Excellent post.

Will the last Yankee Republican Congressman turn out the lights after being defeated in 2008?

Whoa, hope New England doesn't become like Texas for the Democrats...

"But for every non-southerner who waxes lyrical about southern charm there are many more who associate the South with racial bigotry and cultural backwardness."

As a Chicago native with a wife from Alabama, I have to do both. I can see the good in the South; I wonder why they can't extend the same courtesy to us Yankees.

Oh, and Frist?

The South isn't all that bad, except for the heat, the football, and the religiosity.

Give till it hurts, to the Republic of Texas:

http://www.republic-of-texas.net/

The sooner they succeed (at seceding) - the better off the rest of us will be.

The next House Intelligence Committee Chairperson will be from Texas. A former border patrol agent, too. I am curious who the American people give more respect to, border patrol agents or bug sprayers?

Parts of the Mountain West are just as Republican as the South despite having many different cultural features.

. . . and in case y'all forgot, the jackass who got us into VietNam (LBJ) was also from Texas.

Kennedy was shot in Texas.

Texas is the source of all that is evil in this country.

Except for ID Software.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952

Why don't we let Texas go? Who needs all the "big hat, no cattle" types participating in civilized discourse.

Seriously, most of the country, even Texas, is purple. What happened in the midterms is that those very purple people decided they had enough with the Texas Republican brand of arrogant self-aggrandizement. Democrats will do well if they continually remind themselves that they are servants of the people.

It's worse than you think -- believe it or not, in the early 90's, Bush was actually on the (relatively) moderate side of the R party in Texas, and occasionally at odds with this side. Not to give him credit -- (he was happy to sweep them under the carpet with a wink and nod just long enough to get elected Pres). But just to add some perspective to how nuts they really are.

It would be very effective for every non-Southern Dem running against an incumbent Repug, in a New Hampshire Senate race for example, to match the Repugs voting record with someone like Trent Lott then run on the slogan, "John E. Sununu, the best Senator Mississippi ever had." Do it with a Foghorn Leghorn voiceover for good measure. Most of the rest of America grinds its teeth on hearing a syrupy southern drawl, and within 2 cycles there wouldn't be a Repug Senator outside of Dixie.

I lived in Texas for a while, and I realized there are two kinds of people: those who love Texas, and those who hate it. Coloradans, particularly, hate Texas.

"Alabama" is one of the English language's beautiful words. I noticed this listening to Sinatra singing "Stars Fell On Alabama."

It's just kind of funny to see the ultimate outcome of Nixon's "Southern Strategy": a party popular only in the South.

I'm not sure it's what he had in mind.

"Alabama" is one of the English language's beautiful words
Um, I think it's one a them Injun words.
Just sayin'

it's the Texas strain of militant conservativism that's made the South so toxic in recent years.

And which made Bush's pointing to his record as a "uniter" as governor -- uniting conservatives (Democrats) and ultra-conservatives (Republicans) in Texas' Lege -- immediately suspect.

Not that our so-called "liberal media" saw fit to question his claims...

As my uncle likes to say, Texas would be fine if it weren't for all the Texans. As a transplanted Californian in Texas for the last 12 years for work and love, it's not as bad as you think. It's not as good as you think, either.

This is a 60-40 Rep/Dem state right now. All you have to do is convince 1 out of 6 that the Dems have a better way, then next thing you know... To be fair, 3 out of those 6 are too hard-core to crack, so call it 1 out of 3. Longer odds, but not impossible. That's why I support Howard Dean's 50-state strategy. There's plenty of blue in this state and money and organization can get it to the polls. But it's going to take a while. Things are alright economically in the state now (no real housing bubble to speak of), so there is no press for change. Keep making the case, keep the facts front and center, and I can get that 1 out of 3.

one a them Injun words.

http://www.alabamainteractive.org/alabamainteractive_shell/Welcome.do?url=http://www.archives.state.al.us/aaa.html

" ... The Rev. Allen Wright, a Choctaw scholar, translated the name as 'thicket clearers' ..."

....But for every non-southerner who waxes lyrical about southern charm there are many more who associate the South with racial bigotry and cultural backwardness. The 2006 election—which saw social conservatives such as Rick Santorum and Kenneth Blackwell go down to humiliating defeat—suggests that non-southerners have grown particularly impatient with the South's brand of in-your-face religiosity.

Hey, he's talking about me!

And I would add, I'm sick of people waxing nostalgic about treason, which is what the Confederacy was and is.

Based on the approval ratings of Bush and Cornyn in Texas, I'm not sure Texans are all that enthusiastic about the implementation of the ideology called "conservatism".

Kevin, you are so right about this. It cuts away the ideological divide and points to the most crucial factor in the politics of the next decade: fatique.

