By Mike Smith
Upon returning to Texas, I was greeted in El Paso with identical road sign messages at three points:
“GIVE XTRA SPACE WITH EACH OTHER AND ON THE ROAD; HANDS CLEAN 2 BEAT COVID-19 BE ON TEXAS TEAM”
And then three more duplicates — well beyond deep blue Democrat-run El Paso County.
This is not the same Texas I left three weeks ago.
I wanted to believe the Texas DOT road sign messages were a government way of echoing President Trump’s Emergency Declaration, and nothing more. I wanted to believe average Texans would respond to the Coronavirus scare better than the Californians. And then came the ‘home’ side of the story.
My next door neighbors, both native Texans, told me about local (consumer-driven) toilet paper shortages and limitations on how many customers may enter the nearby H-E-B supermarket. They spoke of the City of Waco imposing a ‘no greater than 50’ public assembly restriction, adding that a local, rural pastor ended Sunday night church services soon thereafter. I asked if there was anything extra of mine they could use, while Wacoans are busy embarrassing Texas at our expense.
Should this be dismissed as ‘just another’ example of a national trend, the ‘where’ here matters. This is not ‘just another’ state. This is Texas:
RIGHT OF ASSEMBLY:
Texas Constitution, Article 1 Bill of Rights, Sec. 27
Texas Constitution, Article 1 Bill of Rights, Sec. 29
Texas Govt. Code Sec. 418.108, DECLARATION OF LOCAL DISASTER
No constitutional wording exists authorizing any Texas governor, county commissioner’s court or city council to limit occupancies for businesses, funerals or religious services.
Which is to say the Texas Constitution, just like the U.S. Constitution, was written against human nature.
Incidentally, the wife next door here once lived in West Texas — she’s no stranger to living off stored food and freezing everything else. And more so than many rural Texans when times are ‘normal’. So it’s painful to see too many Texans succumb to human nature, doing as Californians do amid the Coronavirus scare.
Not all Texans — but enough to make a bad difference.
How a community acts in response to trouble is the true nature and character of that community.
All the while, the ‘cure’ to Coronavirus stands to bring deadlier conditions than the virus itself. Shut down economies always collapse beyond a certain point. And nothing breeds socialism and communism like collapsed economies. Wherever you live, be ready to defend yourself to the utmost, and stay ready.
Don’t be a victim. Protect the life that should be lived despite Coronavirus hysteria.
And for God sakes, vote for President Trump in November!
Mike Smith is a former Ventura County resident who now resides in Texas
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