The United States Of America as much as I am loyal to the concepts of of America,
[01:05:40] Unknown:
that have been fought and died for. Now exactly. And and that's exactly what I was trying to get to with this is is that America is is it's it's an idea. It's America is a, is, you know, liberty. It's freedom. It's independence. America was founded by the independent spirit. This country, you know, we enshrined in our constitution, and and again and and just to back up for a second on this one because Tim Kaine I don't know if you've if you heard Tim Kaine's comment, senator Kaine from, in Virginia. Yeah. He he made a comment that he found it disturbing that that we believe that our rights derive not from government, but from a creator. He finds that to be very disturbing, and he said that during a a hearing with, I think, I think it was, was it Cash Patel or was it, Bobby Kennedy Junior?
But he said that, and I heard it, and I was like, what? What do you mean? You're a sitting senator, you're a lawyer, and you don't know that? Well, but that's the thing. See, the and people on the right think this way too. They think that government is the one that provides your rights, that that and this so they can just easily, but that's not the case. Our rights are inherent. Our rights come from God. They come from our creator. Every human being was born with those inalienable rights. Our founding generation were brilliant and wise, and put those things and codified those things, not as the government is giving them to you, but charging the government to protect those rights. Correct. These are these are sacred things that belong to you, and the government shall not infringe them. Exactly. And though and that's what America is. That's what the
[01:07:28] Unknown:
not guarantees of anything except for a lack of government intervention on our rights. Exactly.
[01:07:32] Unknown:
But fast forward here two hundred fifty years later, people are under the impression that that everything that we have is because government gives it to us and allows us, so therefore, they can take those from us, those rights from us when they can't. And that's the that's that's the point I was trying to make, is that America is not the federal government. America is not this union of states. America is an idea. America is independence, liberty, it's freedom. It's it's, you know, not to make a mock of it, but, you know, apple pie, hot dogs, you know, and and, and baseball. But Right. America, because it's not a government, this union of states came together voluntarily.
It was 13 it was 13 colonies that became states. Now let's you're frozen, so I can't tell when you're starting to talk, so I'm sorry if I'm stepping on you.
[01:08:36] Unknown:
Entities that decided to join together for their own mutual good. Exactly. It was for common defense and and trade. That that's that's all it was. Now Just a all if all The United States did in its territory was mutual defense and free trade, My goodness. How much better would it be Absolutely.
[01:08:55] Unknown:
Instead, you have a federal government that regulates how much water's in your toilet bowl.
[01:08:59] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Or how fast your car can go or how much gas mileage it's gonna get or what chemicals, it can or can't emit on a given day. Right.
[01:09:10] Unknown:
Now, unfortunately, we're in this federal system, so I believe in federalism. I believe that, you know, it is the states should have the final say in what goes on in that state. The federal government should be so small, so insignificant, it doesn't affect your life or mine on a daily basis. That's what I want in my government, and that's what our founding generation set this up as. Right. That the that the general government, that as what they called it, the general government would be so small and so insignificant, you wouldn't even know it existed.
[01:09:42] Unknown:
And again, that works for both sides. Exactly. Formula are much happier if all us Texans, weren't messing up their gas mileage rules. Fine. Exactly. You
[01:09:54] Unknown:
can make electric cars. Cool. Do what you wanna do. Your state, do what you gotta do. Don't bring it don't force it on me. I don't I don't agree with that. Right. You know? Let us
[01:10:05] Unknown:
let us be us. And another thing I sometimes bring up, there's this really weird story where Jesus says, unless you hate your mother, you can't be my disciple, paraphrasing. Mhmm. And it's pretty dang on direct. Right? Yeah. Unless you you hate your mother, you can't be my disciple. Does Jesus mean that I should hate my mom? Of course not. I think hyperbole to say that your faith in God, your should be so important to you that compared to how much you love even your mother, your mother's way down here. Right? I think that's understood widely as as a hyperbole. You don't really hate your mom, but that's what he said. Right. Right?
When I talk about Texas independence, people say, well, you hate America.
[01:10:53] Unknown:
No. I don't. You get that a lot. Yeah.
[01:10:55] Unknown:
I value independence way up here, and the idea of America as a is way down here. Right? I value freedom and independence and liberty and personal responsibility and have it my way, and you should also have it your way. I value all of that way up here. And the idea of The United States Of America is way down at the bottom. So I guess if we wanna use Jesus's analogy, yes. Sure. I hate America, but I don't hate America. Don't take that clip out of context later. Yes. By contrast, I value freedom and Of course. Much more. I'm not loyal to United States so much to aim for the principles that made America great in the first place.
[01:11:34] Unknown:
That's it. That's exactly that's the clippable moment right there. I just wish you I just wish you weren't frozen like this.
[01:11:43] Unknown:
Sounds about right. Sounds
[01:11:46] Unknown:
No. But but that's a valid point. And and again, just just to just to wrap up what I was thinking before is that, you know, this country was founded by 13 individual colonies that became states. State is another way of saying country. So 13 individual countries compacted together in for mutual defense and common trade. That's the foundation of the country, of The United States, of this American Union. States voluntarily joined the union. The states these these independent sovereign countries created the federal government, not the other way around. Right. Absolutely. The federal government needs to be subservient to the states, not the other way around.
[01:12:28] Unknown:
Well and so think about it after after things fall apart. Right? So let's just say we'll just pick the arbitrary number of 50. Let's just say we end up with 50 independent countries. Each state independently says I'm out on my own country. Mhmm. I don't that happening, but but, again, theoretically. Could those states then make deals with their neighbors? Of course, they can. Mhmm. Nobody's Switzerland can't. Right? Nobody says New Zealand can't. Right? So might decide. Hey. Me and Massachusetts, we're gonna do free trade, and, if you pick on him, you pick on me. Right?
