[Photo of Wendy Davis, Democratic candidate for governor of Texas]Generally speaking, the news out of Texas makes one's skin crawl and creates a great deal of nausea among educated, intelligent, moral and ethical people. But there have been several indications which indicate that not everyone in Texas is an ignorant moron.
[The most obvious exceptions to this observation, of course, include the governor - some clown named Rick or Perry - and the Republicans in the state legislature and the Republican party as a whole and the teapot crackpots who are willing to lay down our lives for the sake of Mr. Cruz and his "sacred" mission of shutting down the United States government.]
Some, including Mr. Rick or Mr. Perry, have insinuated that Texas would be better off if it seceded from the Union and established itself as an independent country. Considering the state of the State of Texas, I tend to think that isn't a bad idea. It would be great fun to see these non-rocket scientists try to run a whole country when they can't even run the state! The first thing they'd probably do is ask for "foreign aid" from the U.S. government to maintain their highways and their schools. Texas, you see, gets about twice as much federal money as it sends to Washington in the form of taxes or other revenue and has come to expect handouts from the federal government even as they whine about the federal government's deficit!
Furthermore, the country of Texas would undoubtedly be a real drag on the rest of the world. The educational system is in tatters, its health care is dragging along the bottom rung, women are considered inferior and denied their basic human rights, and it is likely that those in power would demand that Texas be a "Christian" country.
You know what would happen then. Uprising and revolt. People accustomed to freedom in the U.S. of A. would be demonstrating, demanding their rights; they'd clamor for a new secular constitution. They'd want schools that would teach their children something useful and not send them off to wander about the mountains of west Texas looking for Noah's ark! They'd want their pharmacies to sell contraceptives because they wouldn't be able to feed their 12 children and some would demand that Roe v. Wade be adjudged the law of the land of Texas because women throughout the country were being butchered by back-alley abortionists.
All of these things would be denied by Ted Cruz who would have been anointed king by his father, Rafael and a Christian Zionist from San Antonio. Before long the whole country would be in the toilet and we'd have to send Peace Corp workers and health care personnel and legal beagles and bankers and philosophers and non-Christian psychiatrists, and just about every kind of resource available. Hell, we might even have to send the Army to keep the Christians from slaughtering the rest of the folks!
So maybe Texas shouldn't secede. There have been a couple of positive signs leaking out of the Lone Star State in recent days.
The word on the street is that publishers of science textbooks being considered for Texas public schools will not include the teaching of Creationism or its morbid cousin, Intelligent Design. They will, instead, include material to help students understand the evolutionary process which is the bedrock of all science!
There are, of course, ways and means that the unevolved can use to try to get Creationism and Intelligent Design into the schools, but this refusal to include such crap in science textbooks is a good and hopeful sign.
The second positive sign has to do with a Republican judge from San Antonio who put out the word that he was resigning his position and leaving the Republican Party. He plans to run for re-election as a Democrat because "he can no longer be part of a political party whose identity is based on hate, bigotry and destroying people's lives."
His name is Carlo R. Key. He doesn't much like Ted Cruz or other politicians who further "their agenda or career by harming others."
Part of his resignation speech went like this:
"I cannot tolerate a political party that demeans Texans on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their economic status. I will not be a member of a party in which hate speech elevates candidates for higher office rather than disqualifying them. I cannot place my name of the ballot for a political party that is proud to destroy the lives of 100s or 1000s of federal workers over the vain attempt to repeal a law that will provide health care to millions of people throughout our country."
And finally, there's another positive sign: Wendy Davis is running for governor of the State of Texas. Ms. Davis is a Democrat, a state senator from Fort Worth and is not afraid to take on the nutcases in the state legislature. She will, she says, "represent the working class and improve public education, economic development and health care [... in] Texas." She especially wants to restore the $5 billion the Republicans in Austin cut from the public school budget!
You may remember that Senator Davis was the one who, in a 13-hour filibuster, fought against new restrictive abortion legislation. In Texas, that took a lot of courage. A lot. of. courage!
There may be hope for Texas yet. Maybe.
