More Texas Crazy: Speaker at Pro-Secession Rally Declares "We Hate the United States!"

Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress at 10:25 AM on August 31, 2009.

On Friday, ThinkProgress reported that "tenthers" in Texas were set to hold a pro-secession rally in Austin this weekend. According to the Texas Observer, upwards of 200 people attended the rally, where one speaker declared, "We hate the United States!"

The organizer of the event, Daniel Miller, a leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement who has appeared on Glenn Beck's Fox News show, said that he and his fellow secessionists were disappointed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry didn't attend the rally because they were heartened by his pro-secession comments earlier this year:

Daniel Miller, the leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement and the only speaker who had the slightest ability to make secession sound like anything other than just complete lunacy, recounted the April 15 tea party rally in Austin and what it meant to the secessionist movement.

"When [Perry] was giving a speech and the crowd began to shout what? -- Secede! Secede! Secede! -- that’s what they chanted. So they asked him afterward, What do you think? He said, Well we reserve that right; if things get so bad we reserve the right to leave. And I gotta tell you it's the first solid thing he's done in his administration that I can agree with in many, many years."

Watch a video of the rally from the Texas Observer.

One speaker at the event, gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, explained that the people at the rally were aware of the consequences of pushing for secession. "We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war," said Medina. "We are aware that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." When some secessionist began arguing with pro-health care reform activists, another speaker, Larry Kilgore, was heard telling them, "Go back to the U.S. where you belong."

Tagged as: texas, glenn beck, rick perry, secession, daniel miller, texas nationalist movemen, tenthers, larry kilgore, debra medina

Matt Corley is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.