People are really tired of being hectored, lectured, frightened, and bullied with nothing to show for it. Perhaps the Dems' wimpiness will even work in their favour as Mr and Mrs Sixpack remember that some pols avoid conflict and prize reasonableness over winning—the way most people see themselves, I believe, when they drop their temporary Top Gun fantasies.

Also, they like to take drugs and have sex. And I'm not just saying that as an afterthought.

From the article: "One should be wary of reading too much into the result of a single election—particularly one conducted during the sixth year of a presidency and during a disastrous war."

Bingo. I welcome the article and the hand-wringing of the Republican Party members, but at the end of the day, I just cannot give this the significance that some others have. Now if 2008 exhibits this same trend, then, yeah, there really will be something to it.

Any of the Monthly trolls want to put their money where their mouths are?

Intrade baby. Let's start some markets up!

I would like to point out that we also create folks like Amanda at Pandagon.net, Molly Ivins, Bill Moyers, and Ann Richards. There is a strong undercurrent of blue here, but it's the frothing mouthbreathers who get all the TV time.

Am also a transplanted Californian living in Texas, (8 years) and at times feel like I'm a missionary to a 3rd world country...the ignorance and misinformation passed around is astounding...I am relieved to find that the rest of the world has not lost its' mind.

Yes, emjaybee, because they keep letting us know we'll be sorry if we don't give them all the marbles. Maybe they should be sorry for a change.

Radical conservatism originates in Texas because it was born from reactionary terrorism. Folklore informs us American patriots liberated Texas from Mexico, but they were neo-con predecssors who wanted to create the perfect state for white supremacy by stealing another nation's territory.

As a non-American, my jaw dropped when I saw they were for a return to the Gold Standard. No one is for a return to the gold standard. Talk about a recipe for civil war -- wages would have to be rolled back every time gold flowed out! It would be pouring out under today's conditions, so wages would be heading to Chinese territory.

Then the other planks.

They don't have a clue about reality, do they?

That's the reason that Texas is shaped like a toilet. It is the cesspool from where all the present Republican tactics are formulated.

Simon Legree didn't come from Texas by accident.

The political divide in the United States isn't regional in the way the essay describes. It is urban vs suburban/rural. Take a look at the political map from the 2004 election if you don't believe me. The cultural differences between rural New York and rural Texas are not as great as one might think. The Democrats do better in the Midwest and Northeast because those areas are more urban, and the suburban parts in those regions are older and more connected to the central cities than they are in the South, Southwest, and Mountain West.

The Republicans screwed it up in 2006 because of their corruption while in power and Bush's mistake of invading Iraq. Problem 1 will no longer bother them since they lost power, but Iraq will continue to haunt them.

emjaybee's right, of course. And don't leave out Jim Hightower. And a Republic of Texas on our southern border, especially one from whom the Ivins and Hightowers have been ejected, might be scarier than Mexico.

But when I hear from my Southern colleagues about the "war of northern aggression" I want to hurt someone. Awful damn sorry those damn Yanks came and took away your God-given right to buy and sell Negroes!

Problem 1 will no longer bother them since they lost power

Yancey's faith that losing power will cause the Republican Party to cease being corrupt is...touching.

Gregory,

It is almost as touching as your belief that Democrats will be uncorrupted by power.

Quite true. The political parties have now completed their historical switch. The GOP is now the party of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party is the party of Lincoln.

Michael Lind proposed this in his ‘Made in Texas’ and pointed out the many problems of the United States becoming a Dixie Nation with its capital in Houston. You get an irresponsible aristocratic government of low taxes, low infrastructure investment, militarism, xenophobia, religious orthodoxy and an unhealthy focus on antique extraction economies like oil, coal and farming. It is a culture that actively embraces anti-intellectualism. The current crop of Southern politicians have adopted libertarian jargon without getting into the finer points of Hayek et al. The natural epicenter of Dixie Republicanism is Texas if for no other reason than it is the largest and wealthiest southern state. For Lind there is the Texas of the patrican landowners and the Texas of Lyndon Johnson progressive populism.

Problem 1 will no longer bother them since they lost power

Yeah, right.

Corruption is embodied in their authoritarian platform. It is what their ideology is based on:
"Do what daddy tells you, and don't question daddy."

The reason why Republicans like WAR, is because when we're at WAR, we tend not to question those who are supposed to be fighting for us and protecting us. They ABUSE that tendency.

The reason why Republicans want deregulation, is because they want to be able to get away with their bribery, their incompetence, their nepotism, and their passing money under the table.

The reason why Republicans want a flat tax, is so they can reap the benefits of public investment in infrastructure, without having to pay their fair share back into the system.

The reason why Republicans want to build a wall to look like they're stopping illegal immigration, is because they know that a wall WON'T stop it, and as long as they can continue to hire illegals, they profit.

The reason why Republicans want a theocracy, is because they are immoral enough to scam religious people into thinking they're the "Party of God" - when, in fact, they are Satan's helpers.

