Second largest state, with that many more Congressmen than the others. And an age-old, national reputation for social, political and economic Anglo Saxon "rugged individualism" that both firmly plants itself in one philosophical camp and is either considered harmful or less than accurate by some.
Utterly tasteless. Perry's response could have been more eloquent, but he got the message across. The Sacramento Bee should have picked a different time to give the Governor grief over his policies. Heck, I've given him plenty of grief over them myself. By running this cartoon so close to the horrific disaster, the Bee did something that ends up reading more like yellow journalism, viewed in the context of what just happened in West. They didn't have to go there. They could have waited several weeks, in my opinion, and certainly my reaction would have been a bit different. Right now, it really ticks me off.
Very well said. This kind of timing just feeds the "my side is always good and virtuous and your side is always bad and malevolent" crap that is becoming the ruination of this country.
Tragedies are very instructive when it comes to political points. One of the major things you try to do with social policy is prevent tragedies when possible. E.g. Chernobyl is very instructive wrt to nuclear power plants and regulations. So silly to argue: "Oh no! Don't politicize Chernobyl; honor the dead by don't making it political; keep respectfully quiet and just pray for them" I understand that it clashes with the comfort of fundie thinking of got all social policy questions figure out. "Regulation always bad"; " Big gubmint bad" "Markets good"
I can almost admire you keeping your faith in GOP/conservative talking points , despite increasing empirical evidence to the contrary.
It's easy to fall into the trap of saying that any sort of tragedy shouldn't be politicized. Whether you lean one way or the other politically will usually affect whether you feel if it is a justified or not. It has to be a case by case determination that will be utterly dependent on your political leanings / fortitude / sense of propriety. I believe that this instance is political speech that is not offensive since it could be true. The message from the cartoon seems to be low regulation - the type lionized by Perry on his trip to California where he tried to get businesses to move to Texas - led to the explosion. To some, a message of that sort given the tragedy appears distasteful and appears even more distasteful in hingsight. To others it appears distasteful and then hindsight makes it look more and more appropriate over time. Given that political cartoons that deal with tragedies have the most impact if they come out soon after the event, I don't see what the problem is to run it now. I feel like the reaction that some of us Texans are having now is analogous to how people felt post 9-11. IF someone made a cartoon of George Bush trampling over the wreckage of the twin towers while trying to grab for oil people would have been ludicrously offended. Now it doesn't look so dumb. If the political message is sound, then it should not matter when it is released. In fact, for policies that are already in effect, it would be the duty of the cartoonist to try to prevent future tragedies by getting people to act as soon as possible to affect a change of direction. For people that find it distasteful, if later on we found out that the lax regulations of the state or the inadequate enforcement of existing regulation had been a strong factor in the explosion would that change how you feel?
Wow. Apparently we really need education reform, because you obviously cannot read. At no point have I defended the governor's stance on regulation. I have merely said, repeatedly, that the facts regarding this incident need to be known before lambasting the governor for it. If his policies led to the accident, then he deserves whatever he gets. I just prefer to know the facts before judging. If you would rather just assume and go hunt down the ogre, then I have to question how bright you really are.
