Thursday, April 21, 2016

New York and Texas Values

By Bruce L. Brager

Credit: Bruce L. Brager

Ted Cruz calls Donald Trump too much the product of New York values to be a good Republican nominee. Trump's table thumping appeal to the basest of instincts, and arrogance, is not enough. Cruz is right; there are distinct differences between New York City and Texas.

In Texas people sneer at those who are different, and happily throw the poor to the wolves. Here we have homeless people dodging rats. We sneer at everybody. We pack heat, carry guns, but bought illegally and concealed. Create your own joke about Texas guns and sensitivity about manhood. Was it actually harder to carry a gun in Texas 1870 than in Texas 2016?

In Texas they try to keep people from voting. New York has been more into ballot stuffing and "vote early and vote often." Texans like to drive very fast. In much of New York City you can walk faster than drive. New York liberals apologize too much. Being a Texan means never having to say you are sorry. But it apparently also means don't discuss certain topics — gun control, religion, politics, as my sister was warned by a friend in Texas she was visiting. But no mention about Friday night high school football, the holy of holies down there — the friend is a transplanted Yankee.

New York changed countries twice in the past - Dutch to British, British to United States. Starting in 1820, Texas went from Spanish, to Mexican, to independent, to the United States, to independent, to Confederate, to the United States. All in just over 50 years.

The Dutch bought the island of Manhattan for $24 worth of goods from a tribe of Indians. Indians never claimed ownership of land, so New York City got started by land fraud. Books have been written about Texas oil fraud. Of course, the story, perhaps urban legend, is that the Brooklyn Bridge was first "sold" before it was even finished. This is probably not true. William Marcy "Boss" Tweed was involved in the bridge, but only for a while. This is probably why the bridge nearly doubled its initial cost estimate — about $7 million to about $13 million. Tweed once put in a bid to build a court house for $100,000. The final cost was $13,000,000. Remember, this is all in the money of 1869-1883. Top that, Texas oil people.

Credit: Jon Sullivan, public-domain-image.com

In New York, we like jeans, boots and funny hats. In Texas they like jeans, boots and funny hats. On my first trip to Texas, changing planes in Dallas, one of the first people I saw was dressed like I would expect, from boots to jeans, to suede vest to Stetson hat. I think I saw one other person dressed that way in Texas, sitting under a speaker at a rural outlet mall. The speaker was playing music: Paul Simon, not George Jones. But they also know good music down there.

In New York you ask for rye bread and you get rye bread. In a Texas truck stop you might get told that the bread is dry. (The bread was dry, they told the truth, in a manner which brought to mind the west Texas desert.) Asking for a scotch and soda, hold the scotch, did not even work. In New York we know what club soda is.

Credit: Bruce L. Brager
East coast baby boomers actually have a soft spot in in their hearts for the "Wild West" including Texas. One of the programs I watched as a kid I called the Long Ranger. People ask if I mean Lone Ranger. No, I reply, this was a show about a very tall lawman. Lone had a "faithful Indian companion" (try that today) named Tonto. Tonto called Lone kemosabi. The joke is that after he retired to his ranch, Tonto warned a guest near his barn not to step in the kemosabi.

In Texas they name baseball teams after law enforcement agencies. In New York we name baseball teams after people from New England.

In Texas, public transport exists only technically. In New York City, the subway is a great motivator for walking all but the longest distances.

In Texas, you can be walking in a small town, dark out, where the weather makes you wonder why there is so much traffic in a July evening. It is actually almost November. They don't even know proper late fall weather. Actually, this winter in New York neither did we. The recent snow storm missed a record by 1/4 inch or so. A Texas Blue Norther would not come so close yet miss the record.

New York, a blue state, sends more tax dollars to Washington than it gets back. Texas, a red state, gets more tax money from Washington than it sends. Texas has the state guard to defend itself against Federal overreach. The state guard is about 150 years old, formed for those who did not want to join the militia or the Confederate volunteer service. Patrolling rural Texas, unless you ran into a ticked off group of Comanche, was a lot safer than joining Hood's Brigade for the Battle of the Wilderness.

Many New Yorkers back then preferred draft rioting to fighting Robert E. Lee. We successful oppressed our Native Americans much earlier than they did in Texas.

Finally, in New York we have Wall Street greed. Texans have oil industry greed. Texans once said "drive fast, freeze a Yankee." We don't even have to drive slowly to bankrupt a Texan. The beloved free market is doing that for us.

Credit: Bruce L. Brager

All opinion pieces reflect solely the views of the writer(s) and do not reflect the opinions or views of CAB News Online.

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