Texas - Last Bastion of Freedom Giving in To Collectivist Malcontents

Freedom is only relative if you don't understand it completely, or if it is less valuable to you as a concept than is protecting profit.

Oh my gosh! Everyone is an entrepreneur? Oh the horror and excessive capitalism. :-)

Tom, coming from California, to Colorado, I wouldn't expect you to grasp what freedom is to Texans. We like it that way, in fact we wish more of those Kalifornicators would stop pouring into Texas and then immediately trying to model our state like the miserably failing state they ruined before they escaped.

Tom, there is a reason more people are flocking to Texas than are to Colorado or California. We create the most job at a time when other states are losing them. It's hard to argue that what we do here doesn't work.

Roofguy - Strictly from a financial aspect; Texas is a great place, so long as one is financially independent, or has an "angle", so-to-speak; And yes, there is so-called less regulation in the construction arena, which makes for a larger competitive pool of wannabe's.

There's a reason real estate, housing & wages are so low.

Yes Tom, the reason housing and wages are so low in Texas, is because the cost of living is so low. It's all relative. Having lived in Colorado, I can say that the quality of life is far superior in Texas.

If you want to spend 3 hours a week dealing with red tape, knock yourself out. Just don't suggest that for Texas.

Roofguy Said: Just dont suggest that for Texas.

Just wondering if you would be willing for the state to hire more revenue agents so they could catch those tax cheats who aren't collecting the sales tax?

Couple of things.

First, we're one of the few states (three all-told if I'm not mistaken) that doesn't require full tie-offs on six foot falls which is not nothing to my frame of reference when contemplating regulation.

Second, I wish more people would leave, whether it be to Texas or to anywhere else, because as far as I can tell, and I've been monitoring since I moved here at the age of four in 1952, they just keep coming, they love it here, and they are ruining it with their sheer numbers.

And, third, I take offense when people unfamiliar with the considerable inducements to intelligent living that this state still offers insist on wagging around the Rush Limbaugh type of windbag pronouncement that we are "Kalifornicators." It's not clever and it's not amusing and it's not helpful to any kind of serious dialogue.

I'm sure that I would find plenty of reason to like anyplace I lived, no matter how things stacked up there, and, unfortunately, as long as there are humans present with a full spectrum of personalities in the population, which there invariably is, it would be possible to find abundant evidence of fornication. That's just the way people are.

I'm sure Texas has plenty of it. Would hardly be a challenge to go there looking. Unbridled egos tend to generate fornication. We don't really need to degenerate into name-calling do we? This kind of feeling is good for generating jokes, like the one about the Californian and Texan who found the bottle with a genie in it. Remember that one? They're both given a wish, to be fair, and the Texan says, "Build a fifty foot high wall around my state to keep all the idiots out." The Californian says, "Ok, my wish, then: fill it up with water."

Roofguy Said: Freedom is a hard concept for many Americans to grasp. It has been bred out of us over time. We have been feeding at the government trough for so long that weve become addicted to regulatory help and are not self-reliant as a people any more.

For some, if there is a doubt about the right decision to make, their default reaction is to ask government to create a new law/statute to address it. For others their default reaction is to keep government out of it and find a solution themselves.

I just wish theyd stay away from Texas where were still a little free.

Hmmmmmmm.....they've never passed a law just for me. I must be one of the unwashed, un regulated It must take a LOT of money to join the ranks of the regulated. Just saying.... B) You know. Socialism for Capitalists, and capitalism for everyone else.

I get it. We all get it. We are all getting it....

Roofguy Said: Freedom is only relative if you dont understand it completely, or if it is less valuable to you as a concept than is protecting profit.

Oh my gosh! Everyone is an entrepreneur? Oh the horror and excessive capitalism. :-)

Tom, coming from California, to Colorado, I wouldnt expect you to grasp what freedom is to Texans. We like it that way, in fact we wish more of those Kalifornicators would stop pouring into Texas and then immediately trying to model our state like the miserably failing state they ruined before they escaped.

Tom, there is a reason more people are flocking to Texas than are to Colorado or California. We create the most job at a time when other states are losing them. Its hard to argue that what we do here doesnt work.

Seriously. What industry has Texas created lately Tim?

Stealing jobs from other states is not the same as "creating" them. And this is not just a Texas thing. It's a nasty political game that all states play.

I just read where Gov. Perry paid like $50 Mil to buy, oops, I mean "create" 10 jobs. A nice little accounting trick....count ALL of the jobs the company "created" in ALL states and put them in the Texas column?

Whatever it is, "Freedom", "opportunity" , or "Bullshit" ...it's still stealing from the taxpayers....... nice Brylcreem Ricky. Must be expensive stuff! You'll be a good looking lobbyist or sex slave for your masters in your next career. You've done their bidding well....Go rest your butt for a while boy.

