Texas, Teabagging and Conservative Loons

Driving up to Martinsville last week I listened to OutQ Radio and heard a number of reports on the tea bagging crazies of the far right. That coverage led into the desire of some of the more extreme Kool-Aid drinkers to have the state of Texas secede from the United States. Yes, it's pretty crazy talk, but then these folks are more than just a bit daft. Putting aside the fact that when Texas came into the United States it did not, despite the myth, retain a right to leave the union if it so desired, the whole story line demonstrates just how far outside the mainstream the base of the GOP has become. Not always noted, but something that I have referenced before is just how racist the GOP and its Christianist element have become. Despite this, these whacked out people regular co-opt black ministers to do their biding in attacks on gays and the black ministers happily allow themselves to be used by those who hate them. I continue to be baffled since these folks are the enemies of blcck Americans, not just gays. John Aravosis at America Blog has a post that does a great job of connecting the historical dots. Would that some of the anti-gay black ministers would do the same. Here are some highlights:

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Since the far-right conservatives controlling the Republican party want to now talk about leaving America altogether - an intrinsically un-American and anti-American suggestion at its core - it seemed only appropriate that we re-examine the last time these people chose to leave the Union. Let's start with Texas, since its governor is so proud of their right to secede (a right, by the way, that Texas apparently does not have - they just lie to their people and claim it's true, a lot like the far-right everywhere). Here's what Texas had to say the last time it seceded:

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"unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery...the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law.

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"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

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that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations;

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That people do not know and understand these historical facts is one of the reasons demagogues like Sarah Palin and other GOP nut cases get away with the outrageous untruths the peddle regularly.