The Texas Mindset

Reader comment on: Lone Star Jobs Surge

Submitted by Caroline (United States), Jun 11, 2011 12:38

After living most of my life in Manhattan, I moved to Houston for a two-year stretch, and prepared for culture shock. My boots on the ground experience differed quite a bit from the narrative in the Northeast editorial pages.

We can debate the true drivers of the Texas economic success, and it is important to acknowledge the points about cronyism made on this blog. Perhaps the larger issue, however, is the mindset of Texas.

In Texas, one gets a sense of the pioneering spirit and value placed on individual liberty and responsibility. This sensibility can be seen in many state and city policy decisions and in the conduct of many citizens, i.e. state challenge to the TSA, light bulb law, state tax limits, red-light camera repeals, post-hurricane clean-ups.

This spirit of liberty, and all that it entails, is an ineffable quality that seems to attract ambitious, productive people of many different professions to the state. Conversely, the people who want a big government society, with lots of free lunches and safety nets, will seek some of the well-known nanny states and cities elsewhere in the country. Personally, Texas is exactly the type of society I would like to build, and I am happy to see it grow, while the big-government, social engineering states go bankrupt, just like their ideas.

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