Beg your pardon. In the spirit of the Pit, I took it for worse.
It’s fairly safe to assume that in any group of millions of people there will be great differences of opinions about race and homosexuality. (And that’s not even considering that many Texans are gay and/or members of a visible minority.)
Why? What is so intrinsically inferior about the shape of a cowboy hat?
If you don’t know me, then how do you know what I care about? It’s not a lie to ask the question, “How are you doin’?” anymore than the formal “How do you do?” is a lie when you are introduced to someone. The literal meaning of the words is not the essence to be conveyed. Pleasantness and peacefulness is. In that sense, they are letting you know that they wish you no harm and they are demonstrating a sense of caring.
It is cultural and to label it as insincere is to misunderstand the culture. It would be just as unfair of me to go into a Northern city where strangers do not greet each other when they meet and assume that they hate me and wish to do me harm.
My complaint with Texas is that Texas State School Boards have had a very conservative influence on textbook publishers. And that influence is so strong that textbook publishers aren’t even bothering to publish books that won’t meet with Texas standards. Thus the entire country is limited by what Texas State School Boards think is appropriate.
But any state that can claim Molly Ivins and Anne Richards is just fine with me.
t-sip! 
Not to mention Barbara Jordan and Janis Joplin.
Yep, it’s a great place to be from…
One thing that bugs me is the constant “Austin isn’t like the rest of Texas” meme that people who’ve visited for a weekend like to say. This insinuates that the rest of the state is a provincial backwater, or that Austin is somehow anomalous to the rest of Texas. I’m from Austin, I’ve lived out in West Texas, and also lived in Houston.
Austin is politically left of most urban areas in Texas, but you can find freaky weird places in Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus, and Houston (go to Montrose if you don’t believe me). For some reason, the kookiest, most out-there people I knew from college tended to be from El Paso. I have no idea if that’s something to do with the city - I’ve only visited briefly and spent most of my time in Juarez, anyway… And once you leave central and West Austin, you will encounter as many Bubbas and Joe Bobs as any other city. That’s kind of the Austin I like the best (perhaps because I grew up there?). There’s a columnist who writes for the Statesman named John Kelso who drives the South Austin Bubba stereotype into the ground, but there’s some truth to his exaggerated act. Travel down Lamar Boulevard and notice the change.
But ultimately, Austin’s weirdness is a very Texan type of weirdness. It’s not like a swatch of California on the Balcones Fault.
Yeah, I think I meant “discrepant.” I’m distracted as I’m watching my Longhorns beat down the Iowa Hawkeyes…
Fuck ewe!
Daniel
That has been my impression, as well. I’m from Arkansas originally, so we have our digs at Texas, and they with Arkansas. Yep, I’ve met some loud, obnoxious, too-conservative Texans, but I’ve also been. But also, I’ve met a lot of Texans who will invite you over to supper and buy you beers even though they hardly know you. With all that big and loud stuff also comes a big, generous spirit.
Having said that, being a fan of the only team from the old SWC that was NOT from Texas, that any and all of their football teams can lick my balls. 
Texas-bashing, huh?
I got slurs
They jingle-jangle-jingle…
Doh! strike that “but I’ve also been” at the end of the second sentence…
Don’t blame us, the chinese make those shirts.
I’m just going to post early and post often.
Texans, IMHO, can be some of the friendliest people in the country. During my Las Cruces years in the early 1990s, a friend and I made a road trip to Carlsbad, stopping at the isolated Texas town of Dell City on our way back. We found a local watering hole, stepped inside, and were immediately welcomed by the very friendly locals. Not too many outsiders make it to Dell City, so we big city folks were a bit of a curiosity, but we were treated as if they had known us our entire lives. Folks bought us drinks, and we even got a couple of free passes to the Hudspeth County Fair. I’ll never forget it.
Same thing in Austin, when I was moving from Cruces back to Buffalo. It just seemed so much easier to meet people in the music clubs downtown; folks were more approachable, and they had no qualms about saying hello to a complete stranger.
Living in Colorado, Texans had a bad reputation in the ski towns, but the ones I met on the slopes and in the lodges were as friendly as they could be.
FWIW, I love King of the Hill, and get most of the references. It’s a brilliant show.