The reason why Republicans want people to think they're "Strong On Defense" is so they can take advantage of official secrecy in national security matters, to cover up the fact that their really just war profiteers and purveyors of pork.

The Republican Platform is nothing more than a con job, as cover for their criminal enterprise.

Republican Culture of Corruption.

Just because they're out of power, doesn't mean they won't be corrupt.

Oh right, blame it all on us. I suppose you're gonna try to tell me that Vince Young sucks and Romo is a fluke too.

I absolutely agree with Todd - I think my state could be in play if the party was buttressed a little bit by the national organizations - maybe not in statewide elections just yet, but congressional elections definitely.

Although the traditional line is that hispanics are socially conservative and are always 'on the verge' of going broadly Republican because of it, I don't see that happening now with the GOP's recent illegal immigrant bogeyman-ism.

There are a couple of other factors that make me optimistic: Texas republicans are in a bit of an organizational disarray because of Gov. Perry - he won re-election easily, yes, but he had a Republican challenger (who called herself an independent so she could stay on the general ballot), and was very nearly challenged by Senator Hutchison. The state is a comparative disaster in education, poverty, etc. People are just now realizing that that re-districting fight of a few years back SEEMED advantageous since the GOP held power. But now that they're out of power, all those senior dems that got purged in 02 aren't there to assume leadership roles in the House.

A couple other notes: Texas is young - I believe in the top 5 in terms of %population under 18, which is a HUGE plus for state Democrats. And second, there are some liberal bastions in the state: Austin and the Rio Grande Valley from which to start our conquest.

Don't give up on the Lone Star State y'all!

As the late and great Davy Crockett said:

"You can go to hell. I'm going to Texas."

craigie,

And I would add, I'm sick of people waxing nostalgic about treason, which is what the Confederacy was and is.

Absolutely correct.

Davy Crockett was a terrorist.

It is almost as touching as your belief that Democrats will be uncorrupted by power.

Ah, another ruggedly individualist straw man from Yancey Ward. I forget, Yancey -- where did I express this beleif you cite? I'll wait.

I just love it when loony libertarians like Yancey show the intellectual dishonesty endemic to them right off the bat. In a ruggedly individualistic fashion, of course.

I spent my grad school years in NC, in Chapel Hill. After that, I never want to go back to the south. All that disgusting religious crap just sticks in my craw. Religion should be a private matter, and I do not like it crammed down my throat.

Right now, I am contemplating applying for a job in Nashville, and am really reluctant to do so. Do I really want to work in the South again?

The "War of Northern Aggression" is the "War of Southern Degenerate Traitors" in my opinion.

The main problem with the end of the war is that we didn't shoot the lot of them.

The "Texification" of the GOP and the attempt to"Texify" the nation are thoroughly and entertainingly described by Michael Lind in his book "Made in Texas," which is mandatory reading to understand what happened in our country under Bush.

emjaybee: I would like to point out that we also create folks like Amanda at Pandagon.net, Molly Ivins, Bill Moyers, and Ann Richards.

I've long enjoyed Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower. IIRC, historically Texas has a strong populist tradition. What happened to it?

I don't know about Amanda, but Richards is deceased and the other three aren't exactly kids. Hopefully they aren't the last of a dying breed.

I would like to point out that we also create folks like Amanda at Pandagon.net, Molly Ivins, Bill Moyers, and Ann Richards. There is a strong undercurrent of blue here, but it's the frothing mouthbreathers who get all the TV time.

My take is that Texas Democrats (meaning those among the political classes) are basically more civilized Republicans, but full-throated Texas liberals are an amazing-if-rare breed, and a great gift to the rest of us.

POed Lib, Nashville's okay if you don't expect anything more than technocratic governing competence from local Dems. It's certainly possible to avoid the nutjobs-- I've done it for a decade now-- but it helps if one is in a fairly creative field or nonprofit. If you do come here & also have kids, you'll have to make some hard choices about schools & home location, though, because the collar counties are all very red and extremely annoying.

If not for freeing the slaves we could have just let the traitors go and had a buffer between us and Mexico. And Texas? I agree with the sentiment above...The sooner they succeed at seceding, the better off we'll all be.

I'll drive around that god-damned state to get to Mexico.

I give Texas Republicans points for being open and honest about their goals but that is about it.

I am so SICK of lies and misleading rhetoric.

Professor Chaos Switched the Soup: If not for freeing the slaves we could have just let the traitors go and had a buffer between us and Mexico.

See Harry Turtledove's Timeline 191 books.

Ok, my 4:20 is a reasonable post about Texas politics, but as a Yankee I can't resist my favorite line about Texas.

"If I owned both Texas and Hell, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas."

-- William Tecumseh Sherman

Did he write the book where the southerners are given M-16's by South African time travelers? I can't remember the name of it, or how I came across it. I think it just got left in my car or something and no one ever claimed it.

