The work by this year’s Texas Legislature is a national embarrassment and out of touch with the majority of people who call this state home. Guns all around, no questions asked, visible at the ready for all to see come September. Really? Essentially banning abortion (well, after six weeks of conception) anywhere in Texas. Tightening election laws to make voting and registering to vote hard on specific folks (the poor and minorities). Even hornswagglin’ teachers who dare bring up the subject of racism … in this once proud Confederate slave-holding state … in this historically and ongoing prejudiced and bigoted nation. Really?
All this bull is what the elected male-majority Texas Lege spent their time on in Austin this spring. And making sure the message is loud and clear, the governor is damned determined to build a big ol’ towering steel wall along the Mexico border, this time with privately raised funds—no matter if property owners stateside don’t want it. Texas essentially is out to prove which state is the most ultra conservative in the Union. There’s no other reason for these kinds of backwoods barefooted ignorant Deliverance river raftin’ sinister law makin’. To intelligent people—of the 21st century, mind you—these new forthcoming laws make absolutely … no … sense.
Take, for instance, the new Texas law that will allow guns carried by anyone anywhere and without any training or certification. WHO thought THIS would be a good law? Ninety percent of the American people are sick to death over daily mass shootings. Whoever came up with ‘guns and more guns for everyone!’ is taking a page from the bankrupt NRA and their impotent response when asked how to stop the constant shooting deaths: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Like that ever happens. What a piece of fiction, straight out of Rifleman, Gunsmoke and all the romanticized westerns and shoot-em-up big-budget Hollywood movies.
Texas has pushed this issue right into a new generation that wants the Second Amendment gone. The tired old comeback about ‘an armed citizenry prevents a tyrant or coup or the government itself from taking away our freedom’ doesn’t wash either. Again, too much bloodshed … for decades … and none of it for any political reason—always some obscure young man with anger issues and easy access to military assault rifles. How do we know this? Because the ones who did not commit suicide or die by cop during their moment of shooting rage tell us the ease of obtaining a high-power military assault rifle made all the difference in accomplishing their mission: to kill as many people possible.
And Texas wouldn’t be Texas if not whining about abortions ever’ day, again for decades. Abortion on demand is a federal law, a right women and girls have, and no state in the U.S. can take it away yet. The lawsuits to restore abortion in Texas will cost millions of tax dollars. Quite a cow chip to be a-steppin’ into. The Legislature didn’t prove anything other than what’s on their minds and in their hearts: Females are dirty little *^%$#@s. If Americans have said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: Government should stay out of private lives.
The ’21 Texas Lege is not well read because if they were, they would heed the warning: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” It’s from the book Nineteen Eighty-Four about an authoritarian government that bans words and cuts out history and truth to suit its purpose: controlling the masses. In the book, the government calls itself Big Brother so the people will think it’s for their own good to obey. In the real world in which we live, a democracy, history teachers (and any educator) do not need the Texas Legislature telling them what and how to teach. This issue to ban race discussions in the classroom comes down to whites not wanting to come across as bigots and privileged in the past or today.
White people can put up with a lot. But when it comes to Black people ‘pushing the envelope,’ such as protesting against citizens dying by the hands or guns of police or once again bringing up monetary reparations still owed from the Civil War, white people in this country will inevitably put their foot down. They will not tolerate any more open discussion, let alone allow impressionable young Texans to hear or consider another opinion or learn the God’s-honest truth about our convoluted brutal history solely based on race. End of subject. If the Texas Lege hears one more word about it, they’re gonna cut a switch.
Educated people cannot live like this: told by the Texas government what to teach and what not to teach. Who’s threatening whom? Nineteen Eighty-Four has several slogans to instill fear of the government, but the Bible maintains “The truth will set you free.” And it does, Texas Legislature. We can handle the truth. But apparently white legislators are the ones who can’t handle the truth of this state and nation. Why not? Money. Some wealthy Americans, of the ilk who get themselves elected to government, have an almost evil penchant about holding onto their money—because they believe money is power.
Things’ve changed
But the most evil and anti-American antics by the 2021 Texas Legislature were messin’ with election laws. That body of predominately old white men think they can sit back and kick their boots up atop their legislative desks and just suppress voters. Have they gone mad? Yes, they bought into the former president’s sulking baby lie about winning the election and losing only because of rampant voter fraud and vote tampering. [Can you imagine Democrats carrying on like that when Hillary Rodham Clinton lost to Trump?] Simply put, Democrats believe elections should be free, fair and open, and Republicans think elections should be tightly monitored, restricted and maneuvered toward their guys winning. Republican state legislatures including Texas have been a-gerrymandering communities to create voting blocks in their favor in an obvious and pathetic effort to stay in power. They’ve succeeded in only bringing out more voters, many who will vote against them, most not old, white or wealthy.
In the 21st century, voting, like everything else we do, should involve technology. But Americans have a big problem with trust, and that’s where Republican legislators align with the people. American communities have held elections with no problems way before this crop of legislosers. Anyone who runs the elections, all locally elected officials, know they risk prison if they fudge the numbers or dare tamper with the votes or results. The Texas Lege didn’t need to waste time making a law that already exists so they can claim vote security. Why’d they do it? My guess is too many Democrats, too many minorities, too many working Texans with poor-to-scraping-by incomes. You know what? All those groups, targeted to be disenfranchised, could control this state and the U.S. if they vote. So the Texas Legislature, in its missing-tooth wisdom, came up with pretend problems to ensure the vote remains secure (as if election tampering had been going on). Really? That’s news to us.
They did a double doozy on revamping election laws. I don’t know if I will get in trouble for helping a fellow Texan find where to register to vote or how. I think it’s everyone for herself and himself. That is, after all, the Republican ideal. Figure it out yourself: where to register to vote (fewer places now), where to vote (fewer places now), and when to vote (less time, no Sunday voting) and how to vote (strict guidelines on mail-in ballots especially for the questionably ‘disabled’ and ‘elderly.’)
To the Texas governor and all the Western suits who made up these so-called laws that:
allow if not encourage any untrained idiot to wield a loaded gun in public;
stop a woman’s and girl’s right to abortion;
cut out school lessons involving racism in Texas and U.S. history;
and substantially interfere with our guaranteed right to vote including easy access to polls, voting times and days, and registration—
we’re still not going to forget the February 2021 deadly freeze.
No barbecue smoke will make 75% of Texans who lost heat for days or loved ones in zero-degree weather EVER forget. See ya good old boys at the polls. Run along now, ya’hear?