What I really think is nuts is not so much the secession part (although for some reason that just pisses me off to no end) the part that is well and truly just bozo bonkers is the part of politicians like that schmuck using it to further his political ends. Even though everyone is still being represented in the government and who is being oppressed so badly that bozo needs to inflame everyone with his rhetoric? Right when everything is starting to look a little better, you have people like him and his "win by any means possible" thinking.
Perry is about to be in the fight of his life in the Republican Primary for Govenor against one of our Senators, Kay Bailee Hutchison. He's doing everything in his power to make him seem like a 'state guy' and her a 'federal pawn.' Distasteful, but expected.
I didn't really see this "different country" when I visited Texas. Maybe I'm just used to the desert and ocean or something but the people there seemed no different than the people who lived in California, with a few exceptions.
It's not about the landscape, it's about the attitude. I'll agree that with the massive influx of people from other states over the past 30 years, the state identity isn't as strong as it used be, but it is still there.
My question to you is: What direction is too much? Changing the health care system so it makes sense? Changing the military so it makes sense? Changing our foriegn policy so it makes sense? What part is too much and how does it affect your daily life? Everyone is being represented in the government. There is taxation WITH representation.
It comes down to perception more than anything else. People are feeling the economic pinch and during this, many are seeing their taxes raised and the taxes they pay being put towards what they perceive as corporate welfare (TARP, etc) as well as wasted through various other programs.
The biggest problem with healthcare reforms is that while we all want reforms that make sense, most of the people that have decent healthcare are scared shitless(myself included) that 1) our costs will go up (while others' costs may go down) and/or 2) our quality of care will decrease.
There's also real fear about the government taking on a level of debt that literally could cause an eventual default. I was too young in the 80's to know what people were saying back then, but I know a lot of people that feel like we were already over extended before Obama came into office and now with his trillion dollar deficit we're going past the point of no return.
Top that off with the growing pessimism of paying into a fundamentally flawed social security system that is accruing payment obligations that it can't possibly handle without a major change to benefit structure (which no politician will touch) or a huge jump in taxation, and you've got a lot of people generally worried about what Washington is doing.
It's really about the money. We don't like sending it to Washington in the first place and we like it even less when we perceive that it is being spent frivolously, especially in an economic downturn.
I couldn't help throwing in that comparison
