I need a little more background. Why focus on John Cornyn and Lamar Smith? Are the rest of the 32 Texas Reps and Kay Bailey up for patent reform? Or are these guys on the right committees or something?

Junior High was a long time ago I was remembering Rick Perry's recent remarks.

http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/8425/can-texas-secede-from-the-union-no

Your right there is no explicit clause stating one way or another. Here are the different sides to the argument.

http://www.texassecede.com/faq.htm

and wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Texas

Finally, I don't agree with this guy but I like this quote.

http://westernfrontamerica.com/2009/04/20/texas-eventually-secede-union/

"I say Texans can do whatever the hell they want. Even if U.S. law says Texas cannot secede from the Union, the whole point of declaring independence is to free yourself from such laws"

Not quite as elegant as "For the People and By the People" but we ain't from Boston.

As someone located in East Texas i feel a little helpless.

The US Federal Judges are Appointed for life as noted elsewhere (TEXAS Judges are voted on so our gun toting citizens do get final say at the state level).

So barring another loony in body armor going crazy with an assault rifle there won't be any quick resolution to this http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=207778

So we are left with the following options.

1) We can ask our Senators and Obama to appoint some Patent Reform minded judge(s) - not sure if there are any openings soon. Maybe Obama would do something that is actually good for Texas.

2) Texas can activate its clause in its original constitution and treaty with the US and secede from the Union - unfortunately this Constitution was amended after the Civil War and this option would no doubt be messier than any Patent Litigation. I'm sure you blue guys would say good riddance but all of you red staters out there would be too envious and we'd probably end up with Civil War II

3) Educate the juries on Patent and Patent Reform. There is 0 public awareness of the patent litigation problem on the street here in East Texas. The reports in the local paper of the patent decisions get read over like little blurbs in the National news. And as we all know the lawyers immediately try to eliminate anyone with any sign of intelligence or free will from the jury pool. I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, not sure what else to do.

Any ideas on what could be done by East Texans? Like I mentioned before this is a problem with the U.S. Federal court so we can't use our votes to fix this problem.

It IS the rational place to focus your efforts.

The problem isn't the logic of the 'efforts' - (eugenics is all very logical given a particular set of assumptions) The problem is the morality not the logic - or the underlying assumptions that form that logic

What type of 'efforts' are we talking about? Let's start with the motto every child a wanted child

How do we decide when a child is 'wanted' or 'unwanted'?

Who decides is that up to the parents? Do they need help deciding whether their child is 'wanted'? What are the criteria for deciding how many children someone should have? Why do we to assume that inferior socal position, faster-breeding individuals have 'unwanted' children that they need to 'eliminate'? Why are we getting involved in helping someone 'eliminate' their unwanted child? Who are we to decide how many black people there should be? Who exactly is doesn't want these children enough to setup "services to fix the problem". What measures should we take to 'reduce' the numbers of 'unwanted' children?

The founder of planned parenthood was a logical, rational, atheisitc, and amoral who wanted to control the number of poor black people. The modern Planned Parenthood may not agree with her ideology and have but they are still using her methods. They've killed far more blacks than any Klu Kluk Klanners ever have. http://www.abort73.com/index.php?/abortion/abortion_and_race

So if you're pro-choice and thinking this is about women's rights not controlling minorities I have a few question for you. Planned parenthood performs more abortions on black fetuses than white ones even though whites outnumber the black population 5 to 1. Why? Is there is anything systematic in planned parenthood that targets black people? Or are they just more helpful to black women? Is that the kind of help back women need?

Every child a wanted child is a much nicer slogan than 'death to black/poor children' but don't delude yourself as to what is going on here