Texas, is like a whole other country

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by -kevin-, May 1, 2009.

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  1. -kevin-

    -kevin- Resident Redneck

    including to the state department.....

    Travels with Secretary Clinton

    "OVERALL DEPARTMENT POLICY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, REGULATORY INITIATIVES, AND INTERAGENCY EFFORTS


    In the first 100 Days of the Obama Administration, Secretary Clinton and the State Department have made significant progress in advancing America’s national security goals and promoting America’s values around the world.


    Secretary Clinton is already the most traveled Secretary of State in a new Administration. The Secretary’s trips have included her inaugural trip to Asia, the Middle East and Europe, Mexico and across the border to Texas, the Hague in the Netherlands, Europe with President Obama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago with President Obama, and to Iraq and Kuwait."

    emphasis mine....
     
  2. MichaelR

    MichaelR Member

    well, you can drive for 5 hours and not see the border....
     
  3. mattbrent

    mattbrent Well-Known Member

    Perhaps this is just poorly written and they meant to say she left Mexico and crossed the border into Texas?

    -Matt
     
  4. -kevin-

    -kevin- Resident Redneck

    yep, it is poorly written, before the website was changed they actually had Texas listed as a separate country on the country list with the number of miles to reach it. I would hope that Texas already promotes the US national security goals and values.

    Mostly I found the information humorous in light of the recent secession comments in Texas.
     
  5. MichaelR

    MichaelR Member

    I hadn't heard about that.... intersting...
     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    To people in the newly ascendant SF-Chicago-NYC-DC urban axis, Texas is a foreign country, a wasteland inhabited by dangerous primitives in pickup trucks. (Imagine Somalia with Stetsons.) Many San Franciscans would feel much more at-home in a stylish Paris cafe than they would in Waco.
     
  7. skidadl

    skidadl Member

    Texas is the most awesome countr...uh, state in the United State.

    Yes, it is true.
     
  8. MichaelR

    MichaelR Member


    Actually, most Texans feel that way about WACKO... er Waco, including some that live there....
     
  9. D.Paul

    D.Paul New Member

    Try a cultural oasis like Austin or San Antonio before forming an image of "dangerous primitives in pickup trucks". Somalia with stetsons? C'Mon. Had the original comment targeted the "newly ascendent SF-Chicago-NYC-DC urban axis" as a clueless, PC virtual foreign country, I doubt the criticism would have run so glibly.

    We aren't all rearming and heading for the Northern border, in spite of what Rick "Watch me run my mouth!!" Perry might be saying.
     
  10. skidadl

    skidadl Member

    Howdy neighbor! I live in New Braunfels.
     
  11. D.Paul

    D.Paul New Member

    Hiya, Skidadl - I stopped and ate there (New Braunfels) earlier tonight at the German restaurant (Oma's Haus, if I remember right) after picking my son up at the Austin airport (much cheaper than flying in to San Antonio for a change, and worth the drive).

    Who'd a thought that you could get Sauerbraten in "Somalia"?
     
  12. skidadl

    skidadl Member

    :p

    My wife at there a few days ago. She says that it's pretty decent food. I have yet to stop in there and try it.

    Next time you are in town honk when you go by. Just make sure that you are wearing your non-Somalian pirate clothes when you do it.
     
  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Your knee is jerking. I guess that I'm going to have to spell it out in words of one syllable.

    My remark was meant as sarcasm directed at how people in the left's urban elite - Nancy Pelosi (SF), Hillary (NYC), Obama (Chicago) and in DC where they all nest these days, really do perceive places like Texas. Culturally, Texas is more foreign to them than Western Europe. They really do share all kinds of 'redneck'/'cowboy' stereotypes and they really do regard Texans and rural 'middle' America as culturally backward and potentially dangerous. Janet Nepolitano wasn't kidding when she talked about conservatives and returned military veterans as potential homeland security threats. That's how they see it.

    You saw it in how the urban media stereotyped Sarah Palin as 'trailer trash' because she lives in a remote still-frontier state and grew up in Idaho. And you saw it in how the supposedly astute 'Economist' said essentially the same thing, moving within a single article from a discussion of Palin here in the US to a discussion of soccer hooligans in Europe, secure in the belief that it was the same demographic and the same phenomenon.

    --Breaking it down into political philosophy--

    Culturally, the Republicans are America's 'insider' party, composed of people who viscerally identify with that they perceive as the American mainstream. They aren't all agreed on what that is or why they identify with it, but they identify with it anyway. So they tend to wrap themselves in the flag, in patriotism and are unashamed nationalists. They support business enterprise as the engine of national success. They support the military, want the borders secured and perceive the police as existing to protect them. Criminal courts must prosecute criminals. Republicans tend to be whiter, more male and more Protestant than average. They generally support and defend tradition and they might sometimes be more apt to see those who are visibly deviant as potential threats.

