With the combination of outright stubbornness and a lean towards reactionary legislation, Texas government tends to have knee-jerk reactions to issues instead of dedicating itself to find solutions to the underlying problems.
A great example of this is capital punishment. Texas has been killing its citizens for almost 200 years. There are many factors that affect violent crime rates and Texas government chooses to ignore the source of the issue, and is far more interested in dealing with the final product. Things such as untreated mental health issues and poverty greatly contribute to violent crime rates, and as we all know that Texas is not very willing to give aide to its people. Studies show that the death penalty has done very little at slowing down violent crime rates. If there was an effective way to curb the amount of violent criminals in Texas, why wouldn’t we try it out? Is Texas so set in its ways that it ignores the obvious faults in its laws? I’m starting to think so.
Another example is how Texas government deals with healthcare. Instead of our government trying to get healthcare to our poorest citizens, our state chooses to ignore the problem. With the recent attempt of federal assistance for Texas to expand its Medicare programs, and Texas recent decline of that offer, I can’t help but feel a little exhausted. Texas has these increasing social issues and yet we act like there’s nothing wrong, and it’s fine the way things are. The idea of change, giving and receiving help seems so against Texas ways and it’s just slowly crippling us citizens of Texas.
If our government could just snap out of these deeply rooted, embarrassingly Texan ways of legislation, I could rest a little easier. But the strength of Texas’ pride shows very little chance of wavering as does the impossibility of radical change with how we deal with social issues.
2 comments:
I read Jennifer Gadush's post on how she feels about the Texas legislature. She goes into it talking about how she doesn't like how they decide to go at things. She uses capital punishment aka the death penalty as an example and how they are deciding to kill the criminals instead of dealing with it, and also talks about the health care issues we are having and how they aren't giving their resources to the ones that need it. She is basically saying that Texas, as a state, chooses to ignore their problems and act like we are this peachy happy state.
I honestly agree with what Ms.Gadush is saying, but I feel like the things she states and talks about aren't credible because she doesn't have any sources or actual quotes to back up the claims. If she had a few newspaper articles, or a few quotes from Rick Perry that show the neglect of issues, it would've been a better written piece. I like how she asks a lot of questions, because it makes the reader feel involved and it really makes them think. I feel like she has a lot of good points, and she backs up her claim, which is Texas ignores it's problems and it's pride gets in the way, with enough examples. I like how she chooses to describe Texas (which is also very accurate). She uses words like "stubborn", "embarrassing Texas ways."
Texas has a lot of social issues, and we are not dealing with these issues to the best of our abilities. Ms.Gadush really put a lot of things out in the open by pointing it out. Her post did a good job by bringing attention to this issue, because I personally didn't really notice how we neglect these social issues, and how we like to just push things under the rug. Her post was fairly good, and she needed was to have some credible sources so her post could've been credible.
Capital Punishment and Medical Insurance are one of the biggest issues in Texas. The article my classmate Jennifer Gadush published is hitting every point. The way Texas is handling capital punishment is a true disappointment. Most of the people being affected are those who are poor and with many mental issues. Although I sometimes feel the way many Texans do. They want to people to pay for their crimes. Criminals should be punished for disobeying the law and if that means they have killed or done any horrendous action amongst any others then they deserve nothing less than capital punishment. Texas could be a little more thorough with their crimes inspections by making sure that there isn’t any mistake like that of Michael Morton. In Jennifer’s article I would have loved to have seen more statistics on how capital punishment is hurting the poor and those with mental issues, and for more dramatic effect the amount of wrongful deaths made by Texas capital punishment.
Medical insurance isn’t the best either. I’ve been trying to find the best fitted insurance and Texas doesn’t really provide you with any that are very beneficial. I completely agree with my classmate in this matter. Texas needs to find a way to provide insurance to those who are less fortunate. I know there is a big ordeal behind healthcare but in reality they just need to somehow get the ball rolling. There are many Texans without medical insurance who are sick and are too scared to go to a hospital because of the bills they would have to pay.
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