The cultural differences between rural New York and rural Texas are not as great as one might think.

as someone who lived in rural SW Va (mitigated only by a university), and who now resides in rural northern NY, i can attest to the veracity of this statement. people like to make fun of the south as a bastion of racism and ignorance, but come close to the Canadian border and see what you get.

e1: I'll vouch for that. My Nana lives a mile from the Peace Bridge.

Professor Chaos Switched the Soup: Did he write the book where the southerners are given M-16's by South African time travelers?

AK-47's. "Guns of the South". Never read that one, but it sounds kind of wacky.

Just finished "How Few Remain" though, which is the start of Timeline 191 (see my link above). It's alternate history, rather than sci-fi. I liked it. Lincoln becomes a socialist. Teddy Roosevelt fights the Canucks. It's fun.

Having lived in Texas for 17 years, I can say authoritatively that there are pockets of enlightened humanity in the state, but that they are rare and surrounded by a pulsing ring of malignant conservatives.

Yancey Ward writes in response to Gregory:
It is almost as touching as your belief that Democrats will be uncorrupted by power.

And Gregory responds:

Ah, another ruggedly individualist straw man from Yancey Ward. I forget, Yancey -- where did I express this beleif you cite? I'll wait.

I'm a bit confused here, Gregory. By deduction, are you therefore saying that you DO believe that Democrats will be corrupted by power?

Republicans are crying in their Iraqi-blood lattes.

Pelosi for President 2007!

Texans make really great music. Bob Wills, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nancy Griffith. The list goes on and on. Really good barbecue too.

But politically, the state sucks shit, mainly because the typical Texan is an asshole.

Damn, Alex beat me to General Sherman's line.

I'm another Californian transplanted to Texas, but I've got 26 years in. There are many good things about Texas, but the conservatism is oppressive. If you aren't a winger, it's best just to keep your mouth shut.

After you get to know some people real well, you'll find some are pretty open minded, but the right-wing rhetoric is absolutely everywhere.

Guns of the South. Yep, that's it. That was good escapist fun for a few hours. Maybe I'll check out some of the others now that I know who wrote it and that it's a series-type thing.

You didn't ask me - but I'll bite:

Yes, OF COURSE individual Democrats will be corrupted by power. Power corrupts! Absolutely.

And we may even see the emergence of a widespread, structural corruption on the scale of the Abramoff scandal.

But here's the difference:
The Democratic Party Platform is NOT based on greed and con-artist enabling. (as the Republican ideology is).

Concepts such as Civil Rights, Equal Protection, Equal Opportunity, Progressive Taxation, - - all are rooted in an ideology that is based on fairness, and a faith in rule-of-law.

It's true that some Democratic policies have led to abuses and corruption, (welfare programs, etc) it's more often that those policies were rooted out of a desire to counter, or remedy existing systemic corruption. If there's an abuse, or a problem with the system, you fix it. (mend it, don't end it).

It's also true that ANY system can be "gamed" (it's a mathematical certainty, by Godel's theorem) - but at least these human-derived systems give humans a fighting chance. When you eliminate the system of human laws, there's always one system that remains: the law of the jungle. Only Republican Animals have an advantage in that system. And that's not why we came down from the trees in the first place.

Texans make really great music. Bob Wills, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nancy Griffith.
Posted by: brewmn on December 1, 2006 at 5:04 PM | PERMALINK

Sure - Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Top. . .

Really good barbecue too.

No matter where you go in the US, there's people who claim to have the best barbecue. Don't know why that is. Don't know where the best barbecue is either. Don't really care. It's not rocket science. Chilis and molasses. Whoop-tee-doo.

POed Lib, Nashville's okay if you don't expect anything more than technocratic governing competence from local Dems. It's certainly possible to avoid the nutjobs-- I've done it for a decade now-- but it helps if one is in a fairly creative field or nonprofit. If you do come here & also have kids, you'll have to make some hard choices about schools & home location, though, because the collar counties are all very red and extremely annoying.

It would be at Vandy.

A joke for you:

A busload of politicians were driving down a west-Texas country road, when suddenly the bus ran off the road and crashed into an old farmer's barn.

The old farmer got off his tractor and went to investigate. Soon he dug a hole and buried the politicians. A few days later, the local sheriff came out, saw the crashed bus and asked the old farmer where all the politicians had gone.

The old farmer told him he had buried them.

The sheriff asked the old farmer, "Lordy, were they ALL dead?"

The old farmer said, "Well, some of them said they weren't, but you know how them crooked Texas politicians lie."

It would be at Vandy.

Probably depends on the job, then-- the staff are generally a lot more liberal than the students, of course. My sister's an adjunct there, so I'll pick her brain if you want.

Housing in the area isn't cheap, although your perspective depends on where you'd be moving from. East Nashville's still pretty affordable (and liberal), but the traffic across the bridges can be a pain.