    Culturally, the Democrats are traditionally America's 'outsider' party, composed of people who feel viscerally alienated from what they perceive as the American mainstream. They don't all feel alienated for the same reasons, but they feel alienated nevertheless. A greater number of them are racial or ethnic minorities, hyphenated-Americans. Historically they've been more apt to be Catholics or Jewish, though that's been gradually changing as Catholics and Jews feel more mainstream and drift right. They are more apt to be feminists or gay. They are more likely to see police as threatening, as instruments of oppression. Criminal courts must protect the accused. They distrust the military, flag-waving and American nationalism. They see calls for border-security as coded racism against people like themselves. They support labor against the evil bosses and think profit is probably theft. The engine of national success is government reform and social programs. Democrats are weighted with frustrated academic intellectuals who believe that they should be in charge, produce reams of trendy race-class-gender theory, and brutally criticise American history and traditions as oppressive and evil. Self-styled "progressives", the America that they love so passionately isn't the America of the past or of today, it's the America that can be in the future, after its transformation, cleansing and reformation.

    Those are both caricatures, overstated so as to highlight the themes. But I think that there's a lot of truth to it. We see it illustrated every day.

    It certainly helps explain the liberal media's absolute orgasm at Barack Obama's election. He's a black man! He's named "Barack Obama"! He's a living, walking-talking symbol of the outsiders' triumph and their coming transformation of America. It's what that constantly-repeated code-word "Change" means.

    Geographically, the Democrats tend to be the urban party, particularly strong in California, the Northeast and in larger Midwestern cities where many immigrants have settled. The Republicans have gradually become the more rural party, strongest in the broad middle of the country, strengthened greatly in the last generation by the wholesale shift of the South from post-Civil War totally-Democratic alienation, to a rather militant, divisive and very conservative religious-right Republicanism.

    And that's why I perceived the Hillary thing about visiting a list of foreign countries including Texas as being kind of a Freudian slip, as really expressing a deeper truth about how our new leadership actually does see things. Apart from Austin and the downtowns and university campuses of a few larger cities, Texas isn't really the kind of place where many of the country's newly ascendent elite are likely to feel entirely comfortable hanging out. Paris is probably more to their liking. In a subtle way, Barack Obama's Hyde Park crowd really do see much of the United States, certainly the less stylish bits, as a foreign country, an alien place that they feel instinctively distrustful of. Michelle Obama expressed it well when she said that she had never really felt proud of her country until Barack ran for President.

    What's so interesting now is that the outsiders have become insiders in a way that we might never have seen before, while the former insiders are having to deal with being outsiders.

    That change, if it's fundamental and not just cosmetic, might just conceivably lead to a wholesale reorganization of our current partisan alliances and to the formation of brand new ruling and populist-oppositional groupings, whether or not these take the form of wholly new political parties. Each will attract some parts but not others of both of our current partisan coalitions. We might conceivably be seeing America's fairly stable political system entering into a new and more unpredictable period.
     
  14. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    A most delightful and fun read! I sincerely thank you. I hope I don't come across as too critical, I'm actually trying to add to my perceived overall intent of your delightful post. When mentioning Sarah Palin it would have been nice to make mention of a few other tidbits perhaps like the pregnant daughter, the moose shooting, and an extra bonus would have been the interview in front of the turkey slaughtering station. I also thought that you missed an opportunity to mention capital punishment in terms of Texas and perhaps Hillary escaping Texas alive being some kind of an oversight. Some rather minor tongue-in-cheek points you may have missed but overall I'd have to say you pretty much nailed it! :)
     
  15. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Bill: "...perhaps like the pregnant daughter..."

    Bristol Palin on Good Morning America yesterday: "I just want to go out there and promote abstinence and say, this is the safest choice. This is the choice that's going to prevent teen pregnancy and prevent a lot of heartache."

    And the 820,000 unmarried teenage girls who got pregnant last year rose up as one to say, "Yeah, sure, OK."
     
  16. D.Paul

    D.Paul New Member

    Fair enough. As a life long "lefty" it's easy to be over sensitive to the stereotype of the “shoot first, legislate to validate later” redneck Texan. I would have enjoyed seeing you take your original challenge and use only "one syllable words" to explain the concept. Thanks for an enjoyable read.
     
  17. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I prefer Nice over Paris myself.


    Abner :)
     
  18. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    The way you write all of this is such that it seems that you want the reader to believe that this is a bad thing.
     
  19. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    And, equally naturally, all of this is written in such a way as to make it equally painfully obvious that the writer wants the reader to believe that this is all about the good, the true, and the beautiful.
     
  20. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Nice? Is she one of Conrad's other heiresses? :D
     

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