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Ron Paul: If people can't secede, they are not free
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on Monday defended various petitions to secede from the United States that popped up soon after the election, and said secession is not an unpatriotic act, but rather a "deeply American principle."
"This country was born through secession," Paul said Monday. "Some felt it was treasonous to secede from England, but those 'traitors' became our country's greatest patriots.
"If a people cannot secede from an oppressive government, they cannot truly be considered free."
People in all 50 states have started petitions to leave the union in the wake of the presidential election. While some have mocked them as a "sour grapes" reaction to the election, Paul said secession from the country is not impossible, even though he said he "wouldn't hold my breath on Texas actually seceding."
Paul implied the U.S. could be nearing the point at which the government has crossed the line in restricting the freedom of its citizens.
"When the people have very clearly withdrawn their consent for a law, the discussion should be over," he said. "If the Feds refuse to accept that and continue to run roughshod over the people, at what point do we acknowledge that that is not freedom anymore?"
Paul added that the Declaration of Independence explicitly discusses the idea of dissolving the union its first paragraph. That paragraph famously states: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
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