When moving to Texas, remember that Texas is a different world (Houston: live, budget)

[lonestar2007]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

Most people are proud of their state - there is nothing wrong with that. I have an aunt that is proud of New Jersey. I can't for the life of me understand why, but to her its special so its not my business to question her or denigrate the state in front of her.

Well, NJ has that In-Your-Face attitude that I, for one, admire. 'The Boss' is from NJ and that is certainly bragging rights for them. Of course if NJ were my home state and I loved it, I would have plenty enough to brag about it and that's the way it should be.

Of course, I'm a born and bred Texan and shore glad of it!

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

I can't rep you until I spread it around more, so here's some wild applause for you.

Back atcha! I couldn't rep you again either. Dang it!

[doctorjef]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

So let me ask you - is Pennsylvania's pride in Philly -the liberty bell, Independence Hall, etc - an example of "the narcissism of small differences?" What about Virginia's celebration of it's colonial heritage? What about California's pride in it's diversity and Hollywood culture and natural beauty? How 'bout Michigan's pride in the Great Lakes region, or Colorado's pride in it's nonconformist culture and the Rocky Mountains, or Louisiana's revelry in it's Cajun culture, or Oregon's pride in it's breathtaking coastline and liberal political views, or Montana's love and subsequent marketing of it's "cowboy" culture, or...well, you get my drift but is all that narcissism too?

I call it a celebration of each state's diversity and unique place in our nation.

The operative term here is not "narcissism" per se, but a specific phenomenon that is known as "the narcissism of small differences", referring to groups (tribes, states, etc) that border one another and share the same language and many other characteristics in common but which exaggerate their differences and self-importance by boasts of superiority relative to "the Other", by feuds (pretty much verbal grandstanding in the case of American society), and by insults and name-calling. A post-modern expression of such narcissism of small differences has been viewed as manifest in consumer culture, in which individuals seek to highlight their ostensible uniqueness by buying particular brands of things and affecting particular styles, all of which rather transparently masks the underlying social conformity (developmentally, teenagers have long been recognized as manifesting this phenomenon). It's partly a group psychology expression, in which people draw a sense of identity from things that may have little to do with the everyday realities and struggles of their lives, or which are essentially fairly superficial.

By the way, although Pennsylvania is just next door to me, I suspect that Penn State and U Penn are bigger sources of pride for the masses than is Philadelphia with its history, horrible crime, and cheese steaks. Along with that would be the professional sports teams of Philly and Pitt.

I think one possible distinction to be made here is between affection and pride. Those Virginians, for example, who come across all snooty about their rather patrician history make me a bit sick, even though I quite like Virginia, having lived there as a child, and that state has loads of cool stuff. Feeling affection for one's home is not the same as being aggressively, chest-thumpingly proud of it. Indeed, I'd extend this to the United States of America or any other country. Pride quickly gets chauvinistic and self-deluding, while affection - it seems to me - expresses the basic human quality of attachment.

Don't take this overly seriously, but I might even use the state song, Texas Our Texas as an example of the two different feelings, pride vs. affection. The prideful part is the first bit, "Texas, our Texas, all hail the mighty State..." The part that I'd identify as expressing the sense of affection begins, "God bless you, Texas, and keep you brave and strong..." As I said, I'm just thinking on the fly, but if you go over the state song in your head, you might experience the two different moods that it expresses.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

No union is going to accept illegals.

That's how the union movement was undermined. Illegals/outsourced workers were being used as strikebreakers by the corporations. Dividing the working class inhibited the effectiveness of the union movement (first by race and now by legal status). The movement learns from its mistakes eventually! Recovery takes a while though.

Meanwhile, corporations have been benefiting immensely from globalization. It's an open border for capital and for a lesser extent, land, but it's closed borders for labor (the common people) who have not benefited as much as corporations from globalization. The corporations want closed borders so they can play their hedges in the labor market and legal environments of each country while unions/workers want closed borders so they don't have "foreigners" (usually racially motivated here in the U.S.; sometimes ethnic or religious motivation in other countries) competing with them for jobs.