I can't help but laugh Tim. My brother lives in Texas. And I 1st heard 'blame the Kalifornians" from him last year. (He too believes Jesus is the Governor and GOD created Texas separate from the rest of the world.) It's must be the latest Texas ego trip making the Talk Loud rounds down there.

If indeed Texas is not home of the worlds biggest welfare Queens and Big Government wanna bes, then pay us all back for your Iraqui War and your Afghanistan mis adventure. Then I'll believe that your war has indeed "accomplished its mission."

And who is the biggest panhandler and beggar for MORE Government ever (besides Ronald Reagan)? Umm that'd be Dubya!

It takes a Texan to pass the Patriot Act, spy on US Citizens and tap our telephones, evidently....

Egg: Rush is a pillhead and a loudmouth. Cheap entertainment. Enough said.

But like all Cheap entertainment, it's very influential nowadays. Kind of Like Beyonce' meets Chuck Norris with a mix of Matt Lauer and Al Sharpton. :laugh:

It's easy to imagine Rush sitting around getting plastered with his Regulated Gazzilionaire Masters (Good boy Rush. Good boy) talking about the "little People" and what such trash we are.

But I don't. I 'll usulayy listen for a couple of minutes and then start thinking about Music. Or Women. or Roofing. Or Business. Or Life. Anything but ChickenHawks

Early in my career, I got around quite a bit. I have done work in 9 western states and two Canadian Provinces.

Two things I noticed. One, for some reason people in lots of different places think that they live in the windiest spot on earth. And two, people (or at least the people that buy tile roofs)tend to live right where they want to be and love the place they live.

My son married a girl from Amarillo and for the reception, I rented a big van and hauled a load of inlaws down there. I recall a conversation I had with a couple of the locals that marveled at the length of the trip. I told them it was a scenic trip, I had been through the Columbia River Gorge, through the granite canyons of the Wasatch mountains, past the red rocks fantasyland around Moab and the desert monuments of New Mexico. But one of the locals piped in that the most beautiful part had to be from the Texas border to Amarillo. "Yeah, those nose-down Cadillac's in the dirt sure are Purdy."

Mike H Said: Tom,

Actually, its just the opposite, in my stance.

Its the established old-guard that is promoting this garbage. I am a free market, buyer beware, do your homework mentality, that believes anyone that wants to try their hand at the trade should be able to do so without intrusion from the government. I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit, and welcome the competition.

I cannot compete on price with the newbie. I will sell my company and my service and my history. If an upstart can convince a customer to part with their money over me, then kudos to them. I hope its successful for the customer, and if its not, then I hope they got what they paid for.

What I dont want is the inept government handing the upstart a piece of paper that will read to the ignorant as XYZ is just as qualified as HRI. Thats BS, and an injustice to the consumer.

Mike, I believe you missed your calling as a preacher. Very well said. You MUST have read Atlas Shrugged . . .

Agreed! That fits.

Sheesh, lighten up, Francises. Y'all are taking this way too personal. We talk about other states in Texas, that's what we do. It's all in good fun.

Egg, facts are facts: Texas created 90,000 more jobs that California did in 2014, the most in the nation, second to ND in percentage growth.

And Twill, it's been a very long time since someone called me boy. It's usually a sign that I've hit pretty close to an uncomfy truism. The rest of your theories about Texas aren't sober thoughts. It's typical of the irrational thought process of someone trying to bluff a losing hand. So Texas created the most jobs, and yor answer to that is that we stole them? C'mon, that's silly. It's especially silly coming from a man who makes his living in pretty close to a zero-sum industry, where you pretty much have to "steal" a customer from someone else in order to grow. Competition for jobs is no less ethical than competing for roof jobs.

Wywoody, we don't claim Amarillo as Texas. It's Southern Oklahoma.

And here I thought it was Austin that was a California suburb. Y'all better take care now if you start seeing everything in creation being turned into grape vines. Grapevines, haute cuisine, and people who wear cowboy boots with no dirt on them. These are just a few of the more obvious signs that things aren't going well. Oh yeah, and an unending torrent of tour buses filled with camera-packing Asians. Get out, mill around, click click click, get back in, gone.

Andy,

I have not. Though I understand the premise of the book. I did however read "Noble House" in high school, feel it had a real impact on me, and created a longing for the kind of free-market that once was Hong Kong. My desire for such however is not due to a desire for cut-throat business, but rather a strong belief that it is man that must regulate himself, for the more government dictates acceptable morality, the lower our moral standards seem to become. When I look in the mirror for guidance it just seems to project a much clearer path than does government.

egg, " it would be possible to find abundant evidence of fornication. That's just the way people are."

I laughed.

You do live amidst the most beautiful place mine eyes have beheld. Wish I could have seen it when it was what it was.