David Thomas Roberts – State of Treason-Secession in Real Life, TX

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Finally Texas bows its neck.  In the book there are leaders within the Texas state government that does something about it.  It puts a series of events in motion that culminates with Texas declaring: If you don’t impeach these guys, we’re going to issue a referendum on independence.  The federal government says: Not only can you not do that, but anybody that participates in the vote for independence, you just simply cast a ballot in that referendum, it’s an act of treason.  A whole series of events, cataclysmic.  It’s probably the most serious constitutional crisis that’s portrayed in here since 1860.  It’s got a pretty wild ending.” David Thomas Roberts, State of Treason Interview  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Let us go to the Dude Maker Hotline and we’ll say hello to David Thomas Roberts.  His new book is called A State of Treason.  I told those of you that are listeners in Texas to stick around because you’re going to want to hear this.  You’re going to want a copy of the book, which we have advanced hardback copies signed by David in the Founders Tradin’ Post.  You’ll see the link out there on the Twitter feed and on the Facebook in just a few moments.  I’m going to bring David on and we’ll introduce David to you.  We’re going to talk a little bit about one fantastical solution to the question that I just asked.  David, how are you, my friend?

David Thomas Roberts:  Good morning, Mike.  Oh my, gosh, what an honor and privilege to be on the Mike Church Show.  Thank you for having me.

Mike:  I don’t know about all that.  It’s my pleasure to meet you.  You spent some significant amount of time reading up and then writing this most excellent fiction piece, although I have to suspect, knowing what little I know about you, that although this may be fiction, there may be a seed of plausibility and possibility to A State of Treason.  What made you decide that you needed to write this stuff down?

Roberts:  It all started, I would come home and my wife would get kind of worried because I’d turn on the news and get irritated all over again, every day.  She actually made the suggestion to me: You need to write a book, get it off your chest, and maybe you’ll live a little longer.  The first book, Patriots of Treason, was just that.  It was an exercise just for tension relief.  I never dreamed in a million years that this would have gone as far as it’s gone.  It’s been exciting.

Mike:  In State of Treason, we’re dealing with a totally different scenario.  The State of Texas has — I’ll let you explain it, but the State of Texas incurred some situations that they reject, or some edicts and orders from the executive branch of the federal government that they reject and refuse to implement.  As the story goes, the tension between the two parties escalates.  What is it that Texas does?  Flesh out the genesis of the story in A State of Treason, if you would.

Roberts:  The administration, in particular a criminal attorney general, continues an assault on the freedoms that we should be enjoying.  They arrest Tea Party members and all the things you see — most of this is ripped from today’s headlines.  You can see these types of things happening with executive actions, ignoring the Constitution.  Finally Texas bows its neck.  In the book there are leaders within the Texas state government that does something about it.  It puts a series of events in motion that culminates with Texas declaring: If you don’t impeach these guys, we’re going to issue a referendum on independence.  The federal government says: Not only can you not do that, but anybody that participates in the vote for independence, you just simply cast a ballot in that referendum, it’s an act of treason.  A whole series of events, cataclysmic.  It’s probably the most serious constitutional crisis that’s portrayed in here since 1860.  It’s got a pretty wild ending.

They just had the vote in Scotland.  The UK allowed the vote to happen.  I think towards the end they were scrambling to make sure it did not pass, but they had 1.6 million voters vote for independence.  Imagine that today, whether it’s Texas, Louisiana, any state in the country deciding to have that vote.

Mike:  I don’t want you to give it away.  It’s fascinating to me that you draw the precept and scenario of the story from actual events.  Then you have the intestinal and other body part fortitude to go: Okay, what would happen if someone in Texas actually did grow a pair?  What would happen in Texas if a series of people actually did grow a pair?  Then they start thinking in a critical manner that: Wait a minute, we don’t need them; they need us.  Is that part of the process?  I didn’t get to finish the whole book.  Is that part of the process?

Roberts:  That’s exactly right.  Mike, think about this for a minute.  They just had the vote in Scotland.  The UK allowed the vote to happen.  I think towards the end they were scrambling to make sure it did not pass, but they had 1.6 million voters vote for independence.  Imagine that today, whether it’s Texas, Louisiana, any state in the country deciding to have that vote.  Do you really think the federal government would even allow that vote to happen?