The unions/workers (perhaps through limited critical thinking skills since they are used to thinking in terms of tactics all day instead of the strategy that management does) don't realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot because for effective allocation of resources, labor must be placed where it is needed. Open borders would allow them to share in the prosperity through globalization (basically voting with their feet when their self-interest is met; usually through the highest wage rate they can find at the time) but Nationalism/Patriotism also is a great propaganda mechanism that can be used against labor.

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

The corporations want closed borders ...

I don't think so. For example the Wall Street Journal wants open borders.

[War Beagle]

Originally Posted by HeadedWest

I don't think so. For example the Wall Street Journal wants open borders.

That's why the illegal immigration argument is a waste of breath - both parties are essentially in favor of a regular flow of illegals. The Democrats want illegal immigrants to come over, get on government benefits and then vote illegally (or eventually, legally) for Democrats. The Republicans wants cheap labor for their businesses.

[BCB]

I don't want any illegals. Not sure how foreigners can break our law and not get persecuted, but residents get busted for the silliest of things, i.e. speeding. Hypocrisy at its finest.

[Tom Grind of Royal Warts]

Originally Posted by Restrain

People from the northeast come down here and wonder why we don't have transit, neighborhoods, etc like New York, Boston or DC. Consider the following:

NYC area is appx 500 square miles. Boston is about 90 square miles. Washington DC would fit within the inner loop of Dallas.

Dallas / Fort Worth has approximately 9000 square miles and is essentially a strip city. It would encompass the area between New York and Philadelphia. Houston area is even larger, at over 10,000 square miles.

Texas, if a country, would be in the top 10 in GDP. It's cities are bigger than many countries in population.

Texas is effectively a totally different environment, both financially and physically than the Northeast. If you do not accept that moving from the Northeast to Texas is like moving to a different country, you will not be happy. If you moved to Spain or France and expected it to be like home, you would be disappointed. The same applies when moving to Texas. Don't expect to to be like a borough of New York or a Boston neighborhood. It is not, and we don't want it to be. We don't all commute to downtown Dallas or Houston to work. Most, in fact, work in any of the various satellite cities.

So come to Texas, and accept that Texas is a much more dynamic, growing world. Employment and business opportunities abound as do housing, etc. If you don't like one area, there is a totally different environment just hours away. But also realize that we are not going to change to accommodate you. It is this freedom to grow and innovate that has made Texas the economic powerhouse it is.

Welcome to Texas, y'all.

To say one doesn't like Texas is irrational. Now, one could, in a small state like Rhode Island, stand upon any five story structure to look around and be able to perceive that the whole state sucks. So, it wouldn't be irrational in the least for one to say that they don't like Rhode Island. I happen to like Rhode Island not in any material sense, but more on the level of the esoteric. Rhode Island, like all states, is just an important state of the fifty ones that make up our Union.

Way Back in the day when savage Indians were still being called savage Indians, Texas, by treaty, was actually allowed into the Union as a region as its original boundaries stretched all the way up into Wyoming. That is why we Texans today have the right to divide our vast territory up into five different states. So, you can dislike some of Texas, but not all of it. There certainly should be a law against someone hating Texas as it just doesn't make any sense to do so. You should at least be put in a mental institution. Indeed, there are just simply too many worlds located within Texas to hate them all.

[Tom Grind of Royal Warts]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

That's why the illegal immigration argument is a waste of breath - both parties are essentially in favor of a regular flow of illegals. The Democrats want illegal immigrants to come over, get on government benefits and then vote illegally (or eventually, legally) for Democrats. The Republicans wants cheap labor for their businesses.

When just a wee little chitlin, I used to think salt shakers on the table were the Democrats and the pepper shaker were the Republicans. I then figured as pepper made my food taste hot the Democrats must make it taste cold.
This is how most of us still think as typical Americans divided up into a two party political system. Like looking for a flying squirrel every time a moose runs by. No matter how hard we try, we just can't seem to get the majority of us thinking above the basic level of animation.

[terrybrow]

Hi: I am going to be moving to Texas, I lived there in the early 80's, then had to leave. so now I have retired and really want to do something for me. can anyone tell me of a nice area to find a nice apartment that is near Houston TX. Thanks in advance.