You know, people always wanna say, well, you're gonna let China and Russia take over the world if you break up The United States. Not necessarily. No. Free trade and mutual defense does all the jobs that keep China and Russia at bay. You know, only by adding all the federal dysfunction that we have do we get to this point. Yeah. So, you know, again, I think it could look very similar to what it looks right now on the good side of things. Mhmm. We already appreciate free trade mutual defense. I think it's funny that they just renamed the Department of War. You know, we hadn't defended jack crap over here in forever. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're we're we're in a perpetual state of war since World War two ended. Somewhere else. We're not the Department of Defense.
No. But, you know, an independent Texas wouldn't necessarily feel obligated to blow up countries on the other side of the world. It's only the federal United States government that does that. That. That's
[01:14:05] Unknown:
right. And and just and just for the argue and just and just for the sake of argument, you know, Texas and you know this. I'm I'm telling folks that are listening that might not know this. Texas is not the only state in this union of states that have, independence movements. Oh, definitely not. You know, we already talked about California, but there are several other states.
[01:14:28] Unknown:
At least that I'm aware of. New Hampshire, that's a good one. They got their bills through the legislature a couple of times. Mhmm. Progress. Alaska has had it before. Yeah. There I think there were six or eight, active ones by the time I counted. And that's just within The United States. That's not counting like, Scotland wanting to be independent from Great Britain or Northern Ireland or, you know, worldwide, there are independence movements everywhere everywhere.
[01:14:55] Unknown:
Because it's a natural thing. It's it's not something that says fringe. It's not something that's abnormal. It's a natural occurrence throughout the life the lifespan of a of a of a country and a people. You know? If it wasn't if it wasn't for separation or or, or or I'm gonna use a bad word. Okay? Secession. If it wasn't for secession, The United States wouldn't exist. Right. The 13 states seceded from Great Britain.
[01:15:26] Unknown:
Right. They did. And I I think about I use the analogy in the book about about sending our kids off to college. Okay? So we understand that we raise our children with the expectation that they are gonna go away, please. Right? They go do something else somewhere else. Right? We don't say my kids seceded from my household. No. We say he grew up, and he went to college. Right? Right. You know, only in political terms do we feel obligated somehow rhetorically to hold on. Right? The idea that we would grow something up and then let it go on its own and be better than it was living in our house. Right? Be free or independent. We accept that in society. We accept that with our children, but in the government, man, melts people's brains.
You can't talk about that without people getting cross eyed. Right. Exactly. Another fun analogy of that. Right? We send our kids to college, and they do dumb stuff. Right? And college kids are famous for being for just getting by, you know, the group of guys that they they have furniture that they found in the alleys all over town. Right. You know? They're drinking out of Yahtzee cups, you know, because, they're eating raw noodles, you know, every day, all the time, but can't afford real food. Right? But nobody says those knuckleheads doing all those things, nobody says they have no right to be independent. They need they they we have to hold them back to their mom and dad's house by force. Right? That's true. No. No. Nobody says that. It's irrational. It's so it's funny that it's people would even think to do that that way. But when it comes to the idea of maybe we have a country, a state that has matured enough to the point where we wanna step out on our own and be independent, they say, well, you're not an adult. You can't do all the adult stuff yet. You know, you're not a millionaire. How are you gonna retire or whatever? Exactly. Well, I'll never be a millionaire with the federal government over my shoulder. We're gonna do some dumb stuff. We're gonna make some mistakes. We're gonna have have some hiccups. We're gonna suffer through some of the consequences of our choices. Of course.
And that's a part of becoming independent. That is not, you know, that that's a reasonable expectation. Agreed. The sessionist will say, well well, you can't you what are you gonna what's text what's an independent Texas gonna do about China? Nothing. Right? Or what's an independent Texas gonna do about Social Security? Well, we're not gonna have it because we we seceded from that. Right? You know, all all these issues, sure. It it'll be hiccups. It'll be, you know, sleeping on huge couches from an alley. It it'll be what it is. Right. But that develops character and makes you better down the line. We allow that of our children, but nobody wants to seem to allow that of our states.
[01:18:13] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I noticed a lot of the objections also come from a a a post texted viewpoint. Well, what about social security? What about getting, what about military protections? What about this? And what about that? You know, yeah. Okay. That that's all stuff that'll get worked out through the whole process of this separation that's gonna take place. Just like in a marriage relationship, you work out the details, through arbitration. You you get the things worked out, and okay, so you're gonna be responsible for this after after we're done, and we're gonna be responsible for this, and it's gonna take this long to get to get to this point. And that's I I think that's what's gonna end up how it would end up happening. So so things like those post texted concerns and comments, you know, well, Social Security, what's gonna happen to my social I've been paying into it for so long. Well, you're not getting it anyway. I mean, what's the difference?
[01:19:06] Unknown:
Yeah. That's that's point number one is right. Everybody under about 50 has been told their whole life that it's insolvent and it's gonna die. Mhmm. And yet, we still insist, what about my Social Security? But it it's a it's a house of cards. Right. It's a Ponzi scheme, maybe even. You know, it is attainable. So why do you think, 20 year old man, that you're even gonna get it? Why do you even think it's relevant? Right? We already are spending 37,000,000,000,000 more dollars than we have,
[01:19:36] Unknown:
but sure. Yeah. Okay. Sure. In in forty years, they're gonna pay you just like they said. We're paying for the pensions for people in in in Ukraine right now. Yeah. I know. They're not. We can't even we can't even get our Social Security that we paid into for our entire life.
