HS 351 - FBF - "Secession Madness" in All 50 States with Drew Zahn

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats, and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show. This is your host, Jason Hartman, where we talk about protecting the people, places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. We have a great interview for you today and we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds on the Holistic Survival Survival Show. And by the way, be sure to visit our website@holisticsurvival.com you can subscribe to. Our blog, which is totally free, has loads of great information and there's just a lot of good content for you on the site. So make sure you take advantage of that@holisticsurvival.com we'll be right back. It's my pleasure to welcome Drew Zahn to the show. He is an author for Worldnet Daily and one of the editors there as well. And he has been covering, most recently, something that is very topical, and that is the movement that has now spread to all 50 states since Obama's reelection, and that is these secession movements that you've probably read and heard about. So Drew's here to tell us more. Drew, how are you?

I'm doing very well, thank you.

Good, good. And just out of curiosity, I always like to ask my guest, where are you located today?

I live in Iowa.

Okay, you're in Iowa. Fantastic. So now it has. There is a secession movement in all 50 states. I guess in. In the way Obama might look at it, there are eight states that aren't participating. I'm joking because I don't know if you recall what he said on the first campaign. He said, I've been to all 58 states. So anyway, what is going on with the secession movement? Is it just sort of a gesture? Is it just kind of like a sort of a dumb protest, or is there some real momentum behind this?

Well, I think there are a lot of people across the country who are feeling that the federal government has indeed abandoned some of its principles, some of the founding principles of our Constitution and so forth, and yet these people, you know, may feel these things kind of quietly kind of in their living rooms while they're watching the television or whatnot. What happened was basically this movement to create these petitions just kind of got publicized. Toot my own horn a little bit. I'm the one who found this thing and first broke the story on WND.com about this secessionist petition. And I think what's happening is people are just saying, hey, here's somebody who thinks like me or who is willing to take a radical step like me. And I just want to let my voice be heard and I want to trying to push this forward so that people can kind of. I think it sort of became almost a social gathering place around these petitions to say, hey, here's another person and another one and another one like me.

Well, I have long predicted, and you know, when I was Talking about this 10 years ago, when I thought the federal government was just becoming far too intrusive and overstepping their authority and you know, I'm a big states rights advocate. For a long time I've been saying that there will be a secession movement and that if we live out our natural life, hopefully, you know, hopefully we'll live out our natural lives. I should say that we will see an actual secession. You know, I guess the likelihood is it might be Texas first. Even their governor, Rick Perry mentioned it a few years back. And I think it was kind of a casual remark when he said it. But at some point, you know, when the federal government is taking such a big tax bite, I think the states just look at it, if nothing else is a simple business decision. I mean, we could contract. The state might think we could contract with the federal government to provide defense. We could create our own defense department internally. What are we really getting from the feds except a bunch of overreaching stuff? Unfunded mandates, you know, all sorts of things like that. It doesn't seem like there's really that much benefit coming from the federal government, frankly.

Well, there has been for years. Now. You mentioned about 10 years ago or whatnot, becoming aware of this, really the idea that a state or a state's rights may be infringed upon. That goes back more than a hundred, and that goes back even before the Civil War where secession was such a big deal. But I think the thing that is really sort of pushing this just right now is that there have been people talking about states rights being trumped upon. But that's kind of vague. That's sort of an abstract concept. But just recently we have a president who created a health care program that for a lot of people stood up and said, hey, wait a minute, some of these mandates, and particularly it was the contraception coverage, this violates rights of conscience, this violates religious liberties. That's First Amendment kind of stuff. We're not just violating states rights. Now the federal government, it's violating individuals rights. And I think that's kind of a wake up call. This isn't so abstract anymore. This is very concrete. And that's some of the concept that we're seeing as we read through these different petitions. They're not all worded the same. Some of them point out that our fundamental rights are being violated not just as states, but as individuals.

I don't disagree. You won't get any argument from me on that. But these are some of the issues behind this secession movement. First of all, how big is it? I mean, it was just immediate after the election I started hearing this and then, you know, I remember hearing that it went to, went to 40 states. You know, it was just a few and then it was like 40 of them and now it's all 50. How big are these movements? I guess there's some 25,000 signature kind of a hoop that they need to jump through to be taken seriously on a petition or how does that work?

