Don't Fence Me In

 I grew up with a certain distaste for Texas. There was a feeling among Coloradans at that time that Texans were using Colorado as their personal playground, and when they showed up they weren't the polite guests that would have ingratiated them to their hosts. The picture I have in my mind is that of a brash and loud recreational vehicle full of brash and loud individuals who expressed their brash and loud opinions about how things ought to be. Mostly, they wanted everything brash and loud like it was back in Texas.

I know from a solid bit of hindsight that the cultures of these two states were not radically different. Cattle and oil paved the way for a lot of folks to become rich and spread out across vast expanses of land that was never theirs in the first place. Those patches were described by where you could string a barbed wire fence or drill a well. It is no surprise that the fictional Ewings of Dallas competed for ratings back in the day with the fictional Carringtons of Denver. 

But somewhere along the wagon trail the paths diverged. Those small patches of blue that existed in places like Aspen and my hometown of Boulder began to spread. Soon there was a counterculture that became culture in Colorado. Democrats began to take hold. Liberals controlled much of the politics that went through the Centennial State.

Meanwhile, down in Texas, there was the constant battle to "keep Austin weird." This has been accomplished to some degree, but not enough to impact the general drift of things to the right. Just recently, the powers that be in the Lone Star state have made it harder to vote, all but impossible to get an abortion, and easier to own and carry your trusty shootin' iron. How did this happen? 

Maybe it has something to do with that frontier spirit that made settled the west. Nobody tells me how to live my life. Everything, including the egos, are bigger in Texas. They stood up at the Alamo. They stood up to all those who said that they would never last in such godforsaken waste. 

Yee hah. 

Now that same attitude is fueling a surge in the epidemic, and crushing the rights of those who don't own a ranch or an oil well. Which I can only imagine will create some sort of exodus, with havens like New Mexico and Colorado providing safe haven for those refugees of this death cult. My suggestion? Don't drive up in your brash and loud RV.