Mike:  Under what pretense would they say: You cannot have this vote?  What law, what part of the Constitution would they cite, or would they just incite something silly like White v. Texas, which is what the usual suspects, what I would call the intellectually deficient, they’ll cite that.  What White v. Texas actually says, and David, I’m sure you know this, it doesn’t say secession is illegal in Texas.  What it actually says is: You better have a darn good reason for trying to secede if you ever attempt it again.  It doesn’t rule out the possibility.  It rules out light and transient causes.  Right?

Roberts:  That’s exactly right.  I don’t care what they cite, for things that think the Supreme Court is infallible.  Even if they were using the White decision for that conversation, look at the Dred Scott decision that was overturned.  Look at Obamacare.  If we think the Supreme Court is infallible on that issue — if you go back in history — boy, I can’t tell you anything you don’t know.  You know this backwards and forwards.  Look at the things that are happening today.  Did we ever think that the government could have the right of intrusion on our privacy to grab our emails, our text messages, our phone calls?  They can use whatever they want to say this couldn’t happen or wouldn’t allow it to happen.  That’s what happens in the book.  It gets confrontational.  The central figures of the book are a Texas governor that really does grow a pair and a Texas Ranger named Pops Younger.  They’re the central figures in the story and it’s been a lot of fun.

Mike:  What’s the governor’s name?  Is he patterned — he can’t be patterned over a Texas governor, but he has to be based on some heroic figure.  Who’d you base him on?

Roberts:  Well, it’s actually a heroic figure out of my imagination, Governor Brayman[?].  He’s somebody that does stand up to the government and does the type of things that we would expect a state governor, not just of Texas but of any state, to do, to push back in the encroachment of the federal government into the state.  When things start happening to the citizens of their particular state that are unconstitutional, I think that’s the duty of a state government, whether it’s the governor or state legislature, they have, to throw back that encroachment by the federal government.  I haven’t seen this guy yet that’s in my book.  He doesn’t exist in Texas yet but hopefully he will.

Mike:  David Thomas Roberts’ book, A State of Treason, we have hardback copies.  It’s out today.  We have them autographed and signed by David in the Founders Tradin’ Post today.  We have a limited number of those.  We’ve established that Texas decides that the United States is not for them any longer and they’re going to have a referendum, kind of like what they had in Scotland.  They’re actually going to vote on this.  You flesh out some of the characters and some of the events that occur.  Is part of the narrative what the other people in other states say?  Beyond the threats that come from the executive, which I’ve read that part of the book, what do you say or how do you handle what other people in other states say?  Is there a conscientious objector to the Texas independent movement inside Texas?  What can you tell me about that?

Roberts:  Sure there is.  There are folks that think that Washington is fixable in the book, which I personally believe is not fixable.  You’re going to have those.  You’re going to have folks in other states that say that issue was settled in 1865.  This is the same type of thing that I get as I travel around the country.  Folks find out I’m from Texas.  They look at Texas either one or two ways, either we’re the last great hope because if we lose Texas it’s over, or secondly Texas is either hated or loved.  We get a little bit of that from all corners.  It’s the same way in the book.  You have some states that think similarly to most Texans, like Louisiana and South Carolina and Arizona and Oklahoma.  Some of us have the same type of thought pattern.  The support in the book from other states, there is support for them, but there is also righteous indignation from other corners of the country on Texas’s right to have this.  One of the ways to stop it is, there are confrontations between federal agents and the Texas Rangers.  Ultimately the president, especially the attorney general, orders arrest warrants be served on the State of Texas governor and the lieutenant governor and various members of state leadership.  It actually becomes an armed confrontation with Homeland Security trying to arrest the governor.

Mike:  I assume that a state of treason is what is declared by the executive authority or the attorney general of the United States, right?

Roberts:  That is correct.

Mike:  Does the Congress ever get involved in this in the book or is it just the president, the dictator-like president that says: You can’t do this and I have the authority to stop you.

Roberts:  The Congress does, but in the book I portray Congress exactly as it is today, dysfunctional, gridlocked, and more interested in their next election cycle than doing the right thing by their constituents.  In the book, Congress is totally inept, impotent, and can’t do anything.  Calls for impeachment — it actually comes down to the governor of Texas calling for impeachment of these two guys, the president and the attorney general.  The GOP, spineless, feckless, can’t make it happen.  They finally determine: You guys need to do this or we’re putting this out to a referendum.  Congress cannot perform, just as they do today.

End Mike Church Show Transcript