I have never felt that the people of Texas had the same sense of reverence for the Constitution as others in the rest of the country, especially those on the East Coast. Texas' current Right Wingism is actually a sort of living history. Texas was a late member of the Republic and much of the the ethos for a long time was the identity of a separate nation. In fact, in a few incarnations that was a kind of reality. The whole myth of Texas in the "Lone" Star state is the isolated loose cannon cowboy kind of guy. It was Burr's "vision" to run off to Texas with his gang of zealots and forge his own empire. Then there was the "unfortunate" occurance of November '63, LBJ's thuggery, and, of course, W's famous quote that the Constitution was, "just a piece of paper." Add a little DeLay and Dick Armey's assault on Bill Clinton and you have a tasty treachery stew. I, for one, as an American, have always been offended by the phrase, "Don't Mess With Texas." Is that a threat to the rest of the country ?

Having lived in Texas in 14 years now, transplanted from the Northeast (having lived in Penna, Md, Va, NC, and Mass), I can speak with a mild authority.

The perception of Texas as some rabid base of Conservative radicalism is so far off as to be ludicrous.

Yes, the TxGOP is pretty whacked out, however, the reason it gets so much support here, is because the Democrats are, for all intents and purposes non-existent.

The type of tripe I have read in the comments here, is really no different from what I have read elsewhere, so it is not directed just here. Texans are not so pigheaded and ignorant as everyone seems to think. The problems is, that he ignorant and pigheaded are the loud obnoxious ones.

If even half the energy expended to denigrate and make fun of Texas was directed towards helping Democrats take back the state, it would be a much better place. Instead we get the "let 'em go" mentality that only ends up alienating Texans, and driving them away. This is not directed just online, I'm talking in general. There are a lot more people here who do not vote, and don't care, because between the anti-Texas mentality of most people, and the lack of support the Texas Democratic Party has gotten of late, most people who would otherwise join the cause, don't.

The same could be said for most Southern states, but it is particularly bad in Texas.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?: The South isn't all that bad, except for the heat, the football, and the religiosity.

And the bugs, which are related to the heat, and (anyplace more than 10 miles from a university, and sometimes closer than that) the willful ignorance, which is related to the religiosity, which is related to the football.

Lescoeurs: I, for one, as an American, have always been offended by the phrase, "Don't Mess With Texas." Is that a threat to the rest of the country ?

No, it's a slogan for their state anti-litter campaign that got picked up by everybody because they liked the bad-boy sound of it.

I'm a bit confused here, Gregory.

I don't think "confused is the word I'd use.

By deduction, are you therefore saying that you DO believe that Democrats will be corrupted by power?

No, I'm saying I haven't said anything about it one way or another, and pointing out that it's intellectually dishonest of Yancey (quelle suprise!) to put words in my mouth.

(Not to mention a tacit admission -- in a ruggedly individualist sort of way of course -- that he doesn't have an honest rejoinder to my critique.)

And lo and behold, you do the exact same thing. What is it about your crowd that commits an obvious act of intellectual dishoensty and pats themselves on the back for their supposed - and wholly illusory -- rhetorical cleverness in doing so?

Texans make really great music. Bob Wills, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nancy Griffith.
Posted by: brewmn on December 1, 2006 at 5:04 PM

Sure - Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Top. . .

Lyle Lovett. Don't forget him

Yes, the TxGOP is pretty whacked out, however, the reason it gets so much support here, is because the Democrats are, for all intents and purposes non-existent.

So, um, why shouldn't we think of Texas as a "rabid base of Conservative radicalism," if you don't have an alternative to the whackos?

New Hampshire, Indiana, Colorado, Montana and Arizona were also regular dwellers on the Democrats' write-off lists, but, without any special encouragement from the national Democrats -- under the 50 state strategy, Indiana got a grand total of one permanent organizer -- the moderate-to-liberal portions of those states were able to generate candidates, energy, message and exposure for alternative candidates, and gave the Republicans a thorough hiding.

If, for example, Hoosiers, who routinely make it to the final four of the "Quiet and Unassuming People Tournament," can do this, why can't those big, bold, outspoken Texans?

(Now, I'm not disagreeing with your contention that, vote-wise, Texas is part of the vast majority of Purple America. But I'm mystified why the rhetoric never seems to reflect this -- the audience for Pandagon and Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower seems to be northerners with an interest in Texas, not Texans themselves.)

Sorry, but those of you who are hating Texas are mainly full of shit, or at the very least too willing to buy into a collection of fables that only slightly reflect the real world here.

I am the son of a rust belt union organizer and before I was graduated from the Ohio State University in 1982, I was president of the gay student organization there and I worked as an organizer for the Democratic Party.

In ’82, I moved to Houston and never looked back. Its been a blast!!

Yes there are conservative assholes in Texas just as there are in Penn, Mich, Utah, etc.

