Texas Taught Hard Lesson

Texas, “The Lone Star State”, is famous for its “can do alone” bragging rights, while fiercely claiming to want to be independent, was taught a big lesson during last week’s winter weather. Texas, a state where some of its conservative leaders have been toying with the idea of succession from the union, may want to rethink if the state really wants to go it alone. The weather that passed through Texas and much of the U.S. had millions of people facing record breaking cold and temperatures that left dozens dead across many states. Texas was hit the hardest, as its electric grid system all but collapsed at the worst imaginable time that proved to be catastrophic for its residents. Millions of residents lost power in the vast majority of Texas’ 254 counties that included the loss of water and heat because the state (90%) is not connected to the nation’s electrical grid. The parts that are connected to the national grid system had power and was able to withstand the weather’s onslaught of life-threatening consequences. The sad part is that some because of a lack of adequate heating lost their lives. How could a state where its leaders at the state level are Republicans let something like this happen? It goes back to wanting to be on their own, free of “governmental interference” from telling them how to run their grid system. They didn’t want to be under federal guidelines or as they said, not under regulations or federal oversight if they were a part of the national grid. It was almost like Republican leaders tell the rest of the nation, “we got this”. Last week showed the nation (and the world), that being one of the biggest, does not necessarily make one best all of the time. And it wasn’t like that the state wasn’t warned, as meteorologists across multiple states told residents to get ready and prepare themselves for the cold weather coming down to regions of the South.

It didn’t take long before residents lost power and the nightmares began. We have seen countless videos of people stranded on highways, saw them in long lines to get fuel for their cars and natural gas for their butane tanks and trying to get food from stores before they lost power. We heard of people who had fireplaces in their homes use their furniture in an effort to keep warm. They wore layer upon layer of clothing to keep warm, with some losing their lives in automobiles from carbon monoxide poisoning, just trying to keep warm and survive. Some people froze to death, one an eleven-year-old. In the meantime, Republican leaders led by Gov. Greg Abbotts(R), tried to shift the blame from themselves to the so called Green New Deal that Democrats have talked about in Washington, having to do with climate change. Republicans don’t want to talk about climate change(science), except for political talking points. They were saying what happened in Texas would be because of the Green New Deal. There is no Green New Deal legislation in Washington, it is only something that has been talked about. The governor wants to blame his grid problems on something that doesn’t exist. He knows that climate change is real (won’t admit), but the oil/gas industry has him in their back pocket. The governor tried to blame frozen windmills for the collapse, but their energy source is electricity and natural gas. Windmills are responsible for a small fraction of Texas’ energy source. Later on when the news media exposed the governor for giving different rambling versions of the grid’s failure, he acknowledged that Texas’ grid system couldn’t handle the extreme cold. Texas went through a similar weather event 10 years ago and Republicans were warned to take steps “to winterize” their system as states that do have extreme winter weather has done. Oh but no, not Texas, we got this. One of the worst things that was said, was by ex-gov. Rick Perry, the guy who ran for president in 2016. He said that Texans would “rather go” without heat than let the government tell them what to do. And this was the man who was Trump’s Secretary of Energy.

The governor promises “an investigation” into the grid’s failure and the starting point of that investigation should begin at his desk. The people that run Texas’ energy grid are appointed by him, as he knows of everything that goes on. He must, as they are not under federal regulation(deregulation), which means that he literally controls who/where Texas get its power. The governor can’t blame the Democrats on this one, though they will think of something else. Look for the governor or his spokespeople to give a “Texas is a resilient people” speech, preaching independence and at the same time will take any money from the government that some Texans say that don’t want to be a part of anymore. So many of those chosen/appointed leaders find it difficult to admit when they were wrong. Why? One of the attributes that anyone should look for in any leader, is honesty. Rafael Edward Cruz is having a difficult time trying to convince his fellow Republicans leaders that his trip to Mexico, while the people that chose him to lead are starving and freezing, needs to be honest with them. Texas was taught a valuable lesson last week. Did the state learn anything? It all depends on who was doing the listening. Remember, the world is watching. So is God.