Would You Vote to Rejoin the Union? Birth Tourism, Bullion Confiscation, and a Texas Defense Doctrine

Daniel Miller opened this week’s Late Night Coffee Talk with a question the Texian Brief had put to readers a few days earlier. If your state were already a self-governing independent nation, with control over its own borders, currency, trade, taxation, and defense, would you vote to give all of that up and join the union? He said he was struck by how many people wrote back to answer flatly no, and read that response as further evidence that the sentiment for Texas independence has hardened. With the launch of the USexit.org effort putting the playbook in the hands of all fifty states, and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in the background, he argued the mood is shifting well ahead of November.

Much of the hour circled back to a single theme. Legislators keep hacking at the branches instead of the root. On a question about Representative Brian Harrison’s stated push to ban birth tourism, and a follow-up about counties refusing to issue birth certificates, Miller walked through why federal supremacy over immigration means the courts would likely strike such measures down, the same way they have boxed in state action on the H-1B visa question. Challenge Washington at every turn, he said, but understand that lasting control over borders and immigration only comes when Texas becomes a self-governing independent nation.

He also fielded questions on storing precious metals at the Texas Bullion Depository and whether the state would resist federal confiscation, on how the TNM cooperates with movements like Alberta’s without ever inserting itself into another people’s fight, on whether a future Republic of Texas should hold every means of defense including nuclear weapons, on the growth of mass migration and its cultural consequences, and on the hard question of what the country’s soldiers died for. Along the way he noted a coming founding-sponsor announcement, new personnel including Mack Dunkin as political director and Chris Bro as legislative director, and the Texas Independence Referendum Act headed into the next session.

Questions answered in this episode

• If Texas were already an independent nation, would you vote to give that up and join the union?
• How can Representative Brian Harrison move to ban birth tourism in Texas, and is that even legal under federal law?
• If the federal government allows it, how could a Texas county or hospital refuse to issue a birth certificate to a child born here?
• How do we store gold and silver at a Texas facility, and since it is legal currency here, can the state stop Washington from confiscating it?
• Will the TNM work with Alberta to help it leave Ottawa, and how does the movement relate to independence efforts outside Texas?
• The push cards are a great tool, but has any thought been given to producing business-card-sized materials?
• With the United States and Mexico as neighbors, would they try to take Texas over after independence?
• Should a future Republic of Texas have nuclear weapons?
• What do you make of the growing number of mosques appearing across Texas?
• What is your answer to people who ask what our soldiers died for?