[01:19:51] Unknown:
But number two, there already are some precedence. So if I if I pay into Social Security and then I decide I really like the weather in in Canada or Venezuela or Mexico or wherever, if I move somewhere else to another country after I've paid into Social Security, do you know what happens to your Social Security, Joe? You continue to get it. You get it. You know why? Because you paid in. Right? They have a an obligation to keep the terms of the agreement that we're under. That's right. That changes if Texas becomes independent. It's the same as if I moved to Costa Rica. I think it's reasonable to say that in the negotiation of who gets what. Right? That there there will be some provision for that. Right. Well, these citizens have paid into your system. How are we gonna reconcile that? You know, the most obvious answer is they get a proportional payout based on how long they've paid in. And we turn it off on Tuesday, and then it stops after that. Right? But, I mean, there are ways. There are ways. It doesn't require war. It doesn't require fancy accounting. It just requires
[01:20:52] Unknown:
no None of it does. None of it does. The the look. The the look. The organizations like the Texas Nationalist Movement that are pushing for a national divorce, okay, to to use the name of the book, you know, they are all about going through the legislative process to separate from the American Union, and that's the way it it that's the only way it's gonna work, is to go through the legislative process. Now we've come close to getting it on the ballot for the folks in the in the state to vote on, but, of course, you know, this the the Texas GOP, even though it's in their party platform, Texas independence, seems to pull all the stops out to, to make sure it doesn't get on the ballot. They'll come up with they can't they last time, they came up with some crazy thing about signatures and and,
[01:21:39] Unknown:
They'll not do their job. Absolutely.
[01:21:41] Unknown:
Yeah. But It it makes you wonder why why are they so insistent on not adhering to their own party platform?
[01:21:51] Unknown:
Because they they have this idea that all the money comes from mom and dad up in DC. And if I'm a good boy, then I can get a promotion.
[01:21:59] Unknown:
That's that's what I think. Why? And and you're not you're not I don't think you're off. I don't think you're far off. I think and I think there's other things involved also, but, I think I think they get some kickbacks and and whatnot. But I I can't prove that. I but I think so. Correct.
[01:22:13] Unknown:
But here here's something I I like to talk about. So where where does The United States federal budget come from? Simply enough, it's taxes. Right? They don't generate anything. They just take from from other people. So so taxes. Where do taxes come from? Joe's pocket.
[01:22:36] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:22:38] Unknown:
Right? Every tax comes from some person. Even if it's a business tax, it comes from some person
[01:22:45] Unknown:
eventually. That's right.
[01:22:47] Unknown:
So when you when you talk about getting federal funds, where do those come from? From the people of the state.
[01:22:55] Unknown:
Right? That's right.
[01:22:57] Unknown:
My theory here, if Texas were to take the same amount of taxes and give them back to Texans,
[01:23:06] Unknown:
would we not break even on federal funds? Of course. Because there's no federal funds. It's all money taken from us. That's right. Right? Every every state has the opportunity to keep their own money at home. That's right. Every state contributes to the federal government. Alright? And and and supposedly it goes to it goes into a pot and all gets spread out and so on and so forth. And so they're giving you back your own money, but you never get back what you put into it. Right. So so that I I think what's it's I I forget how I forget the number, but I think it's like something like like like $15,000,000,000 or something like that that never comes back to Texas.
[01:23:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Now They they have to absorb some of it administratively. Right? Mhmm. There's no they're actually giving back to the states what the states paid in. Right. They're assuming some of those resource. But the other thing to think about, you know, there there's this idea that there are some states that pay in disproportionately more. There are other states that are, like, leeches on the system or something, and they they take all the benefits and the other states have to pay for it. Right? Both of those concepts. Okay. Sure. We let's just let's just say they're true. Okay.
Number one, the the the data is impossible to find. The machine has a very vested interest in you not finding out if you pay too much tax or not. That's right. But let's just say, what what does that look like? So California, sort of famous for being a donor state. They pay more taxes than they receive back in benefits, supposedly. So if they leave the federal government, what happens? They get to keep more money. They pay equal taxes to what they receive in benefits instead of paying more taxes for what they receive in benefits. So if you pay too much in taxes to the federal government compared to what you get, then leaving is the obvious answer.
Right? If you break even, if you if you pay in at about the same rate that you take out, it was your money anyway. Right? So you don't lose anything by leaving because you keep the money that you're sending in because you break even, and that's what break even means. Right? Exactly. And it's only the to consume more than they pay that would even have any hint of a problem. Okay? But here's how you address that. Mississippi, again, famous for, you know, consumption of resources relative to what it pays in. Definitely the outlier on that.
But what are they really paying for? They're paying for blowing up Ukraine. Right? They're paying for transgender studies in California. They're paying for oil subsidies. They're paying for farm subsidies. Paying for, what's the transgender studies in Pakistan. I mean, you know, half of the reason to leave is because we're paying for dumb stuff that we don't believe in. So all of the people have to do that would receive less federal money back is quit doing some of the dumb stuff that the feds are doing with our money. Right? Right. You know, The United States spends, roughly 4% of gross domestic product on defense, which is roughly twice the rate of everybody else in the world.
Okay? So if if, if any state became its own country and spent the the international average on defense, it would be a 50% cut of what they're spending right now. Mhmm. Right? So, again, even the the states who who on paper might be worse off, they're only worse off because the feds are doing too much anyway. So by succeeding from that and getting to start over, again, they're fine. Nobody says Switzerland can't exist or New Zealand can't exist because they don't have all these services. Right. They with what they have just like everybody, every other household.
