I've expressed before my misgivings about the 'inclusive' approach of the Texas Nationalist movement, and the likelihood that a resurgent 'Republic of Texas' would end up being a bilingual if not Spanglish-speaking 'nation', which is not what our Texas colonist ancestors envisioned it being, despite the revisionist view of Texas history.
Texas is not just being returned, de facto, to Mexico; it's also receiving a lot of immigration from various Third World countries. The Texas that exists today is riven by the 'diversity' which we are told is to be 'celebrated.' There are some areas which remain mostly populated by Anglo Texans (and that has traditionally included those Texans of German descent in some places), people whose families have lived in the state since the days of the colonies or the Republic of Texas. But more and more, Texas is becoming a multicultural state, and its people often true believers in the ideology that drives multiculturalism.
Michael, in his response to the Miller article, points out that Texas is not a nation in the blood and kinship sense, as it was at its inception.
''Texas is not a nation. Texas is a government. It is lines on a map defining a particular territory, a flag, a bureaucracy in Austin and so forth. Governments are not nations, no matter if they are independent or not. An independent (sovereign) government is a state. Subordinate governments have many names such as provinces, counties and districts. A nation is an ethnic and cultural group with a shared history and identity.''
If Texas were to re-establish independence it would have to be a 'proposition nation' as the United States has become. Would that, then, be a great improvement over the status quo? I say it might not be worth the great sacrifices that would be required to make it possible. Others may disagree. The 'proposition nation', the nation-state that is not based on natural ties but on abstract ideas, has been shown to be a failure, in most cases, necessitating a strong or intrusive government to keep dissension and internal strife quelled, and to enforce some kind of 'tolerance' amongst disparate and sometimes hostile groups. Political correctness with all its strictures would end up being imposed, most likely.
I've hoped against hope that Texas might regain independence but given the makeup of the state now, that seems much more problematic.
Incidentally, on the SNN discussion, a commenter says that the term 'Texian' is the correct one, not 'Texan.' I don't remember ever hearing that term applied to the present-day people of Texas, but rather to the colonists and the people who lived in Texas during the days of the Republic. On the other hand, maybe terminology is changing, to keep up with the changes in the population. I came across this discussion of how many Spanish place names in Texas are now being re-Hispanicized, as political correctness demands that we conform to the pronunciation of the original language, rather than Anglicize names as was the former habit. In this discussion someone says it is racist to pronounce Spanish place names in an Anglicized fashion. And we are told that even the name of the state should be 'Teh-Has' rather than Texas.
Texas is full of place names whose pronunciations confound Hispanics but sound natural to others. Palacios is pronounced "Puh-LAY-shus" instead of "Pa-LA-see-os." Manchaca is "MAN-shack" instead of "Man-CHA-ka." Pedernales is "PER-dan-al-is" instead of "Peh-der-NA-les" and so on. Even Texas should be "TEH-jas," according to some traditionalists...''
Well, I will pronounce the names in the 'correct' Spanish fashion, trills and all (and I can do so if I choose) the day that the millions of Mexicans in the U.S. learn to pronounce our names correctly. And it seems to me that it is difficult for people who have not learned a language early to pronounce foreign names 'properly', accent-free. The idea that we have to kowtow to Mexican trespassers in this fashion shows how we are being made subjects in our own country. How do you say ''dhimmi'' in Spanish?
No, Texas need not change even the place names to appease the ever-disgruntled immigrants, or the liberal purists who like to preen themselves on their linguistic cosmopolitanism. In fact, I've been thinking for some time that we should have changed all the existing Spanish place names when we took over the territories, and named them after our own heroes or after natural features. The fact that we left the Spanish names intact lends credence to the Mexican claim that this land all belonged to them, and was stolen by the gringos.
A non-PC commenter (thank God for him) on that thread quotes John Derbyshire, apparently in the context of this kind of linguistic PC:
"Damn whatever committee of the U.N. [yeah, I know it's not the U.N. this time] is foisting this gibberish on us! To hell with them and all their works! GYPSIES! PEKING! LAPPS! BOMBAY! HOTTENTOTS! Come and get me, you bastards!"Derbyshire speaks for me, there.
Texan, Texian, whatever. Texas needs to decide if it wants to be a real nation in the natural sense or if it wants to be simply a slightly more conservative version of The Empire, propositions and all.
