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Of the many things the left hated about George W. Bush, one of the biggest is the fact that he’s from Texas. It is hard to overestimate the disdain elite liberals have for the Lone Star State. To them Texas is the backwater of backwaters – unsophisticated, racist, misogynist and homophobic – a desert wasteland of cactus and tumbleweeds populated by latter-day Neanderthals.
I do not exaggerate. A woman from New York that I know very well nearly missed the airplane for her first trip to Texas several years ago. Why? She made a last-minute dash into one of the shops at LaGuardia to buy pantyhose, fearful that such products of civilization are not available in a place as primitive as Texas. She was not joking.
Hollywood perpetuates the stereotype. The drawling, over-bearing, poorly-dressed, beer-sodden, cowboy-booted oaf continues as the clichéd characterization of a Texan in movies and TV shows.
Coastal elites either do not know or choose to ignore the fact that the University of Texas uses its size and resources to conduct more primary research in more academic and industrial disciplines than any university in the country. Limousine liberals in New York and Washington would likely be skeptical if told that a big reason for NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center being placed in Houston was so that the Apollo moon project could benefit from a steady flow of young engineers from Rice University.
From the perspective of the ruling-class elites, there is nothing to recommend Texas. It is a miserable, Red State, George W. Bush-spawning hell-on-earth.
So how, then, do they explain the job numbers just released by the federal government? In the past ten years, even in the face of a withering recession, Texas added 732,000 private-sector jobs, a quarter million in the past year alone. No other state added as many as 100,000.
Thirty one states lost jobs. Which states lost the most? Liberal enclaves like California and Michigan, which taken together shed nearly one and a quarter million private-sector jobs.
So what is it about Texas? For us natives, it’s not complicated.
First there’s the low-tax ethos that is a part of Texas’s DNA. Texans become opposed to the idea of a state income tax while still in the womb. It’s a “starve-the-beast” gene, unique to Texas, which serves to limit the amount of revenue that state politicians can use to buy votes. This congenital aversion to taxes, coupled with a part-time legislature that convenes for only 140 days every other year, has served to limit the size and scope of state government.
And then there’s the fact that Texas is a right-to-work state, which keeps unions out of the pockets of employers and politicians out of the pockets of unions. Plain and simple, it just costs less to do business in Texas and business has noticed.
Assuming you could get coastal liberals to un-wrinkle their noses at the very mention of Texas (which is unlikely), what could you teach them from this jobs data?
Simple. Keep government small. Keep its nose out of business. Let the citizens keep their own money.
Prosperity will follow.
Why is something so obvious so hard for so many to see?
Paul, I think the issue is ideology. People get awfully attached to their belief systems, particularly if they believe that that ideology makes them somehow superior to others. It’s the reason it was so hard for the south to let go of racism. The racist ideology says I am innately better than someone else because of the color of my skin. This ideology of blood superiority goes back to ancient times in which “noble blood” entitled you to rule. The liberal/progressive ideology says we are smarter than conservatives. This makes them the new nobility and entitles them to a secure position as the ruling class. You think they are going to let that go for a little thing like evidence. The nobility clung to the idea of their genetic superiority despite the ravages of in-breeding, hemophilia and insanity among the noble classes. The Southern racists clung to the idea of white supremacy despite abundant evidence that black people could perform every bit as well as whites given the proper education and opportunity. Liberal Progressives have the same problem altering their ideology in the face of evidence that their ideology doesn’t work. It’s not in their social or financial interests to accept that conservative ideas work and, above all, it would cost them their perceived right to power.
That’s why evidence is so slow in convincing idealogues of anything. Despite the hope and change rhetoric, liberals actually are hoping nothing changes. If it does, they might find themselves out of the halls of power and back home trying to find consulting jobs in the defense industry.
I’m just sayin’
Tom King – Tyler, TX
If you keep on talking about all the jobs here, we will be flooded with Yankees like we were in the early 80’s. Back then the people were told by their state employment places to go to Houston, Dallas, or Longview. Then they came and begun to tell us how they did it up north. That did not sit too well with the locals. Let’s us keep it quiet and maybe it will go away. On second thought I think they already know.
Free lunches…… That’s because the so called minorities do not marry.. They own very profitable businesses.. Drive nice cars which they pay cash for.. And the women gain all of the benefits and show a small paycheck which is hadley ever cashed.. If they would actually check the homes of these so called single women they would find they are living way beyond my means…. That’s why our country is broke. If they would not pay for babies having babies maybe our elders could have a little insurance and a free meal… They paid the dues of working hard their whole lives and die hungry…. Makes me proud to be an american