[01:27:06] Unknown:
So I found a number here. So, $207,000,000,000 in general revenue in 2022 from Texas to the federal government. K. And Texas received back 78,000,000,000. Right. Now don't you think that that 207,000,000,000, if it stayed here in Texas, would be able to fund all of the things that
[01:27:34] Unknown:
the federal government supposedly does for the people of the state of Texas? You would think. The the challenge there, again, is that the numbers even though I agree with your point, I don't agree with it on the numbers. Let me follow this. So, if the state of Texas collects money and sends it up yonder Mhmm. And then the feds send it back to the state of Texas. Right? Those numbers are about what you're saying, I believe. Yeah. But does does everything that the state of Texas remit belong back to the state, or do some of those benefits go to the individuals? Right? Do I get to drive on an interstate highway? Do I, get a pretense of Social Security eventually? Right? Those benefits are paid out to individuals, not the state specifically, or or through other other entities. So I'm okay, honestly, even though I agree totally in principle with the numbers not matching between what we send and what we receive. Well, no. My point is more of not not not so much the the matching.
[01:28:38] Unknown:
My my point is is that the money that that is collected here in the state of Texas and sent to the federal monstrosity Would we not? Would be better served here in Texas and used by the Texas government and the and the people of the state of Texas to to and and the the the municipalities to to to serve the people of the state and the municipalities.
[01:29:01] Unknown:
Again, you recognize I'm I'm doing the devil's advocate argument that the left uses too. Oh, I understand. Yes. I see. Yep. Other benefits. Right. But your point is the key. Right? If you just kept your own money, you could just have it. Right? You don't have to send it up there and then send it back. Yeah. You could just right?
[01:29:20] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm with you there. So it it's it's just a dis it's a dysfunctional system. It it's an abusive system, and it goes all back to what you said in your book. You know, it's an abusive relationship, and after a while, the abusive relationship has to come to an end. It
[01:29:36] Unknown:
it does, or or the outcomes just get worse.
[01:29:39] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, Now right now, we may have a little bit of a of a reprieve. We do. If I could I could say that, but what's gonna happen in in three and a half years when when, Donald Trump is out of office, and and, and and the Democrats steal, that election cycle, and and then what? And then we're right back to Biden two point o, and it's, of course, it's gonna be even worse. Right. Because the left is so completely radical and so so completely far left. The the it the it's it's insanity.
[01:30:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Like you said earlier, some flowers or a a nice vacation don't change the trajectory of the thing. Right. Right now, sure, we're in a decent spot. I mean, better than we've been Yeah. In wow. I believe. But that, again, hasn't changed the fundamentals that the whole relationship is is dysfunctional and coercive. Yeah. Right. We were not. Texas isn't fighting as hard against the feds because we're in a better place. California in the opposite scenario, though, because the relationship itself between the states and the feds is is not right.
It's not right. So what frustrates me a little is that the folks on on the the political right become complacent in times like this. Yeah. Exactly. They get that their guy won. Oh, good. My guy is in. We're gonna do all the things. He didn't do all the things last time either. Right? No one guy can do all the things, but they they get complacent and lose lose sight of the fact that it's it's actually the whole system that's the problem. It's the the behemoth, the machine that's bigger than one man or one woman who's driving the school bus off a cliff. Right? Yeah. He cares what color the jersey is on the school bus driver if he's driving the school bus off a cliff either way.
[01:31:30] Unknown:
Exactly. And and look, you know, I I I appreciate what this current administration is doing. If I was if I was to give them a grade, like a school grade, I would give them an a minus. There there have been there have been missteps. There have been mistakes, and there's some problems, and I'm I'm still not in agreement with some of the decisions that they're making. Am I happy with the border situation? Yeah. Absolutely. Are you kidding me? I'm in a border town for crying out loud. I'm very happy, you know, with with the change in the in the border policies and and and the work that they're doing. Do do I love to see the amount of deportations that are taking place under under Tom Homan and ICE? And, yeah, you know what?
I don't think they're gonna be able to get out as many as they claim they would because it it's it took a while it took four years to get him here. It's gonna take a long time to get him out. You gotta find him now. You know? One of the numbers that I saw recently was I they were talking I I saw a a clip that Tom Homan did with, Bill Maher, and he said something about, like, 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 came in over the four years or or so. But there there there were another number I saw was there were 52,000,000 illegal aliens in this country right now.
52,000,000. How are you I'm sorry. You're not gonna there's you're not gonna get them all out of here in four years.
[01:32:52] Unknown:
And and maybe you don't maybe you need to, maybe you don't. Right? Mhmm. You know, part of the problem again, I'm I'm nontraditional here. Surprise. I believe in a lot of things that people don't take for granted. Sure. But, you know, my ancestors moved here from somewhere. Mhmm. Your moved here from somewhere. Sure did. They didn't, and now we're part of this thing. Right? And I can say six generations ago, this became my thing, and now it's my thing because I've been here forever. Right? The people that are like that, the people that say, you know, there are better opportunities over there, and I can make a better place for myself and my people over there.
I can follow the rules over there and win instead of following the rules and having arbitrary governmental mess, like maybe, El Salvador or Venezuela or some, you know, Guatemala, some place that they're coming from. Right. We're corrupt as our government is, it does still manage to function because the rules don't suck too bad. There are other places that the rules and the constitution, the freedoms are worse, and the government sucks. Right? So, I mean, I get the idea that I want I wanna move over there and make something better for myself. Those folks, okay.
It's the ones that are you know, well, they have more free stuff over there. Right? Their taxes will pay for me to get a phone when I get there. You know? The or the ones who are like, I have no actual skills, and so maybe I'll go up there. Right? That's not to me, that's different. My challenge with, with the Biden administration on immigration was not that it existed. It said it was unregulated. Right? They were letting in everyone willy nilly. No screening, no vetting, no nothing. Right? You know, I think human beings have the right to try to make themselves better or try to get themselves into a better position.
