Posted 3:20 am Tuesday, June 26, 2012
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NYT Writer Says Blame It On Texas
Stop it.
You’re ruining the world, apparently, and one liberal writer would like you to just cut it out.
You’re ruining the world, apparently, and one liberal writer would like you to just cut it out.
The New York Times’ Gail Collins has a new book out — “As Texas Goes ... How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda.” It’s all about how the worst ideas in the world all come from Texas.
“If you look back over the last 30 years or so, most of the major national agenda, one way or another, came out of Texas,” she said in a recent interview about the book. “The savings and loan crisis began with regulations that were based on Texas regulations. Our education policies are based on the No Child Left Behind law, which George W. Bush based on Texas education policy. The same is true for environment, for energy policy. And all the land wars the country has been involved in for my lifetime have been led by Texas presidents.”
“If you look back over the last 30 years or so, most of the major national agenda, one way or another, came out of Texas,” she said in a recent interview about the book. “The savings and loan crisis began with regulations that were based on Texas regulations. Our education policies are based on the No Child Left Behind law, which George W. Bush based on Texas education policy. The same is true for environment, for energy policy. And all the land wars the country has been involved in for my lifetime have been led by Texas presidents.”
Wait, what? True, a Texan was president for six years of the Vietnam War (which lasted for 20, from 1955 to 1975). But… well, never mind.
On to her next claim.
On to her next claim.
“The political division, at least among regular people in this country, has always been between the empty places and the crowded places,” she says. “People who think of themselves as living in empty places feel like government is just in the way because they’re taking care of themselves because they’re in an empty place and they’re not bothering anybody. In Texas, even though now it’s very big and most of its people live in cities or metropolitan areas, Texas has always been a leading influence in that empty places mentality. So that kind of anti-government, ‘leave me alone’ feeling is very much natural to Texas.”
That’s an interesting theory. It has the distinct advantage of being completely unprovable.
But her real point is that Texas should change its ways and stop thinking of itself so much as a state.
Here’s an example:
“Gun rights is something Texas cares a lot about,” she says. “I think at this point people would agree that whatever Texas wants to do about gun rules is OK for Texas, but when it comes to things like sale of guns, when those guns that are sold in Texas go over the border and are used in crimes in say, California, or in Mexico frequently, then that’s something more. Then that’s no longer just a Texas issue. It’s no longer about states’ rights, it’s about national issues and national security.”
Is that really a can of worms this avid Obama supporter wants to open? That guns from Texas are walking over the Mexican border? Perhaps she should discuss that with Attorney General Eric Holder.
But it’s not right to merely mock one’s opponents. Her argument, as far as we can tell, is that states’ rights are an inconvenience in our system; federal interests should come first.
What she misses is that tension between states’ rights and the central government is the system. It’s called federalism, and it keeps power from becoming concentrated in any one area.
As Alexander Hamilton said, “this balance between the national and state governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.”
Of course ambitious liberals (and at times, ambitious conservatives) find it inconvenient to their aims.
Thank goodness.
But her real point is that Texas should change its ways and stop thinking of itself so much as a state.
Here’s an example:
“Gun rights is something Texas cares a lot about,” she says. “I think at this point people would agree that whatever Texas wants to do about gun rules is OK for Texas, but when it comes to things like sale of guns, when those guns that are sold in Texas go over the border and are used in crimes in say, California, or in Mexico frequently, then that’s something more. Then that’s no longer just a Texas issue. It’s no longer about states’ rights, it’s about national issues and national security.”
Is that really a can of worms this avid Obama supporter wants to open? That guns from Texas are walking over the Mexican border? Perhaps she should discuss that with Attorney General Eric Holder.
But it’s not right to merely mock one’s opponents. Her argument, as far as we can tell, is that states’ rights are an inconvenience in our system; federal interests should come first.
What she misses is that tension between states’ rights and the central government is the system. It’s called federalism, and it keeps power from becoming concentrated in any one area.
As Alexander Hamilton said, “this balance between the national and state governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.”
Of course ambitious liberals (and at times, ambitious conservatives) find it inconvenient to their aims.
Thank goodness.
