Texas Attitude

Now before we go too far, this is not a diatribe against Texans.  Like all people everywhere, I find them to be, in the main friendly, with the rare exceptional jackass and idiot.  Nothing different for people everywhere.  It is an observation regarding just how little Texans want to be Americans.

 

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH TEXANS

I often remember my first trip to Canada, Vancouver British Columbia to be exact.  My brother and I were eating in a German restaurant.  Now I do not remember much about the meal itself, but I remember the party at a table in the middle of the room.

There was a group of about a dozen of the most raucous, obnoxious revelers that I have ever encountered.  Yelling, shouting, reand treating the wait staff extremely poorly.  They were thoroughly pushy and demanding.  The other thing that stood out was that each and every one of them sported a rather large plastic name badge shaped like the State of Texas.

Now I was just twenty-one, my brother was nineteen, and we were pretty embarrassed.  Here were, Americans in a foreign country, and right next to us were the true epitome of the “Ugly American”.  In fact, they were making new examples of ugliness.

When my brother was paying our bill, he felt compelled to apologize for Americans in general.  The server replied to my brother “Don’t worry sir; they aren’t Americans they’re just Texans”.

This was my first encounter with Texans in the wild.  Now I am not saying that this kind of behavior represent common Texan behavior, although I have to say that it does fit the stereotype.  And I must say, I have seen that stereotype way too often.

The real point to the story, if there is one, is that if the wait staff in a German restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1972 got it better than I did.  They were not Americans; they were Texans.

 

MY TRIP TO TEXAS

In 2014, I spent several weeks in Texas.  I must say that I was made welcome by the people and generally treated as nicely as I have been treated anywhere I have ever been.  I have never been around nicer people for the most part just as I said in my opening.

But you cannot go two feet anywhere in Texas without seeing the Lone Star flag.  The American Flag?  Once in a while, but the Texas State Flag was everywhere.  Flying from poles, on furniture, pottery, clothing, needlework, you name it.  The statewide obsession with the flag was endemic.

If it were just the flag, it could be just dismissed as a little quirkiness and left at that.  Instead, the flag is just a symbol of the statewide attitude about how Texans feel about themselves.  Yes, they have pride in their state but it seems that there is more to it than that.  It as if they want to remind themselves, as well as anyone else, that they are Texans first and Americans by a very, very distant second.

I know that in antebellum times it was not uncommon for residents of a given state in the United States to self-identify as a citizen of the state they lived in first before identifying themselves as Americans.  In fact, that is the reason given for mixed allegiances of peoples even when they were against slavery – but that is a discussion for another article on another day.

Today, outside of Texas, citizens identifying themselves primarily by their state residency or birth just does not exist.  The exception of Texas exists in spades.  The reasons seem that Texans, either consciously or subconsciously want the world to treat them as separate from the rest of Americans.  Moreover, not only separate from the rest of Americans, generally superior to the average American.

It seems that there is an obvious feeling of superiority based upon the historical fact that Texas did exist as a separate country for a period before they became a state.  And Texans have never forgotten it, nor do they want anyone else to forget it either.

 

A LITTLE HISTORY

In order to understand some of the Texas story, you need to look at a little history.  This is because for a little slice of time, Texas was a separate Republic.  This seems to color much of the average Texan’s perception of themselves, seemingly romanticizing that time far beyond the facts of the situation.

Most people are familiar with the fact that Texas fought for its independence against Mexico in 1836.  Starting with the Battle of Gonzales, through the Battle of the Alamo, Goliad, and ending with the Battle of San Jacinto – fought in the main by immigrants from non-Texans I might add.  After losing at San Jacinto, the leader of the Mexican government, Santa Ana, signed a treaty giving Texas its independence.

Now some follow-up facts.  As soon as returning to Mexico City, Santa Ana rescinded the treaty and the Mexican government still laid claim to Texas.  Texas declared an independent republic and ran as an independent country until from 1836 to 1845 (actually)/1846 (officially) when it became the 28^th State in the United States.  Quite frankly, this was due to two primary issues.  First, the Mexican government still did not recognize their independence with worked against their political stability.  Second, somewhat associated by the political situation, Texas was in poor financial straits.  They could not stand as an independent country much longer.  They needed to affiliate themselves with another country to survive.

As a direct result of Texas becoming a State, the United States ended up fighting the Mexican-American War in 1846-1848.  At the conclusion of that war, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  One of the provisions of this treaty was Mexico relinquishing claim on Texas territory – along with most of California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The important points here is that Texas joined us because they could not make it on their own and had to align themselves with another country to survive.  And even at that, the United States ended up fighting a war in order to establish the right of Texas to be independent from Mexico and part of the United States.  The big takeaway from this this is that Texas was not a successful independent country any more than the Bear Flag Republic (a.k.a. California) was, even if it lasted .

 

SOME THOUGHTS

Way too often I get frustrated and aggravated about the arrogance and attitude from Texans in general, and redneck Texans in particular.  It is hard to have attitude and superiority coming from someone who’s only accomplishment was being born in Texas.  I personally never respected anyone for what they had nothing to do with.  I only respect people for the quality of their character and when I have someone cop an attitude I rebel so I have had trouble with the Texas Attitude at times.

This is especially true when their sense of superiority is based, as is often the case, on a falsehood.  Yes, they are descendants from an independent country.  That part is true, but they conveniently forget that independence was not very successful.  And to top it off, the rest of us (Americans) had to go to war to insure that they remained in America.

 

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS

There were two special, unique, concessions given Texas when it became a state.

First, Texas was allowed to keep all of its former “federal” land as state land when it became a state, meaning the Federal government had no federal land in Texas and had to purchase any land it needed.  The offshoot of this is that Texas has become an extremely wealthy land, especially with oil revenues, thus resulting in Texas not requiring State income taxes.

Second, Texas can, at its behest, can split into as many as five states.  Even today, with more states than when it obtained statehood, would give that area a significant increase in the United States Senate by adding 8 additional senators.  As a personal observation, I doubt this will ever happen – the reason: Texas ego would not allow the state to change its size or character.  This would be end of the “Republic of Texas” once and for all.

I guess I understand why “God Bless Texas” is so prevalent – they may need it more than most.