Again, a little libertarian. Right? But but migration of peoples is, is a natural right. Borders are made up by governments. Right? But all that to say, you know, the way I say it sometimes is, you know, if someone knocks on my door and says, can I come in your house? K. I have the choice to be hospitable or not. I can judge them based on whatever appearance or credentials or whatever kind of interview, and I can say, yeah. Yeah. You can come in my house. Right? Everybody understands that. You're not obligated to let someone in your house. I I do immigration that same way. You know? If someone comes through the proper channels, someone knocks on the door, then I have the opportunity to say, yes. I would like to help you. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's It's not like enter my house ever. It's you gotta come through the door. Because what happens, Joe, if you go through the window?
[01:35:42] Unknown:
Oh, you you come through a window in my house, you're gonna get shot.
[01:35:45] Unknown:
Bingo. Right? We we understand that, you know, coming into my house, I did unannounced through improper channels, you know, that puts me at risk of my life, and I have the authorization by law to use deadly force there. Correct. Right. That's to me not the same as coming to the door and knocking and saying, hey, may I? Even if the answer is no, you may not. Right? Correct. That's the way I look at immigration. You come up my door, you knock on it, you ask to come in. If I say no and you leave, you're fine. Yeah. But you push your way into my door, then you're gonna get shot. Yeah. If you come through the window at night, it's really, really gonna be different. Yeah.
[01:36:22] Unknown:
Exactly. So I
[01:36:24] Unknown:
what what's interesting to me is that the law hasn't changed at all. Right? It goes back to my previous point about the law never actually changes because the government's bad at its day job. All they do is just flip how they enforce it. Yeah.
[01:36:38] Unknown:
So And that's the that that that goes back to what we said earlier about the instability in between administrations. You get, you you know, one administration says, okay, we're not gonna enforce these laws. Next administration comes in, and all by executive order, of course. You know, that's that's the point. You know, now I'm gonna sign all these executive orders saying we're gonna enforce the law. There shouldn't have to be executive orders to whether force enforce a law or not. The law is the law. This is a republic. It's a constitutional republic. It's founded in law. It's based in law.
The law is the law. You know? It should. If you don't like the law, then change the law.
[01:37:13] Unknown:
Right. The fact that we we have a presidential system where who's in charge makes a huge difference in terms of which way the policies go. That was never designed that way. You know, we are, as a federal system, we were not designed to have an authority up there that could just change the way the rules are interpreted. That wasn't that wasn't the game. The game was best representatives, and we negotiate and make deals. It's the best for all of us collectively.
[01:37:41] Unknown:
That's right. Right. And and then and the exec and the chief executive officer of the land executes the or the laws of the land.
[01:37:48] Unknown:
That has not happened in my lifetime. Never. No. No. You know, it's been broken a while.
[01:37:56] Unknown:
So, as as as people like us who, support Texas independence in the future, near future, I hope, my lifetime at least, what should we be doing to prioritize and prepare for that potential independent Texas?
[01:38:16] Unknown:
So number one would be, things go well when you are better prepared. Right? The ants and the grasshopper story or any of any of any of those things. If you are fiscally responsible in your own life Mhmm. If you raise your kids to think and act like you, right, if you get married to someone and you stay with them and have stability, Right? Everything that you could do that makes you a better person makes you a better citizen of a new country. And when it goes poorly, if it goes poorly, if things unravel some way, I have this feeling, that the people who already have will keep having. The people who already have not will continue to have not. Right? So number do the best you can by your family. Do the best you can for yourself.
You will not get to a point where you say, I wish I was less prepared than I am right now. Right? Right. But number two would be, you know, there's a saying that all politics is local. Right? How many how many mayors does it take to say, no. We're not doing that COVID restriction crap. Only takes one. Only takes one. Only takes one. Small town mayor can say, no. We ain't playing that stuff down here. Right? You know, how many police chiefs does it take to say, no. We're not confiscating the guns in this this county. That's right. Take Right? That's right. So so the, Lee County, New Mexico down in Hobbs and Lovington, their their sheriff's department actually declared one time that we are not enforcing unconstitutional gun laws here.
So that that idea of choosing capable representatives who support the things that you support at the most local level is important. Yeah. Because it it yeah. It'll be some governor. Sure. It'll be some, senators or whatever. But if it comes down to is there violence on my street, it's gonna be my local guy.
[01:40:18] Unknown:
That's right.
[01:40:20] Unknown:
Right? So, again, as we prepare for future, challenges, you know, picking the best local guys, I think, is a viable strategy. I I would also say, you know, at no time in America's history have the voters thought, well, I don't really like this guy. He's the second best candidate, but I'm gonna vote for him. Right? We have always had the pretense of putting our best candidates out there and voting for the one that we think will serve us the best. Right? This this one this one's gonna represent me the best, and that's why they get my vote. How's that working out? That has gotten us to exactly this point. That's right. Okay. Yeah. So the idea that somehow if we could just select the right president, if we could just select the right senators, if we could just select the right state reps, we would fix all this. Well, guess what? That's been the strategy from day one. That's the strategy that got us to this point. You know, there's a an axiom in in counseling that if you do what you've done, you get what you've got.
Right? Another way to frame it is if nothing changes, then nothing changes. Right? If we Yeah. If we want you know, just voting our best guy will not get us there because that's what got us to this point. We've gotta do some other stuff. And I get local focus as one. You know, getting a getting a coalition, is another you know, we've had, I think, twelve twelve Texas state reps that have signed the Texas First Pledge saying that they will support, an independence referendum when the time comes. Not that they support Texas independence, but they support the people having access to the question. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. That's a that's a that's a difference. You know? We don't we don't have to win. We don't have to win the hearts and minds of the legislature in favor of our position.
Right? I don't have to to have a legislature that's in favor of Texas independence. All I have to have is a legislature that's not scared to ask the people what they wanna do. Right now, we don't even have that. No. We don't. Right. But the idea that somehow we should we should take over the legislature with Texas independence people. Cool. I would love that. Hasn't happened yet, and we've been trying that strategy. Right?