Yeah, well, let's go a little bit to the background. The website called we the People was created by the White House. And you can find it at petitions.whitehouse.gov and on that website, basically what it says is because we have a First Amendment right to petition our government, the White House created this so people could send in a petition. And if they could get 25,000 signatures, the white House pledged that it would be put on a list of petitions that they would answer.

Under which president was the we the People site created?

I think it was Obama who created it. I'm not sure about its history. Everything on the site, of course, gives credit to Obama.

Good window dressing on Obama's part. You know, it's all about the marketing message more than the reality nowadays, unfortunately.

Well, it. And what happened was the day after Obama was elected, a gentleman named Michael. We don't even know his last name because last names don't appear on the website. But a gentleman named Michael from Slidell, Louisiana created a petition. He wanted Louisiana to be able to peaceably secede from the union.

Well, was that after the reelection or the first election?

After the reelection, the one most recently. And it got a couple of thousand signatures, just a few People knew about it. And then on Friday of last week, let's see, that would be November 9th. I got a chance to take a look at it, saw it, and wrote up a little news article in WND about it. Well, what happened was over the weekend, some 300,000 people read that article and they started signing and they started signing and they started adding states. Texas got added and Florida got added, and soon it just began to snowball. Now, the state of Louisiana, a long time ago has passed that 25,000 signature threshold. The state of Texas has passed 100,000 signatures.

Leave it to Texas.

There's now all 50 states, even as blue states as you can get. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode island, whatnot. These states have added petitions as well as my last count was a couple days ago, it was up over 500,000 total signatures. If you add up all 50 states, I since heard it's up over 600,000. It keeps growing and growing.

So, you know, I just got to say, I mean, I kind of. I don't know, I don't want to be called a traitor or anything, or not a team player, but I kind of like this. I think it's good that people are thinking this way and trying to keep the federal government monster in check. You know, at least it sends a message. I doubt there's going to be any real secession, but, you know, at least it kind of sends a message. Hey, folks, you know, you can't just tread all over us. As the Gadsden flag would say, you can't. Don't tread on me. And in. But I mean, Obama was elected by, what was this popular vote, like 62 million people or something? I mean, 500,000, this is nothing. This is like pocket change, right?

Well, right, to a degree. What we're looking at is simply people trying to make some noise, get their voices heard and so forth. And you do, of course, have the whole question of whether secession is even legal or not, whether it can happen. If you'd like, I can address that, sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I've always heard, and I hear this as you know, I've heard it for years, but recently when I saw something on TV about it, I hear now that it's a myth that there is something in the constitution of the state of Texas that allows it to secede that is different from every other state in the country. Talk about the legality, if you will. And, you know, I'm just sort of wondering if there really. If it ever really got to the point where a state was really trying to do this Would the federal government roll tanks in there and start killing people and really push this down? Or what could you see happen? Right. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so legalities.

There are three different ways that a state could theoretically leave the Union. Two of these ways, Supreme Court decisions and previous presidents and most legal scholars agree, are perfectly legal. And then one of them is very controversial. So let's start with the legal ones first. A state can leave the Union if they have approval from the other states. In other words, if Florida wants to go its own way and the rest of the US Is okay with going its own way, it can be sent off.

Right. But do you have to get 49 other states to approve?

Well, we don't have a formal process written in the Constitution for that. It's largely agreed upon by legal principle. And by a Supreme court decision, Texas versus White in 1869, which came right after the Civil War, which is one of our most significant Supreme Court decisions on this. They did leave that as an option, but we don't have any process for how to go about doing that. The second method is by revolution. Write your Declaration of Independence, take up arms against the United States, and cut yourself loose. Again, that Supreme Court decision and other presidents in the past have said, yeah, well, you can do that.

Well, I have to say that I think the rallying cry might be one from history. And here it goes. We've all heard it. It's taxation without representation. Because certainly I think that's happening nowadays.

