In his article Is The Texas ‘Economic Miracle’ Over?, Peter Simek talks about the declining state of the Texas economy and our politicians’ ignorance, ineptitude, and imbecility regarding it.
Dan Patrick is trying to find a way to put birth certificate-checking bouncers at every restroom door. Greg Abbott is too busy posing at the Mexican border, pandering to his constituents who want a wall there. The legislature is passing public school funding on to local taxpayers — a suuuuper smart move that will probably help our underperforming schools (43rd in the nation, whoooo).
The political leaders of this state regularly act out of vengeance, rather than intelligence. Ask sanctuary cities whose state funding was cut. Look at the abortion laws. Be black or poor in Texas. And, about it all, Simek says:
It would be laughably absurd if it wasn’t all so saddening and disconcerting — an image of the breed of politics that emerges when a party’s ideals drift into ideology.
With a political arena so lacking in logic and truth, it’s no surprise that conditions in Texas have devolved. We live in The Age of Spin wherein the ideas of empathy have screwed up our sense of what makes sense.
We’re fed “alternative facts” or ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT, and then get so wrapped up in the discussion about them & the idiots who disseminate them & completely fail to say, “Oh, heck no, that’s not acceptable.”
In Don’t Sink the Boat… We’re All In This Together, I talked about this same phenomenon — people would rather be justified in their positions than to do what’s actually right or smart or proactive. And that’s going to get us nowhere good.
In the seemingly-endless maelstrom of lies, horse crap, and infancy coming out of politics, it’s about time that we let go of these labels that are going to ruin us, and start looking at the underlying principles regarding our lives. We can’t keep choosing sides over superficial issues and only in the context of what government’s involvement in our lives. We have to take some responsibility for controlling and governing ourselves. It’s not like the people at the political levers are smarter or capable — they’ve proven time and again that they aren’t.
Don’t buy into the b.s. We are better than our systems… if we choose to be.
Like I talked about in the post asking Who Owns You?, we can’t relinquish power over our own respective destinies. You’ll lose steam similar to the Texas economy by getting lost in distractions.
- Pay attention to results.
- Pay attention to what you cause.
- Pay attention to more than whether or not you get your way.
And, if you want to learn about how the economy works, this video is awesome: