Why Beto Is Smaller Government In Texas Than Abbott
Sounds paradoxical. Consider what the “conservative” state government of Texas pushed through in 2021. Spying on women and using lawsuits as a means of abortion prohibition. Government intrusion against private companies who wanted vaccination or required testing for Covid. Government intrusion into “independent” school districts to force ideological dogma. $2 billion in taxes and spending for a border wall from Matamoros to El Paso (immigration is a problem but it is a federal problem, stop border control at El Paso and anyone can still walk into New Mexico). Gerrymandering at an all new level of fear based control and government control of voting by selective restriction of voting and draconian poll intrusion in the name of “massive voter fraud” that was whole cloth fabrication.
I think ideally we would have the character to act wisely on our own and have little as possible government. Truth is I am a (idealistically) a libertarian. And: For someone like me, supporting competition to Governor Abbott makes sense. For every involved but skeptic in Texas who sees wacko stuff across the board there are easily 60% of Texans who don’t even do a mental spreadsheet and either don’t vote or vote with no objective reasoning, discussion or self critical thinking. Fear based and identity based politics blots out the chance of weighing out the abundant egos and BS in all politics.
I don’t drink any alcohol ever, never smoke pot any, never gamble at all and I am anti abortion — and prohibition never works. As a rancher I own guns and don’t think guns have anything to do with how sociopathic our society is, and, I think it is over the top to have no background checks, tote firearms into Walmart and show up heavily armed at political events. I think individual consciousness creates our environment but I think the Nixon implemented EPA is helpful in leveling the playing ground between responsible and irresponsible industrial operators.
In the meantime we turn down in Texas tax revenue from gambling, we spend money on marijuana prohibition, aren’t scrambling at the trough for federal infrastructure money, turn away $100 billion in Medicare based on ideological egos, want neighbors to spy on someone else getting an abortion, spend an additional $2 billion on border fencing when immigration is a federal issue and needs to be worked Matamoros to San Diego, have gotten none of the funding for rural broadband and are not finding ways to educate a workforce for 2027. If 50% of our population growth is new births faster than deaths and most of those new births are to poor blacks and Latino (2020 census data) — so be it. Commonsense for 2030 and beyond says let’s pay teachers a living wage and create more schools and teachers to divide between those who need intense supervision and learn trade skills and those who are self disciplined and will learn science, technology, engineering and math. People in 1920 knew to build a schoolhouse and hire teachers as a matter of self-interests, that’s not hard to understand.
How can I support the Beto campaign and say I think politics is at a dysfunctional place? Because in Texas we are fighting and bickering like children over flu masks and imaginary “massive voter fraud” … while the schoolhouse metaphorically burns down, the hospital is full, the roads need work, cell service in downtown Childress is 4G and spotty, healthcare workers are exhausted and quitting, teachers are frayed and frazzled and there is no plan for healthcare, uninsured or a population growth in the 2020 census is that mostly not invested in education as critical. Because bad as politics is and wasteful as taxes and government it is better to be pragmatic and calculating than ideological and fear based identity knee-jerk with no reasoning.
Texas is politics so dysfunctional. It is everything flipped upside down and scrambled. Hell yes, I’m going to work for pragmatism and change to balance and commonsense. I’m not for coming for anyone’s gun. I’m wandering into the Wild West saying let’s stop with the fear, dogma, ideology and demagoguery and just keep the electricity on, the schools open, the healthcare system solvent, create workers for a new economy and the make Internet available even if it means subsidizing providers. In the end, oddly, that’s not just better working government, it’s (in this really crazy place) … less government. Go figure.
