Talk:Texas secession movements

Misc

This article should probably have not been created. The information here could easily be incorporated into the Legal status of Texas article which recounts the arguments for the continued existence of the Texan state. The word Secession is also controversial. If Texas was not legally annexed via a Joint Resolution of Congress, it is not legally a state and secession is not a correct term. Instead, Texas is only seeking restoration as an internatioanlly recognized state. This is an old issue.

In addition, the Legal status of Texas article follows the trend of other American independence articles such as the Legal status of Hawaii and the Legal status of Alaska. The naming convention used in the Legal status of Texas should be retained. LarryQ (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• You didn't have to specifically merge the legal status of Texas because #1 the legal status is only one of the reasons why people want to seceed from the union. #2 the article is about the movement and the debate, not the legal status. The purpose of the creation of the article to present the entire movement. It has currently become a news story, but it should still have a seperate article because it is a major political issue, considering the incumbent Governor of Texas Rick Perry is interested and possibly in favor of it. As you said it is a very controversial issue. So it should be a seperate article. But thanks for merging the 3 articles anyway.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 03:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that this article should probably have not been created. It's more of a discussion board than an encyclopedic article. 15:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.221.15.66 (talk)

• Strongly disagree. DO NOT MERGE THE ARTICLES. The groups in question have decidedly different agendas and histories. Merging the articles is unecessary and obscures the argument. Again, not everyone shares the agendas of either of these groups, yet having a stake in the extent of independence Texas is able to maintain from the drift of the national dialog and the strings that go with it should not be obscured by association, or any other means to challenge it's relevance that are without merit. Balawd (talk) 00:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC) by Balawd, 23 Sep 2012.

• There is a political supense novel with the title EXCESS (www.excess.ch) that has the secession of Texas as its main theme. The story plays in the years 2015 and 2016. Texans are subjected to a campaign of psychological warfare to make them vote for a pro-secession candidate for governor. Not for the benefit of Texas, however, but to destroy the USA in order to clear the way for world government. The novel is written in German by a Swiss author. 62.202.90.153 (talk) 16:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

• Since 2006, in Republican primaries, Larry SECEDE Kilgore has been a candidate for Governor. According to his website (secedekilgore.com) he received 50,000 votes in 2006 and 225,000 in 2008. He legally changed his middle name from Scott to SECEDE (yes, all caps) in 2012. Should that be mentioned here as well? . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.219.145.149 (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Double article merge

It seems that we have a problem with this article due to this article being suggested to be merged with two other pages. Should we do anything about this to solve this problem? --82.112.148.35 (talk) 20:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Some people have argued that it should be a discussion board, not a wikipedia article. That's ridiculous. This movement is supported by some prominent politicians, such as the governor. Not to mention that it's legit. The fact that the article has a lot of substance alone is enough to say that the article should stay.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I will say that the Republic for Texas article should be deleted and put into this article. As far as the legal status of Texas, I would only support a merger if all of the substance in this article is put into that article. Otherwise, I'm against it.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 16:14, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

ETA: The governor has publicly riduculed secession calling it ridiculous. He did pander to secession in the past.

• The Texas secession movement(s) is/are a legitimate subject worthy of standing on their own. The largest such group at the moment is the Texas Nationalist Movement with some 250,000 members. It is an organization which is working through political channels to reach a goal of putting the issue of Texas independence before the voters of Texas. The TNM believes that the claims of the Republic of Texas and other organization may have some of their facts correct, reality is that Texas has a shared history and culture with the U.S. that could not simply be legally dismissed based on something that happened more than a hundred years ago; TNM's reason for pursuit of Texas independence is the unconstitutional actions of the federal government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.154.23 (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

TNM is not a legit movement, unless you're counting terrorists as legit. The 250k figure is ludicrous and seems to be anyone who ever visited their website. Likely they have 1/10 that.

I suppose the talk pages are not linked but I weighed in on the matter at #merge but will include it here;

• I have come to the conclusion that this article should be merged into Texas Secession Movement. I base this on the fact that the name Republic of Texas was a recognized sovereign nation that accepted, by majority of vote, to become a state in the United States. The validity of this is thus far undisputed, factions notwithstanding.

I have no problem with there being a secession movement. I do have a problem with the infringement of the name of the article with The Republic of Texas. The contents of this article reflect a "movement" and not a country in exile. The above unsigned statement, regardless of personal beliefs, is erroneous as there is currently no recognized "nation" of the Republic of Texas in the U.S. or internationally. I "do not" advocate deletion as that would not be per Wikipedia if the above mentioned links or references are accurate. The contents of this article along with Texas Secession Movement, and Legal status of Texas, all concern the same subject so are certainly related. I suggest merging (not deleting) all three under "Texas secession Movement" which, at this point, is certainly the correct name. There are factions or organizations that are seeking a secession from the U.S. or some other legal something but, regardless of how they feel, it is still at this point a "movement" or "movements". Otr500 (talk) 14:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Added this, not havingt it is a major omission from the topic: In reaction to these secession petitions, a number of petitions were also circulated, calling for secession petitions to be ignored, petition signers to be deported or have their citizenship stripped, and for secession from Texas and to remain part of the United States. Petitions included calls for Austin, El Paso, Houston, and South Texas to secede from Texas, saying Texas secessionist have virtually no support in major cities or the predominantly Mexican-American regions.

