Reply #14: My, how things have changed in Texas during my lifetime!

[jamesatemple]

As a boy growing up in the Texas black land, I thought "damn yankee" was one word. My grandfather was born in Virginia after the Civil War and, I suppose, never learned of the great number of his "yankee" kin folks that had fought and died fighting for the preservation of the Union. Ignorance, especially willful ignorance, often has the result of an errant lifetime philosophy. I truly doubt that Grandpa knew that the first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, subsequent to his term in that office, railed against the idea of Texas seceding from the Union.

And, Grandpa would kick your ass for mentioning the word "republican" at the supper table. If he could be resurrected, if he could hear the rhetoric of current Texas politicians, I suspect that he would confuse the two parties if no one made him aware of which party each speaker represented. I have no doubt that he would find it incredible that Texas was a bastion of the Republican Party. Having survived the Great Depression, he would not tolerate a discussion of the merits, if any, of Conservatism.

Hopefully, this, too, shall pass. With liberal voices being raised in a smattering of venues, a small number of native-born Texans are responding to the clarion call of "reason". Aided by the huge number of "snow birds" from the great Northland and a massive number of immigrants from the Latino countries, the iron grip of modern Republicanism may be loosening...but not nearly enough and not nearly fast enough for this old man.

Don't despair of Texas, friends. Through the clamor and noise of the Conservatives, you can still hear the admonitions of Jim Hightower, the crew at The Texas Observer, the late, great Molly Ivins, et al. It will take a while (at 68 years old, I probably won't live to see it), but sanity will come back to the good folks living in this grand State.