Damned Texans

[Imaginaryfriendless]

Hi folks. 

I'm new here- obviously- and this thread caught my eye. I was hoping for a place for intelligent discussion and debate, but so far I'm having my doubts. The sheer ignorance and misinformation is astonishing.

I'm Texan, born and raised. I earned a masters degree, served in the United States Air Force as a pilot, and recently retired after 22 years as an airline pilot. I'm a conservative, an atheist, and a musician. I'm married, the father of three grown children, all of whom have degrees and jobs. I believe in earning what you have, taking responsibility for what you've done, and if you kill someone in cold blood, that you should be killed back. Seems only fair. 

I live on our small ranch here in South Texas with a bunch of critters, not livestock anymore, we just take in various rescue animals that don't have a place to go- from Llamas to miniature donkeys to giant tortoises. We just enjoy it. 

I am also a hunter, although I detest trophy hunting. I prefer to bow hunt, it's challenging and I love venison. 
I am a "gun nut", by non-Texas standards. I grew up hunting and shooting with my father, and besides the military I served for 8 years as a peace officer, 4 of those as an element leader on a SWAT entry team. Airline schedules are typically something like 12 days on/ 18 off, so I served as a cop concurrently with my flying gig. I'm a gun collector, and have been all of my life. I have my own 300 yard shooting range. My kids can handle any firearm you hand them, safely. Neither I nor any of my friends and family have ever had any sort of accident involving a firearm. 

I believe Liberals are self deluded. They want a world of unicorns and rainbows, where peace and love prevail and cats and dogs live in harmony and nobody eats meat. I have a few problems with that.

One, it sounds incredibly boring. I would go stir crazy in a week. We are apex predators, regardless what you think, and we are not built to sit around and stagnate. We must have challenges.

Two, and here is the big one- that sort of system will, literally, only work if EVERYONE is on board. One violent man takes the entire system down, because nobody in the society is equipped to deal with him. This is an oversimplification to make a point, of course. Regardless what Hillary and Obama would have you believe, a very large segment of the Muslim religion is violent- they are fanatically religious and their God says unbelievers must die...what do you expect? While you're riding around on your unicorn sucking on a flower, a jihadist blows up your entire family. I'll take a pass, thank you. If you think I'm exaggerating, you have obviously not travelled extensively. If anything I'm downplaying things. Take a stroll down main street, Jalalabad, and then we'll talk. I haven't even mentioned any of the non-muslim countries yet, and we already have a very significant number of potential threats.

So, I'm pretty typical for this state. I have no doubt I differ from you and your views, but I'm not an inbred mouth breather, and neither is anyone I know. Like anywhere, our government doesn't always represent the will of the people, although I'm pretty happy with Abbott. So far.

I saw several posts with purported "news stories" about Texas. Every one I looked at was pure bullshit. None of those things happened. It's simply the media doing what the media does- do you really think the liberal media is going to report accurately on Texas? We're their Dragon!

I didn't realize this site was about politics...perhaps the name should be changed. I try to respect others religious beliefs, even though, frankly, very religious people creep me out. It seems that respect isn't a part of the paradigm here. Shame.

Finally, I saw a few people suggest Texas secede. We'd love to- we'd be absolutely fine. Texas gives the federal government more than it takes. Funny how NOT ONE SINGLE liberal state is financially solvent. Must be a coincidence. But back to secession...if you know anything at all, you will pray we don't. Trust me or not on this...but a little honest research into the matter might make your panties crawl right up your sphincter. Then again, liberals only believe what they really really want to be true, so it's wasted breath.

Cheers!