Either way, the concept is valid when we are talking about whether or not someone is "selling out" to a foreign power, but I guess gets muddy when they are selling goods or services to a foreign power.

Getting back to the "Lexzington and Concorde" discussion, there were numerous incidents of abuse leading up to it, primarily during the French/Indian wars when the colonists who had become accustomed to living in freedom due to their isolation from British authorities chafed under British supervision. That "chafing" is eventually what led to the revolution, but also a big part of it was the diplomatic work done by the freemasons leading up to the war and their recruitment of international assistance on behalf of the revolutionaries.

Likewise, the Texas revolution was directly tied to gun control against whites and free blacks (although there were few at that point). The Mexican authorities, in keeping with their nature, authorized summary execution of any white Texan caught with a firearm. Now in theory, it was not race based, as it was an anti-immigrant law against northern Europeans who went to Texas from the US, but oddly enough, the Irish who went further down into Mexico were welcomed (I think due to Catholic sympathies).

I would guess that the Texans of that revolution would not have much desire to join the USA of today, but then again, by default that issue was made clear in the Civil war.

Which gets me back to the issue of establishing enclaves, then free zones within a state or group of states, then eventually some sort of diplomatically recognized autonomy. The idea being an autonomous region which would later then have the option of signing or rejecting UN arms control and trade regulations.

Manipulation of those regulations is what can make a small country quite wealthy like Belgium, or Switzerland or some of the other new republics in the former Soviet states.

The Colonists in the early fights of the revolution were in fact fighting to defend their own established local government, up to the state level, and in reality, at the several state level. Shortly after the war, there were fights like the Whiskey rebellion where some regions were in rebellion for a while until the bill of rights was ratified. What we need to be wary of is drawing our historical reference to that time period between National Independence and the Bill of Rights. I cannot say that early republic was really all that much of a beacon for freedom, just an example of how a new nation could prosper.

One the Bill of Rights was ratified, we then began an ongoing 200 year struggle to enforce it, with what I think historians will say the peak of American freedom coinciding with the Reagan years and then going down from there due to technological and political changes. It is my lifetime struggle to preserve those rights for myself and future generations as long as possible, to the detriment of aspiring dictators.

Lets not lose sight of that when arguing the minutiae of the placement of a comma somewhere in the original Constitution document or number of delegates who voted a particular version of it.