The current Texas Constitution was written during, and was a product of Reconstruction. It under went extensive revision in the 1880s. As such, it is a document that has tilted much of the government’s powers away from urban areas and given them to the rural areas. Platform of the Texas Republican Party reflects this reality. It was written by and for ranchers and farmers and some suburban bible thumpers.

Finally, I am an AIDS patient. The support and love I have gotten here from employers, co-workers, neighbors and even strangers have at times moved me to tears.

There are a lot of great people here. They are my neighbors, they are my friends. Stop attacking them.

"Did he write the book where the southerners are given M-16's by South African time travelers?"

Harry Turtledove a/k/a H. N. Turtletaub--I particularly recommend his books under the latter name, although a lot of the stuff under the name Turtledove is hackwork. Anyone who dedicates a book to Patrick Neilsen Hayden can't be all bad, however . . .

Gotta agree with Keith G. It's not the people, it's the policies, like the, oh lordy, wish to return to the gold standard. That's a keeper.

Dammit...more obligatory anti-Texas comments from commentors.

Let's not forget there are actual Democrats down here. Dallas turned blue over night this past election, and Texas Democrats are slowly but surely making a comeback against Republican dominance (though with no help from the national party, thank you very much.) Radical Republicans have dominated Texas politics (and through Texas, national politics) for years now, but times, they are a'changing.

Phew! Thank god for Keith G! I can't believe Kevin actually wrote that stuff. You have to remember, Kevin, that there are people who think Scott Peterson and Valley girls represent California, that elderly men sitting on porches sighing "ayuh, ayuh" represent Maine. Ye Gods! To a native New Englander who's lived in both California and Texas, you sound like a real yahoo who's never been anywhere, clings to caricatures!

I'm with Keith. And would add that Texas kindness and sense of humor would be hard to move away from...

Just had a look at the 2006 platform. The crazy stuff about Panama is out, but as a lovely bonus there is a commitment to the 'there is only on China and that is Taiwan' school of thought that Nixon abondoned 33 years ago. Amazing - that would do wonderful things for the State Department!

Kevin is right on about the Politics (with a capital P, i.e. the crazy radicalism of the Republican party of Texas), however, the people here hating on Texas, probably without ever having been there, are way off. You will find no place so liberal/libertarian, and I mean no place in the entire union, as Austin; Houston is a great city (I'll admit the weather is oppressive for four-six months of the year, and the mosquitoes are a bit much) and practices regular, technocratic, democratic, generally non-partisan (but leaning Democratic) governance, minus the zoning.

Most people in Texas, at least the parts I've lived in, frequented, or visited, are live-and-let-live, like to drink beer and watch football, listen to live music, and generally just want to be left alone. There is a very libertarian streak that unfortunately is not being plumbed politically. The major problem, as someone else on this thread has alluded to, is that the state Democratic party has been dead for so long. Also, the outer exurbs of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston are VERY religious/evangelical and vote in very big numbers. Throw in the bad news that is far east Texas (which is much more akin to the old deep South, and is the most virulently racist place I've ever been), and it is much harder to compete state-wide.

But, I'd argue that Texas, due to the large black and Hispanic populations and large urban centers, is much more viable politically for Dems than Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, or maybe another half-dozen states.

It is the political elite in Texas that is reactionary bad news -- but their wave is cresting (the re-redistricting monstrosity was the nadir). Texas will break back well before many other places.

Well, a lot of folks consider the entire Muslim world to be filled with whack-job radical suicide bombers.

Islamic leadership needs to eschew, disown, and disavow the whack-jobs. And given Western Corporate Media coverage of such efforts so far, those efforts need to be redoubled, and re-redoubled.

Texas now faces the same problem.

Eschew the wackjobs, and you'll lose your reputation as a haven for wackjobs.

(of course, thanks to Bush, and especially the 2004 elections, pretty much all of America has that reputation now).

There are some great things in and about Texas. Molly Ivins is one. The music scene in Austin is another. I wish every town and city in America had a thriving local music scene like Austin.

Yeah, more prominent Texas Democrats, in the mode of the great Jim Wright, would be such an improvement over those corrupt Texas Republicans who have held power for the past twelve years.

Texas has to led the nation in politicians who enter public service poor and leave it rich, and it has been that way for decades.

When there is substantive cultural change occurring, people who are either ignorant or who are unwilling to change, cling to old and comfortable cultural norms. So it is with the Southern wing of the Republican Party. There are massive, global cultural changes underway and they are on the losing end of them. They are terrified and are fighting to avoid learning new ways. When WASPs are a minority in the USA by 2050 or so, their world comes crashing down.

As a Californian who move to New Orleans in 2003 and then evacuated to Mississippi after the flood, I have very little good to say about the South. It does lead Mass. in divorces, sexually transmitted diseases, murder, violent crime, illiteracy, infant mortality and a number of other social pathologies.