Well, that's what largely fueled the secession movement of 1860. There had been a big bubbling movement of division within the country. And then what happened in 1860 was you had a president who was elected entirely from states in the North. Not a single Southern state voted for Abraham Lincoln. At that point, they felt like the Southern states felt like there was nothing they could do. They were going to be taxed, but they had no voice in electing the president.

And I just got to say, if anybody thinks, as I used to, that Abraham Lincoln was this incredibly great guy, read the book Dishonest Abe. It'll change some of your perceptions about Lincoln. He was. He did some pretty bad things. I'll just put it that way. I think that's by DiLorenzo. I can't remember the author, but anyway, go ahead.

Yes, as a member of the press, I'm well familiar with some of the things that Lincoln did. But again, there's the third method that potentially a state could leave the Union, and that's called secession. And that's where A state would just say, I don't want to be a part of the United States anymore. This is extremely controversial. It's been controversial for more than 200 years. Even before the Constitution was written, there was a lot of question about whether a state could or couldn't do that. Patrick Henry, for example, didn't want people to sign the Constitution because he was afraid of how states would get trapped up by an ever growing federal government. Thomas Jefferson was a voice saying that a state could in theory secede. Many legal scholars through the years have felt that have believed that this union we have is voluntary. But on the other hand, on the other side, many scholars feel the exact opposite. And in fact, if we go to 1869 Supreme Court case, Texas versus White, the Supreme Court, and keep in mind that's right after the Civil War, but Texas versus White, the Supreme Court did rule that it was unconstitutional for a state to secede, that we are in an indissoluble union. Now, just because the Supreme Court decided it ought to be so doesn't mean that it necessarily ought to be so I think you can argue the Supreme Court has made lots of decisions that were unconstitutional themselves. The Supreme Court can get things wrong. So here we are a couple hundred years later and the argument is still fresh and on the table.

So anything more on the legality side of it?

Well, there's lots of the particulars you asked about how a state could do it practically in terms of the armed forces. And what does a state get from the federal government? I think one of the things that people are really concerned about, I've seen emails on this, my own email account, is people are concerned about all of the entitlement programs. They're all coming from Washington, D.C. right now. If a state were to cut out, let's say Texas just gets up and leaves, somehow they're able to do it. There's no more money for Texas residents for Social Security or Medicare or so forth. Texas will have to figure out how to do all that on their own.

Yeah, but Texas doesn't even have really an income tax except at a corporate level. I mean, their property taxes are high and they're doing such a good job. I mean, see what I think would happen. And I'm just thinking out loud, but I've said this for a long time now, at least I'm gonna say five years. Okay. I've been saying this on my show, so it's documented. I've always said, and you know, maybe half heartedly, half jokingly, that if Texas were To secede from the Union. It would become the Hong Kong of the United States where productive people would just flock and its economy would boom. Remember, compared to the old China, even nowadays, but less so than before. But the old China versus Hong Kong, you know, under British rule, you know, I mean, it was like this, this, this gleaming example of capitalism. And I think that's what would happen if, if people could migrate. See, that's the thing that would really bother the feds is if there were a secession movement. It would be the typical brain drain, you know, which is the reason they put up the Berlin Wall, because the Soviets couldn't keep it together. They had to force people to stay in. They couldn't, they couldn't keep them there voluntarily. You know, people wanted to go where there was opportunity for prosperity and, and rewarding good behavior and ambition. And I mean, look at the migration that's happening now from California, my home state, by the way. I now live in Phoenix, Arizona. And every smart person I know that can do it reasonably is leaving California or trying to leave California. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's just a massive brain drain of ambitious middle class people that are just running from that state. And I think that's what would happen if we were to see a secession to a more libertarian type of government in the state that seceded. I think people would just go there that wanted that type of government. They would have a marketplace of choice, which I think they should have.

Many of the emails I've received have been exactly along those lines. People saying by all means, if Texas goes or if Florida or Louisiana, if one of these states goes, I'm ready to move there, I'm ready to go. I think that sentiment is definitely out there.

So tell me more. I kind of interrupted you with that thought.