remove or rewrite "debate argumnents"

This is not encyclopedic or even referenced content. Either work these issues into the general article, or rewrite this section as actual, referenced from credible sources, text. A random bulleted list is not something belonging in a proper wiki article. As only one or two have any citation, they also border on original research. I don't want to unilaterally remove them, but will check back later to see if there is any discussion/opposition.Jbower47 (talk) 15:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

As there has been no discussion or opposition, I am going to add a brief summary of issues, and delete the bullet list.Jbower47 (talk) 19:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge request

There is a request to merge the articles Legal status of Texas and Republic of Texas (group) to this article. Some editors commented on the talk pages of the other articles creating confusion. Editors please respond with "Support" or "Oppose" and any "Comment"(s). Otr500 (talk) 04:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Support quite simply because having three different articles is ridiculous and unnecessary. A merge would definitely reduce confusion, as well as eliminate the possible notability issue that exists with the 'legal status' article. Swarm ^X 06:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose The legal status of a political entity differs from the political players who may be attempting to bring it about. Perhaps we should merge Legal status of Taiwan into the Political status of Taiwan article or Legal status of Hawaii into Hawaiian sovereignty movement and do away with all legal status articles? LarryQ (talk)

0ppose [Later clarifying edits highlighted]: I agree on legal status vs. political players. I think Republic of Texas group should remain, since the great difference [in strategy etc.] between the McLaren group that committed criminal acts and other groups (past and present) using the same name needs to be [emphasized] kept. Other groups may yet arise making it necessary to shorten [the section on the] Republic of Texas, and those distinctions should not be lost [in doing so]. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The above opposes raise "fair enough" points regarding the "legal status" article, but fail to address the "Republic of Texas" article. Carol Moore's comments on it are completely incoherent to me. Swarm ^X 21:13, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Support with comments: The above two editor's opposing comments state that the articles should remain separate because 1)- they differ and 2)- a great difference. If a group is militant or criminal should not be a factor. A factor would be if more reliable sources become available to expand an article and at this time a split can be performed.

Here is the main reasons I support of merge: A very large portion of the "Republic of Texas (group)" article is copied (almost the entire article word for word) to the "Modern movement" section of this article, meaning two of the three are already merged. If the examples of other articles used as reason not to merge are thus copied I would suggest merging them with good reason.

The "Legal status of Texas" is not actually a question of legality except to those involved in secession movements. The lead (no references) contains, "United States sovereignty over Texas has been disputed most recently by a movement launched by Richard McLaren.". This is the same man mentioned in both of the other articles. The OR statement, "a key issue has been the tension between its de facto and de jure international standing", means what? Even with the International Court of Justice ruling on secession there is really only US interests with secessionist groups.

Merged articles will not lose anything by Wikipedia policy but two or three inadequate articles, that can be merged, may make a more worthy article. Danial Miller, the president of the "Republic of Texas", stated in 2005, "...thanks of all people of the Texas independence movement"(here),, so really! Why can't the articles in question be merged into a central article like "Texas independence movements, "Texas Secession Movement" or even "Secession movements in the United States"? The first two would leave room for inclusion of the "Texas National Movement" (reportedly 250,000 members) and others in Texas, and the last would allow inclusion of the "Second Vermont Republic" (here), or others in the US.

The comparison articles, Legal status of Taiwan and Political status of Taiwan are not only more complete they both have a true and continuing basis for existence. The articles of "Hawaiian sovereignty movement" and "Legal status of Hawaii" may not be great examples, as both have multiple issue tags and need major work, but they are at least expanded articles.

How about some edit copying between articles?

• "Legal status of Texas; "This article deals primarily with theoretical arguments regarding Texas' de jure status under certain interpretations of international law. The debate is considered by some to resemble the same academic discourse being argued by several other activist groups in the United States,...".
• "Legal status of Hawaii"; "This article deals only with theoretical arguments regarding Hawaiʻi's de jure status under certain interpretations of international law. The debate is considered by some to resemble the same academic discourse being argued by several other activist groups in the United States,...". I would be willing to wager that the same editor contributed to both of these article. Otr500 (talk) 06:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

2012 petition

There should be mention of the petition mentioned here Drlf (talk) 00:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Title of the article

Shouldn't it be "Texas secession movements"? Notice the capitalization and the plural. Comments? TuckerResearch (talk) 22:37, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Concur with both proposed changes (caps/plural); the subject of the article does not appear to be a formal or organized movement; it is just coverage of a collection of unrelated movements and/or one-off comments. Kuru (talk) 01:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. TuckerResearch (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Typo

