well-known tech blogger Robert Scoble told The Texas Tribune on Tuesday that he remembers the meeting with Perry in the governor’s office in 2009. It's clear from interviews, blogs and Twitter postings that the remarks were recorded nearly a month before the April Tea Party gathering, which helped launch Perry’s successful 2010 re-election effort.
In the meeting, Perry can be heard speaking to the group of tech bloggers about the founding of Texas in 1836. A slideshow shows Perry pointing to a painting of the dramatic fall of the Alamo, artifacts in his office and the “Come and Take It” logo on his own boots.
Texans have a “different feeling about independence,” Perry told the group.
“When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation,” the governor can be heard saying. “And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”
The bloggers erupted in laughter after the remarks, and the slideshow was posted under the headline “Texas Governor Rick Perry jokes about Texas leaving the United States.”
One of the tech bloggers from California I believe... perhaps Robert Scoble himself... in the recording even suggested that he would move to Texas if it became its own country... amid the robust laughter...
Heck you can buy "SECEDE" t-shirts and bumper on the drunkest part of 6th Street in Austin. For Texans it has nothing to do with George Wallace or the Deep South type of thinking and everything to do with our state's unique history... Texas was its own country at one point you see... with its own president... and its own ambassadors to other nations... and Texas is the only state to enter the United States via treaty rather than annexation...
...And given that Texas provides a disproportionate amount of jobs, tax dollars, military servicemen, oil, NFL football players, and other exports to the rest of the nation, sometimes it seems like Texas could still be its own country... and taking away the prospect of a violent Civil War Texas very well might be a lot better off as an independent nation with a continued strong affiliation with but independence from the rest of America... for Texans and non Texans the whole "secede" thing is sort of a larger than life mythology based in actual history... it is a shirt that tourists buy because they think it is funny... and a harmless line bloggers loudly laugh about because it is funny...
In the end Rick still never advocated secession... which actually irritates some of the more hard core secessionist peeps who wanted him to just sign an executive order making it happen... Ron Paul did advocate secession though... in a video defending Rick, Ron Paul went all in on secession. Ron Paul correctly tells the camera that Rick didn't call for secession... but then Ron Paul goes on to say how Texas can and likely should secede and how it is an important Constitutional principle and check on government in favor of liberty...
I guess it says a lot about the viability of the respective candidates that Ron Paul actually calling for secession isn't newsworthy while Rick obviously joking about others wanting secession gets the headlines... yet if Ron Paul places in the top few in Iowa's straw poll this Saturday will they start "vetting" him or do they just not even know how to handle him? I wouldn't likely vote for Ron Paul for president in a primary, and especially not this year, but I could see quite a lot of unfair, cliched and lazy media "vetting" if he were to become a top tier candidate with a strong finish as the polls currently show he will have... you have to wonder if Ron Paul actually talking up secession would be part of that?
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Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.