Well, we talked about the legality of it and now we're talking about what are the possible ramifications of it. And certainly that's one where you would see people get up and go. And one of the reasons I think that that's so appealing. You mentioned Hong Kong versus China. I was thinking East Germany versus West Germany. You brought up the Berlin Wall too. Is that many people who are behind this secessionist movement, if you read what they wrote in the petitions themselves, you see what they're saying, is that there is certain freedom, an economic freedom, a personal liberty, freedom that our founding fathers envisioned. And they suggest that that vision and that freedom is what has led to our prosperity. And as we as a nation have abandoned those principles, as we have surrendered our freedoms or haven't been taken from us, we're losing prosperity. That the two things go hand in hand. And if one of these states were able to break off and form their own country, if they reverted back to the principles of the founding fathers, that kind of liberty and that kind of freedom, and you'd see in theory that second nation, that new nation, whether it was Texas or whoever it was, would have an opportunity for economic freedom that, as you pointed out, doesn't exist in California, for example, because of their taxes and because of their overregulation and because of their excessive spending and so forth, that's crushing their economy.

I mean, it used to exist in California. It just doesn't anymore. It's like what Reagan said when he left the Democratic Party. He said, I didn't leave the Democratic Party. They left me. And you know, that's kind of how I feel about California. I used to love California. I thought it was the greatest place on earth. It just became such a disaster over the years.

Well, what you're seeing, what you're talking about happening in California is what a lot of people are saying is happening in the United States as a whole.

And I agree with you. I just think that if you're going to stay within the US at least get into a more friendly state. That's the first step.

That may very well be true. May very well be true.

Let me take a brief pause. We'll be back in just a minute.

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Okay, well, so some of these petitions, I mean, the White House has to do what? Put it on that list that you mentioned, bring it up for discussion. I mean, it's not a congressional thing. It's a White House thing for the executive branch. I mean, what are they going to do with it other than throw it in the trash?

All they've promised is to put it on a queue or a quay for petitions to be answered. And they have answered some petitions. For example, the White House was petitioned for what its recipe for homemade beer was, and they answered that one.

Unbelievable.

You know, obviously, this is.

We're definitely majoring in minors here. Right? Is that. Is that. Did that homemade beer come from the beer summit?

Absurdity, Something like that.

Talk about. What did the Romans call it? They called it. Or the. They called it bread and circuses. Right. And distract people with bread and circuses. Okay. All right, go ahead. So they gave people the beer recipe. What else?

Right now these petitions are making news. They're clearly exceeding the 20, 25,000 signature threshold. The pressure is on the White House to do something. But to be perfectly honest, the White House has been pressured to do all kinds of things, and they haven't followed through on it. So this movement, whether anything is going to come from this immediately, directly, is kind of at the mercy of what I would expect to be a very uncooperative White House who would probably like this just to go away. The question is, is this the end game or is this something more? If these people aren't heard on the White House website, are they going to do something else? Are they going to start petitioning their state governments once they start doing that? If they start doing that, that's when you might actually see something happen.

And so what for? I mean, who do you think would be the first to try and go? Would it be Texas?

Well, there is certainly an independent streak that exists in Texas. And there is certainly. You mentioned that Gadsden flag kind of spirit, don't tread on me. That's alive and well in Texas. I wouldn't be surprised. There is also, you mentioned earlier sort of a myth that Texas still has the ability to do that, that it's written in their constitution or whatnot. I don't have the Constitution in front of me, but I do know that the Houston Chronicle, for example, reported that that is a myth that isn't actually true. Still, they have that rallying cry. We were Our own country once before and we can do it again. And they're the only state that I know of, well, besides maybe Hawaii, that has that rallying cry.

Yeah, very interesting. I mean, what would they do? What would it look like? Just kind of paint the picture for us as to how it might look. I know this is all a prediction, but they would go to their state government. The people would sign petitions. How many would they have to get? And then what would happen?