[01:42:29] Unknown:
True that. Very true.
[01:42:31] Unknown:
You gotta do is get people who will say, you know, maybe maybe this representation thing that we're supposed to be for, maybe let's try that. Maybe let's put it to a vote, and then we'll just see how it goes, and we'll figure it out. Right? That that's, I think, a piece of the of the answer as well, to get people that are willing to follow democracy.
[01:42:51] Unknown:
Yeah. But the quest but then then the question becomes, so if the people do voice their opinion because, you know, I I I forget how long ago it was, but it was there was a a a poll that I saw, where people where people were were asked, about Texas independence, and and 60% of the people that were polled were in favor of Texas independence. The question is, say that number's accurate, say that that's even projected forward here, and and you say say it's even, a little bit less than 60%. It gets to the Texas legislature. It gets put on a ballot. People vote for it.
I want this. Mhmm. Do you think the Texas legislature is gonna actually go through with it and implement it?
[01:43:39] Unknown:
I think the Texas legislature has proven that they are scared to ask the people questions. Mhmm. When was the last time okay. There there are 17, I believe is the number, ballot propositions coming on the next election, constitutional amendment. They're all made up bullcrap like. I I agree that the constitution should be amended so that we can spend some money on water. Like, there there has never been a question of any significance posed to the people for a vote again in my lifetime. That's where the breakdown is. The the breakdown is that they don't ask questions that mean anything. They don't believe in democracy to the point where they'll take an unacceptable answer. They're only gonna ask us to vote on things that they can't that they already have decided are inconsequential.
[01:44:24] Unknown:
Yeah. That's my take on that. No. That's a good that's a great point too. I mean, because I I do agree with you on that. I think, in my experience here, and and even up in New York, you know, where I'm from, you know, they're they're not gonna ask the tough questions. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Because they because they don't wanna upset the Apple card. You know? They they they got a good Yeah. They got a good thing going there. You know? They they get some nice little perks. They get some recognition. They get some extra money. They get, you know, all that's great. All these little great perks of being up up at the State House. And, you know, why would why we wanna change that then? But, you know, if we if we have to you know, if if we actually do become independent means, oh my god, we're gonna actually have to work.
[01:45:08] Unknown:
Right? You know? We can't wait on daddy war books to solve all our problems that they made in the first place. Exactly. Exactly.
[01:45:15] Unknown:
So if a referent if a referendum protects it were held tomorrow and passed, What do you what what do you think the sequence of events is that that would follow?
[01:45:26] Unknown:
Yeah. So, let me tell you how to start a war first. The way you start a war is you get all your weapons and you claim a territory and say, this one is mine. Mhmm. It's not yours anymore. I've got guns. It's mine. Okay? That's exactly what, you know, Iraq rolled into Kuwait. How did that work out? Right. Rolled into Ukraine. How did that work out? Right? In none of those scenarios, did the people of the state vote as authorized by the legislature to to say we are on our own. Every one of those scenarios was tried trying to take by force, what you weren't really entitled to. Fort Sumner, honestly, the same thing. Mhmm. Right? And that there was a lot of gamesmanship behind that, and both sides were you know, that whole situation was set up because there were forces that wanted war. But my point is, if you want a war, you get some tanks.
You say this one's mine. I'm independent now. Yes. Right? Nobody's proposing that. Nobody's proposing that. Joe Biden is making fun of that. Oh, if you wanna take on the government, you don't need AR fifteens. You need f 15. Right? Right. Yeah. I remember that. This idea of violence and and forceful coercion. Nobody's talking about that. Right? So what what the Texas independence movement is talking about is we use the existing channels. We use the elected legislature to authorize a vote on voting day, not some made up extra vote. Mhmm. We just vote when we vote. Right? And then that vote triggers a legislative process.
So the the proposal by the Texas Nationalist Movement is that the bill passes, the vote passes, and the bill establishes a committee whose job is to go upstairs and say, hey, boss. We've got these 13 different issues that we've got to resolve before independent five years from now. Right? Right.
[01:47:19] Unknown:
There is no text at Tuesday where, oh, we voted yesterday, so we're independent now. Bye. You know? And I think a lot of people think that too. Like, if, oh, you know, if if, you know, if we did if we did actually succeed in achieving independence, that it would be instantaneous. No. There's a transition period that's gonna take place.
[01:47:38] Unknown:
So when when Brexit passed? Okay. 2000 what? '16 or '18? So when Brexit passed, I'm sitting with my teenage sons at the breakfast table. I said, guys, guess what just happened. Right? You will never believe that England decided they didn't wanna be part of the European Union anymore. You know what that means. Right? That means Texas is gonna be independent because watch. On the other side of the world is a country that's fixing to disentangle itself from a union that it thinks doesn't serve a century. Right? The world really knows what this looks like.
It's only the American politicians that think it's gonna be different. Yeah. And they're
[01:48:18] Unknown:
here because they understand Brexit work too. And Brexit and Brexit clearly showed that it could be done nonviolently.
[01:48:25] Unknown:
Clearly. Clearly. And, you know, the the predictions that the sky was gonna fall and the whole economy of England was gonna die and I mean, everything was gonna fall apart, that didn't come true. It didn't go go that way. And I would say even if it had, they still have a right to be independent in those circumstances. Right. Right? The idea that there's gonna be some big catastrophe is just fear mongering, because catastrophes happen all the time. People deal with them all the time. We don't say that gift of no autonomy, no authority. Right? So, you know, when when I can look at the international stage and say, you know, democratically voting to start a negotiation process to leave later, what about that says war?