I’m quite endeared to Texans. However, I’ve got a problem with several aspects of Texas as a whole. As a planner, I find Texas cities to be some of the most unattractive in the United States; ugly frontage road development, huge billboards and high-rise signs are the norm, while they’re disappearing in other part of the country. Around me in suburban Cleveland, business signs are usually no taller than about 10’ tall, and there are NO billboards; in most Texas cities signs seem to start off at 60’ tall, and it’s nearly impossble to find urbanized areas that aren’t hit hard with visual pollution. There’s the collective ultra-conservativism and group-think, the omnipresent non-denominational mega-churches, the collective machismo and chest-thumping, the executions, and a sense that environmental issues really don’t matter and that the desert is just an empty area to dump trash.
Comparing Las Cruces, New Mexico to nearby El Paso, Texas is like comparing night to day. Cruces is a city that has some rough spots, but overall it’s very attractive, and quite easy on the eyes; it’s what I call “kinder, gentler sprawl.” Arroyos tend to be left in their natural state. Architecture tends to reflect a Southwestern theme. Culturally, Cruces is a melting pot; long-established Hispanic families with roots dating back to Spanish occupation, engineering geeks from NASA and White Sands, the influence of NMSU students and faculty, retirees galore, and a very large community of artists and spiritual seekers. Cross over into El Paso, and YEE-HAW! (celebratory gunfire) The billboards and high rise signs begin, arroyos are channelized, Interstate medians and rights-of-way are covered in concrete, there’s little landscaping, and you’ll see plenty of brick houses that look like they could be in suburban Dallas or Houston. Culturally El Paso is fascinating, but still far less diverse than the Cruces side; Mexican (as opposed to Tex-Mex) and Texan culture predominante. Las Cruces embraces its desert detting, while El Paso struggles to be as “Texan” in every way as Dallas, Houston or San Antonio, despite it being closer to Albuquerque, Tucson and Phoenix than any large Texas cities.
Like I said before, Texans seem extremely sensitive abd defensive about Texas-bashing. Criticize various aspects of other states, and their residents won’t respond in quite the same way that a Texan would. That character trait of Texans is probably what led to the start of this thread; some criticizing of the trigger-happy spirit of Texas-style justice met with a response of “fuck you” instead of a resigned “yeah, we know.”
I worked as a teacher in south Texas for several years. I don’t remember the average Texan as being too different from people from other states. There was, however, a certain type of Texan that I loathed. You can find the same people on the net with a minimum of searching. They’re common at gun discussion boards. They brag that, in Texas, it is legal to shoot someone for property damage or trespassing at night. They’re inordinately proud that Texas was an independent republic for a few years. They’re fond of making (inaccurrate) statements about Texas being the only state that is allowed to: fly its flag at the same height as the US flag/ secede from the union/ split into 5 smaller states. I’ve heard these guys make claims like “The rest of the country looks up to [Texans] as America’s Americans.” Probably there are similar people in other states, but I can honestly say that I’ve never met one.
Parts of Texas do indeed have problems.
But it’s a big place, and it would be wrong to over-generalize.
Having said that, my response to those who say that Austin is a liberal town is that in Texas, a liberal is someone who thinks that maybe … just maybe … two-year-old kids shouldn’t be able to own guns.
Actually, I’m from Albuquerque. I’m just going to school at NMSU. Anyway, anyone who’s native to New Mexico or has lived there a long time can probably find humor in “You know you’re from New Mexico if you hated the Texans until the Californians moved in.”
Concerning Texas and gays.
In response to a question about that vote:
Fuck you Texas. And I say that as someone who was born in Texas, went to college there and lived most of my adult life there.
One of my teachers is from TEXAS. He doesn’t fit the “Dont mess with Texas” stereotype. Maybe we are not making him angry enough
Okay…I just had to respond to this one. We don’t hump polar bears. We FUCK moose! Get your shit straight Johnny. (which one are you, a fruit or a nut?) 
Concerning Texas and gays.
Quote:
Texas became the 19th state to place a gay marriage ban in its constitution with an overwhelming vote Tuesday, 76 percent to 24 percent. Just one of Texas’ 254 counties – Travis, home of traditionally liberal Austin – voted against it.
A 16% voter turnout. So I think this really says that 84% of voters weren’t so deadset against gay marriage that they made it a point to vote.
Course it could be they figured the amendment would pass anyway.
You shouldn’t fuck them, then.
/can’t believe no-one said it first.
When I lived in Oklahoma we were required, by law, to make fun of Texas.
GO SOONERS!