The last line of the first paragraph: "Texas Nationalist Movement headed by Dennis Miller." The first line under the heading "Texas Nationalist Movement": "The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), headed by Daniel Miller,"

Dennis or Daniel? Which is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6033:E6:312F:1BBE:332D:3E1D (talk) 17:56, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Good catch. Its Daniel Miller.Thelmadatter (talk) 18:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

No Source on Vermont

I deleted the statement about Vermont & one other state not having been nations on the grounds that it has no citation, no support. Were not all the colonies independent states (nations) before they agreed to the Articles of Confederation? IMHO: Americans are so used to using "state" today for our non-state states, that we forget what the word state actually means, a nation. (EnochBethany (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC))

Right to Secede? What's That?

The "right to secede" is a faulty concept. Any group has a right to secede once it attains the power & will to secede. The Declaration of Independence has a rather broad right to secede concept argued. If "We the People" of Texas ever have the power & desire to secede, they will then have the "right." History is full of boundary changes, nationality redefinitions. It happens all the time (remember the Soviet Union???). It is only a matter of time (if history continues as it has been doing for the last 4000 years) before the USA will be redefined, become larger or smaller, or splits. There is nothing eternal or indivisible about any nation. Divide they do & divide they will. And what about "right to secede" under the US Constitution? Whenever 5 men on the SCOTUS decide that such a right exists, it will exist! (EnochBethany (talk) 17:58, 3 October 2014 (UTC))

Questionable sources

I removed one piece of minor text whose reference was a phd dissertation that was not published, that I could find, anywhere of note. In looking through the references, I found a lot of similar citations. In general, we prefer to have published works/secondary sources, of more reliable nature. While not looking askance at the time and effort that go into PHD dissertations, I don't think that student papers should be used as a predominant source, especially if they are being used as references for statements made in wiki's voice (as many are here). I would recommend removing these references/associated text and/or replacing with references from better sources.Jbower47 (talk) 14:44, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

TNM section sounds like a mouthpiece

While it is mostly careful not to state anything in Wiki's voice, this overly-large section seems wholly given over to expressing the views (uncriticized or without due weight to other views of the organization as a fringe movement) of the organization. Not only is this a lot of real estate for the one organization, it reads as a puff piece for their aims. I'd like to see this edited down to just an objective description of the group and their core aspects, or at the very least daughtered to a sub-article. Wiki's purpose is not to be a brochure for the organization.Jbower47 (talk) 14:52, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Since no one has weighed in on this for a year, I went ahead and made some edits. I trimmed down the TNM section to be a concise summation of the group, without being a mouthpiece of quotes. I also trimmed down the subsequent section, and added a reference clarifying that Perry walked back his comment, claiming it to be tongue in cheek, and putting the TNM claims in context of the general disavowing of the idea of secession by the Texas Republican Party. The section(s) reads as more encyclopedic now. Please discuss if you disagree.Jbower47 (talk) 14:32, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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{POV} removed

The {{POV}} template, attached in July 2014, seems to have been resolved, in part pursuant to the discussions above. The article seems neutral, stating the opinions of various secessionists without adopting them, but also noting their unfashionability among Texas Republicans and the study of the groups as "terrorists." I have removed the template. Yesterday, I copy-edited a couple sections, not meaning to change the substance. Spike-from-NH (talk) 16:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for this and your other clean-ups.Jbower47 (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Captive States of America

If Texas, or any other state does not have the legal free right to independence, the term 'United' is a lie, 'Captive' or any equivalent term would be correct. As a British person I absolutely appreciate the fortunate right we had to independance from the EU, every so-called 'united' nation on earth should have that right. Middle More Rider (talk) 11:25, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is not the place to argue such things. You can bring your argument to an appropriate social media outlet, Internet forum, or blog, but not here. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Not arguing at all, just an opinion that 'united' would mean consent, no one has to agree with me.

Middle More Rider (talk) 16:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree RossoSPC (talk) 04:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Split to Texas secession

This article is covering two different movements. There are likely enough references to sustain a second article about the secession of Texas and to move this article to one of the following titles, in order of preference: Texas independence movement, Proposed secession of Texas, or Texit. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 05:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

We should already have a article for the TNM because they have major influence in the rural and urban regions. RossoSPC (talk) 05:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

minor to major influence but whatever RossoSPC (talk) 05:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I support. Roasted (talk) 01:27, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm already making an article for the TNM itself soon RossoSPC (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support, though this should be done sooner rather than later. It has been a few months now, so lets get on this if it is going to happen.Iljhgtn (talk) 19:38, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
• Comment, the article might be better split into an article titled "Texas sovereignty" or "Texas independence" though depending on sources and background. I have not exhaustively investigated the sources on what is best. A google NGRAM could be helpful too potentially in choosing a different title than this one, but I think the move should happen and "movements" should be dropped.Iljhgtn (talk) 21:32, 7 November 2024 (UTC)