Not a damn thing. That's correct. To to believe that The United States would somehow respond with tanks and bombs. To what? To us voting? To us saying, we would like to be independent based on a majority vote of, of our citizens. I think they call it democracy.
[01:49:34] Unknown:
Right? Yeah. It smacks a bit. Yeah.
[01:49:37] Unknown:
Like that. So the The United States to respond with violence would have to take the role of Russia against Ukraine. They would have to take the role of China against Hong Kong. They would have to flip everything that they say is their values to respond with violence to Texas secession. Now do I trust them? Do I think they're gonna be upfront? No. Don't. Otherwise, I wouldn't wanna leave. But at least on paper, at least logic, it makes sense that they have no good reason to escalate to force because we are following the rules. Unlike the previous iteration where we said, oh, these guys all suck. Let's make a new convention, and let's just get together and decide on Tuesday that we're out of here. Right. Yes. Yeah. Now that we're out that fort yeah. That one's mine. I'm gonna blow it up if you don't leave. Right? Those are two good ways to get a war.
We are not proposing quick ways too. Yeah. We're not proposing that at all. We're proposing we do the democratic process through the existing channels, to get to a negotiated settlement, that requires absolutely no violence. That's why my subtitle is a plan for peace. Right? Not because national divorce is supposed to be smooth or awesome, but because we understand it intuitively, we know that there are ways to unravel this thing that don't result in violence and war. That's where I'm coming from.
[01:50:58] Unknown:
Alright. So, what what actions do you think, would need to take place in Texas, and what kind of negotiations with the federal government would be essential to maintain or enhance Texas economy?
[01:51:11] Unknown:
So you have to solve the currency problem. How do what by what units shall we trade? Right? There are I think I I looked it up. I think there's eight countries that specifically use the US dollars and another 25 that use a currency called something else that's linked to the US dollar. Right. Right? What does that mean? That means I don't need Texas dollars Mhmm. Because there's already an international precedent for I'll use the the the currency of my neighbor. Right? Right. We don't have to problem. We just have to agree on an exchange meeting. Same thing with defense. Right?
You know, Luxembourg probably doesn't need nuclear submarines because they're tiny. Another angle would be, if if Texas left The United States and then, Russia decided to invade Texas, what do you think would happen? I think The United States would be obligated to be involved. In some way, shape, or form. Yeah. Like, pick on my little brother. Right? He he may be he may be disabled, but he's my brother. Right? Is the is the way I look at it.
[01:52:23] Unknown:
You know? And then, of course, neighboring states would come to defense too because they they're not gonna wanna take a chance of being, of of becoming part of that invasion.
[01:52:31] Unknown:
Exactly. Even if we weren't on great terms, there are there are advantages to The United States maintaining defense of its previous territories. Right? You don't necessarily want the bad guys in your backyard.
[01:52:42] Unknown:
Right. So defense makes sense for everyone. And then and then you could also use you argue the same logic. You know, The United States has military installations in in a 150 countries around the world.
[01:52:53] Unknown:
God, we should bring those back.
[01:52:55] Unknown:
We should. Absolutely. But the point is is that
[01:52:59] Unknown:
they're defending other countries and other countries' borders. Why not this? But what about people always say, what about Fort Hood, Fort Cavazos? Right? A big military installation right in the middle of our territory. Well, guess what? They got big military installations in the middle of all kinds of other countries. Mhmm. It works somehow. Is it an overreach? Yeah, probably. Is it a good idea? No. It's not. But does it result in violence in all those countries? No. Not at all. Right? We could we could make some agreement that you keep the ones or we get this one and you get that one. I mean, it it becomes a negotiation.
[01:53:30] Unknown:
Well, the military the the installations, the land and the installations doesn't belong to the federal government at all. It belongs to the state. So they're actually leasing that land. Right. Yeah. Good luck getting to believe, though. No. I I understand that. I'm just saying, you know, if you wanna be technical about it. Negotiating the settlement there is a better move. Of course. Oh, absolutely. But I'm just saying, you know, just for point of argument that, you know, it it belongs to us in the first place.
[01:53:53] Unknown:
Mhmm. Exactly.
[01:53:54] Unknown:
Things you work out in a divorce. You know? You can keep this, and I'll keep that. Who are you that? So what what is the,
[01:54:01] Unknown:
how do you define the proportion of the assets and liabilities that belong to Texas? Is it one fiftieth? Is it based on GDP? Is it based on population? Mhmm. How do you decide, you know, what what proportion belongs to Texas and what doesn't? Yeah. That's a negotiation. It's in ridiculously complex. Like, I don't even pretend to understand the ins and outs of many of those discussions. Sure. Right? But that's not my job. My job is to stand in the middle and say, let's work it out peacefully.
[01:54:35] Unknown:
There are other people. I I need to trust the experts to figure that stuff out. Yeah. I got you. Alright. So final thoughts here. So what do you hope the audience takes away from this cold conversation that we this sprawling conversation that we had tonight?
[01:54:49] Unknown:
If you've made it to this point without understanding, here's here's the summary. Okay. I believe that the federal government is dysfunctional and abusive to states on both sides of the aisle. And so America's best move, our best way forward is to divide on purpose. We'll let California be California. We'll let New York be New York. We'll let Texas be Texas as independent countries that can then make deals for mutual trade and mutual defense if they want to. Meddling in social issues is what has brought us to this point of polarization. So by following the existing legal processes and using this amazing tool called voting and democracy, right, we can get to a point where we negotiate and exit just like Brexit or just like, other things worldwide in ways that does not require a violent response.