My impression of Texas isn't positive, but it was formed in Wichita falls, and even Texans hate Wichita Falls (Where the hell are the falls anyway?)

I actually had a neighbor who shot tarantulas with a .22. I ran them over with the car, myself.

I actually had a neighbor who shot tarantulas with a .22. I ran them over with the car, myself.
Posted by: Global Citizen on December 1, 2006 at 7:11 PM | PERMALINK

I run over them on my bike.

Anyway - Scott Peterson? WTF? First of all, he was a tightass conservative wife-murdering creep. How does HE represent California? He murdered two people. George W Bush; hundreds of thousands.

Many liberals think Americans that aren't like them are stupid, and many conservatives think Americans that aren't like them are amoral. Extremists on both sides have inflated egos and wish to force others to live their lives as they do. What we need is more respect for federalism. We need to quit bullshitting around and leave such issues as gays and guns up to the States.

Global Citizen: I actually had a neighbor who shot tarantulas with a .22.

Not a bad idea. A larger caliber would leave more splatter.

I recall a time before Alaska became a state that Texas and Texans always bragged about having the biggest of everything.

They were right.

We are stuck with their biggest fucking asshole in the White House.

Lescoeurs: Texas ... the ethos for a long time was the identity of a separate nation.

Vermont was also a separate nation (the Green Mountain Republic) but you don't hear Vermonters going on endlessly about it. And when they joined the United States, they took it seriously - no seceding.

A useful rule of thumb is that bad is stronger than good: it takes 5-8 good events to neutralize one bad one.

So, personally, I admit that I have known many fantastic Texans--funny, mellow, competent.

But against all these great people...George Bush & cronies. It will take several thousand fantastic Texans to equalize Bushco bad, in my book.

Technically the original 13 colonies were 13 separate nations as well.

However, the circumstances under which Texas joined the union were largely unique from any other state. The problem here, seems to be that Texans, generally are proud of where they are from, rather than any other problem.

Obviously having this debate is kind of pointless, just as I have found everywhere I see it engaged in.

I just know, that if Texas Democrats are going to be basically ignored and shunned by the rest of the country, it is going to prolong any attempt to fix what's wrong here.

David (Austin Tx): The perception of Texas as some rabid base of Conservative radicalism is so far off as to be ludicrous.

Austin is in Texas? Only technically.

Sorry, but those of you who are hating Texas are mainly full of shit, or at the very least too willing to buy into a collection of fables that only slightly reflect the real world here.

Xanthippas: Dammit...more obligatory anti-Texas comments from commentors.

Quite yer whining. If there were no Texas jokes, it would mean you were being ignored. Hey, before Clinton, how many people realized Arkansas was actually a state?

Being a New Yorker, I can say that a country without NY jibes would feel weird. The Thanksgiving after 9/11 I took a vacation in Nevada, Arizona and Utah. People selling FDNY t-shirts. Folks in diners asking how things were in NY. It was creepy.

Even TV and country music pulled their punches. Finally, after a year or two, the country got back to NY bashing. Like other NY'ers I spoke to, it was a relief to get back to normal.

"Many seek only to satisfy their private work -- wants; to satisfy their private interests. But this is the great danger America faces -- that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?"
-The Late, Great Barbara Jordan (D-Texas)

Although "If I owned both Texas and Hell, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas." is indeed a great quote, it was not Sherman who coined it, but rather a different Union general, Philip Henry Sheridan.

David in Austin - I fight the good fight wherever I find myself. All the time my husband was activity duty USAF, I joined with the locals wherever I was because I had kids in school.

Now I'm in Missouri, my husband is retired, and I deal with a state lege daily that makes the Texas Lege look like Rhodes Scholars and Mensa members.

We all have our crosses to bear, if someone of my heritage can even say that...

We all have our crosses to bear, if someone of my heritage can even say that...

Mel Gibson told me you made a man named Jesus bear a cross and I think he wants to have a word with you, darlin'

Yes. That was me. I personally and singlhandedly crucified Jesus.

Many, many years ago a local radio comedian ran for governor in AZ, and one of his issues was the state was not adequately prepared to defend against attack by Texas. The Texas invasion plan consisted of balooning over New Mexico and occupying Arizona. I know this because he was invited to the TV debate and was the third candidate between the Rep and Dem.

One of the curiosities of Texas, and of the rest of the South, is that much of the country music they love (and I love it too) makes fun of them. I have never figured out whether it's a sign of sophistication or they miss the sarcasm. But few things are more surreal than watching several hundred drunk red-blooded Texans merrily sing along with a country singer

And it's up against the wall redneck mother
Mother who has raised her son so well...

And he's not responsible for what he's doing
'Cause his mother made him what he is.