Well, they'd have to get their elected representatives to take action. It would require, you know, just. A petition doesn't affect anything unless it pressures elected representatives to do something. So you probably have to have some sort of resolution or declaration on a part of the state Congress, probably signed by the governor at that point. Then I'm thinking lawsuits, because the federal government is going to want to appeal back to Texas versus white in 1869 and try to say that it's illegal. And then assuming that the Supreme Court upholds the federal government's position, then you'd have to see how determined the state is. Are they willing to go? One of the other two options. Are they willing to go to revolution? That's a big question.

And let's just talk about that scary thought for a moment, because that's a scary thought. To think that it would get so bad in a country like America that was founded on such beautiful principles. Just when I think and talk about them, they give me goosebumps to think of the incredible nature of our history and how it came about at a time when, you know, this was just a totally new idea back in 1776, or really before that. So a revolution. I mean, Texas. What. How would that. I mean, Texas doesn't have its own military. What would all the. All the. Any federal military bases in Texas would. Would all of those individual troops decide, hey, I'm gonna be on the side of Texas?

Well, what you. What you're describing is exactly what happened in South Carolina and Fort Sumter and the other fort escapes my mind. It's right across the river from. Right across the bay there from Fort Sumter. But you had a situation where people stationed in the same base from the same city had to make a call whose side they're on. But let me just quickly. Because I'm going to have to go relatively soon. But let me just quickly touch upon what kind of isn't being said most of these questions about, well, would it even be possible? Could it happen? I don't understand how Texas could possibly pull it off. All of those things Those statements assume that the federal government is in the same position that it is right now. We have a federal government that's $16 trillion in debt. We have a federal government that cannot possibly sustain its level of spending and even if it goes crazy with taxes, can't make up for what it's been doing. We have economic instability looming on the horizon here. If the federal government would falter, if the federal government couldn't pay their soldiers, if the federal government couldn't pay for its benefits that everyone has been depending on. And all of a sudden you have the hundreds of thousands of seniors in the state of Texas who aren't getting their Social Security checks anymore. And the federal government can't afford to fight a revolution. That is when you could see states seceding by a revolution successfully.

Here's the problem that the government can't afford to pay for any of that stuff. Now. The only reason it's doing it under the illusion of paying is that it's just paying in devalued dollars. It's paying through inflation by printing fiat money. It's just stupid, right?

Well, I have a box in my dresser over here that's got a 5 million Deutsche Mark bill. What is that? That is a government that tried printing five million dollar bills when that money wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Well, if we continue with the fiat money, if we continue this spending and its incredible levels of debt, it won't look that different from Germany when they printed five million dollar bills and it wasn't worth five cents.

It probably won't look too much different than the Weimar Republic. But the problem is that, and I talk about this frequently on the show, is that, you know, nobody really knows when the jig will be up for the American smoke and mirrors economy. Because none of these countries, whether it be Zimbabwe, Weimar Republic, Hungary, Chile, history is replete with these examples, of course, right? But none of these countries had the world's most powerful military. None of them had the reserve currency, which is meaningless if you can't get everybody to play ball. But the way I say you get them to play ball is you have the military, you throw your weight around in that way. And that's the thing, you know, we might be able to kick this can down the road for three to five more decades. Nobody knows logically and mathematically, yeah, the jig should be up, but this is not a logical mathematical game when, when you have these different sets of circumstances. And to me it really all comes down to the military. It's just at the end of the day, when things get really ugly, if you can force your will on other countries and maintain reserve currency status, you can inflate for a long, long time.

Well, the first talk of secession began at the end of the 1700s. The states didn't actually succeed at seceding. Well, they never succeeded, but didn't actually pull off the secession attempt until 1860. So we're talking 60, 70 years of boiling before something significant really happened. We had the Civil War. You just mentioned three to five decades. I just mentioned six to seven. We don't really know when something is going to happen. These could be, and I'm not suggesting I want them to be, but these could be sort of the beginning birth pains of what the future might look like.

Very, very interesting and pretty ominous stuff really. Hey Drew, give out your website if you would tell people where they can read your stuff on Worldnet and just learn more.

Yes, these news articles as well as many other news articles covering contemporary issues, political issues, issues from people of faith. All these can be found@WND.comWND.com well, fantastic.

Drew's on. Thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Thank.

You.

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