I'm very interested in Texas independence and not in civil war. Okay? So those those listeners who immediately might jump or their friends might jump to, well, yeah, we already fought that or, you know, you just wanna, no. I don't. I just wanna have a good day with my family and my friends. Right? That's right. No. No war in my backyard, doing things the way I like it without California being able to tell me how to do it and without me having to worry about what they're doing over there either. Right? So that that that would be my final word is that, you know, all we really want is independence, is autonomy that we we're supposed to have, but we don't.
So we're we're just gonna use democracy to get there, is is is the final goal.
[01:56:27] Unknown:
Well said. Very well said. I like that was very good. That that might be the clip for the day. Anything else that we have that we, haven't covered that you wanna talk about?
[01:56:37] Unknown:
So we've talked about the book tangentially. Can I sell a few maybe? So the book is called National Divorce, a plan for peace. It is available at national-divorce.com. National-divorce.com. You can buy it on Amazon if you think Jeff Bezos needs more dollars. But if you buy it at national-divorce.com, you can get them from me. I'll send them out autographed. That'll feed my kids. It'll be awesome. So National Divorce, A Plan for Peace. Can you see it?
[01:57:08] Unknown:
I don't think you can. Yeah. I think this the the lights yeah.
[01:57:12] Unknown:
Lighting the white is pretty The lights white it wetted it up.
[01:57:16] Unknown:
But, this is actually my second copy. That was nice. I bought the first one, and then I bought this one. And, bought the first one from Amazon. I got the second one from you. And I gave I actually gave my other copy to the now mayor of the city of Eagle Pass.
[01:57:35] Unknown:
That's where it's at. So Right. That's that. I gave copy to Ted Cruz's minion and said, hey. The boss man really needs to see this. I like Awesome. I'll give the way to people that that are willing to, to take the message. Also appreciate the support if you wanna buy one. You you joke about it. I have mine. Mine is heavily annotated
[01:57:54] Unknown:
so that, again, when I'm doing these things, I can find the key points faster. Yeah. Well, that's why I I couldn't find because in the other in the other one, I already had it marked and all that stuff, so I'm not gonna give him my, you know, my autograph copy. So, you know, you know, so I had a hard time finding what I wanted to look for. But, but it's a great book, folks. Honestly, I've read the book. It's it's it's it's written in in just such an easy to follow logical way. You gotta get a copy of this. National Divorce, Jason Fry. Jason, thank you, man. I appreciated you coming on the show tonight. I I I got some great screenshots of your of your frozen faces. So I'm Yeah. I'm gonna send them I'm gonna send them to you later.
Well, I'll send you my favorite one later. The other ones yeah. They're okay. Yep. Very good. Very good. Alright. Well, Jason, you already told us basically where, your website, national dash divorce dot com. We have all of that in the show notes. They'll all be in the, in the hyperlinks on the audio and on the, on the video side of it. And, Jason, this is great, man. I I really appreciate you coming on the show again. It's been I mean, we haven't we really haven't spoke much since since the last time you were on. So it was great getting caught up with you. It's a lot of fun, and, we'll definitely have you on again soon. You'd let me know when when it's good for you, and we'll work it out. And, thank you. Appreciate you.
[01:59:17] Unknown:
Thank you.
[01:59:19] Unknown:
Alright. Jason Fry, ladies and gentlemen. Alright. Pod home. Podhome.fm is the most modern and easy to use podcast hosting platform in the market today. Use it to publish your episodes, enhance your audio, and automatically generate transcripts, chapters, titles, show notes, and more. And you can even podcast live. You could also get your own website through Pod Home. Everything that you need in one affordable subscription of only $15.99 a month, just $15.99 a month. And if you go to podhome.fm today and sign up, you get thirty days free. So thirty days free and then $15.99 a month after that, and you get a whole team working for you. That's exactly what it feels like. When you publish your episodes, you got, it feels like you have a whole team working with you. So try them out, podhome.fm. That's podhome.fm.
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Alright. I think I covered everything. So thanks again for taking the time to be with us tonight. Don't forget the website, joeroos.com. Send us over any messages, questions, comments, cares, or concerns. And, folks, don't forget, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride and keep talking. Good night, folks. We'll see you tomorrow night. Have a great one.
Opening from Eagle Pass and week-in-review
Weekend shows: crypto picks and Bible study on wisdom
Guest intro: Jason Fry on National Divorce
Tech hiccups, Starlink chat, and warm-up banter
Getting to know Jason: background, hobbies, family
Faith, family, and politics: roots of Jason’s views
Texas politics frustrations: taxes, speakers, priorities
Outside money in Texas elections and state sovereignty
California-Texas migration and cultural friction
Upcoming guest tease and 2025 sovereignty signals
Gold depository, TX Stock Exchange, and preparedness
Does a friendlier DC slow independence movements?
Polarization, violence concerns, and the ‘Judges’ analogy
Shelby Park standoff: near-miss cautionary tale
National Divorce explained: the marriage metaphor
Addressing ‘civil war’ and treason accusations
Can independence reduce polarization across states?
One-size-fits-all governance vs. diverse states
Perpetual union, realism, and consent of the governed
America as an idea vs. the U.S. government
Federal overreach and the case for robust federalism
Post-breakup cooperation: trade and defense possibilities
Independence movements beyond Texas
‘Post-TEXIT’ worries: Social Security and practicality
Ballot access hurdles and party platform irony
Who really funds what? Federal taxes and returns
Donor states, spending priorities, and defense costs
Keeping Texas dollars in Texas
Immigration: borders, rules, and enforcement swings
Executive orders, rule of law, and systemic drift
How to prepare: personal resilience and local politics
Let the people vote: referendum vs. legislature’s fear
If it passed: process, not tanks—Brexit as model
Negotiating currency, defense, and bases post-exit
Why D.C. violence makes no sense against a vote
Final case: divide on purpose, negotiate in peace
Book plug: National Divorce and where to buy
Show wrap, calls to support, and programming notes