Some reasons not to kick Texas out of the union, whether they want to leave or not:

1.) Fresh shrimp and "ersters"

2.) The Vaughan Brothers

3.) Louann Barton

4.) Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets

5.) Molly Ivins

6.) Barbara Jordan

7.) Ann Richards

8.) ZZ Top

9.) Antoine's in Austin

10.) Ninfa's shredded beef tacos

Hostile - I was exiled to Davis-Monthan for a while too - would I have been exposed to this hilarious mother fucker? Please?

There for a minute I couldn't get away from the damned tarantulas.

My best "Mom" lesson ever was taking the kids out in the desert and giving them the desert safety lecture (my dad was in the Navy I had to learn about the desert the hard way - as an adult on a bicycle) anyway, I took the kids out in the desert and was explaining how they shouldn't pick up rocks and things, and I flipped over a stone with a stick and there were three scorpions. They got wide eyed and impressed and stayed out of the ER the entire time we were at DM the 2nd time. (The first time we were in Tucson, the oldest one learned to walk and climb and got stitches three different times, but no bites or stings.)

pencarrow writes: I'm a bit confused here, Gregory. By deduction, are you therefore saying that you DO believe that Democrats will be corrupted by power?

Of course they will be corrupted, you yahoo. The only question is the speed and the extent of the corruption.

And on this they would be VERY hard put to surpass America's current Let-Me-Line-My-Pockets-I'm-Okay-Fuck-You Republican Party. The current crop of Democrats seem more constrained by ethics (though some will be in at the trough more quickly than others and there will come a time when they too need to be kicked out; though I sure as heck hope your country has something better than the RDW Loony-Tune Moonbeam Texas Party to offer as an alternative when the time comes).

I was a brief guest of the authorities at a place called Fort Huachuca. There was this thing they did where they sent us there to learn about "military intelligence" and it all backfired. To keep people from going to Mexico, they made the drinking age on post 18 and promptly ended up having to put out so many prospective members of the military intelligence corps that this caused a brief shortage of linguists.

Long story short, do you know why there's a shortage of qualified Arabic linguists in the military? Well, after a year at DLI, six months at Goodfellow and two months of hell at Fort Huachuca, I knew at least a half dozen of them who were sent to such Arabic-intensive places like Hawaii, Korea and Fort Lewis.

Ah, the good old days...

though I sure as heck hope your country has something better than the RDW Loony-Tune Moonbeam Texas Party to offer as an alternative when the time comes

Did you know that rdw has been posting about Saint Ronny Reagan, Kyoto and old Europe for the last fourteen hours straight on the "Marching Orders from the House of Saud" thread?

Apparently, the US is better than Europe because our homes have more appliances than theirs do.

Yep.

I shit you not.

More Appliances.

The question should be is : What will the US be like as a single party state? How will politics function with only one relevent political party. Will all of the Republicans and conservatives have to start voting in the Democratic Primary?

Ah good old Military Intelligence - between the tales you and my husband can (and do) tell without fear of reprisal, I always get a chuckle out of that oxymoron. Why the hell did a nukes specialist end up in the Balkans exactly? He was there for a year and never really had a purpose, but hey, it gave him the right to join the VFW so he could walk in and quit 'em in protest and in person when they endorsed Major Duckworths opponent, so it all worked out okay...

The other lesson for us is what would the liberal/left/progressive equivalent to Texasization look like it were ever to happen and how do we avoid that?
In other words, what is the general human lesson here?

More Appliances.

Yeah, I know. My dishwasher always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy...

Oops. Except I don't have one.

Nah, I missed this soliloquy.

Texans make really great music. Bob Wills, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nancy Griffith. The list goes on and on.

Let's not forget Buddy Holly, Willie Nelson and Joe "King" Carrasco.

But while Texas has been a cross to bear for the national Republican party, at times the Democrats have been held hostage by Massachusetts -- a byproduct of the Kennedys' influence -- resulting in the lackluster likes of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, neither of whom would have been considered presidential timber had they hailed from any other state.

It took me hours to argue Wooten down on a global warming thread, and when he finally said we were pretty much in agreement, at least on more things than we weren't I quit. It's like lightning, it ain't going to strike twice, he'll never yield again, at least not to me, so I'll invest my efforts elsewhere. Besides, I doubt it did any good anyway.

They told us that if you served in Korea, you could join the VFW.

I don't think I will. First of all, who wants to hang around with a bunch of old combat veterans? My Republican friends tell me that if you're a combat veteran who served your country honorably and came back with grievous wounds or the ability to articulate the horrors of war, you're LESS of a man than someone who got student deferments or went AWOL from their National Guard duty or worked on a dude ranch.

God, I'm in a baaaad mood tonight.

Global Citizen: We all have our crosses to bear, if someone of my heritage can even say that...

Considering the most famous victim of that practice, who better to say that than someone of your heritage.

Geesh: 114 comments and no one's mentioned Kinky Friedman yet?
OMG, what could they be thinking???

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