The Republic of Texas

by on March 4, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Though the Democrats dominated national Congressional politics in the later years of the 19th Century, they only managed to elect New York’s Glover Cleveland to the Presidency. Republican Presidents like Benjamin Harrison continued to push the restoration of Negro rights, but Democrat Congressmen successfully blocked those attempts. Then in 1912 Theodore Roosevelt split his Progressive Republicans away from William Howard Taft’s Republicans and opened the doors for Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Wilson won with 42% of the vote, making him the first Southern Democrat President after the Civil War. Texas and the Southern States voted in a solid block for him, bringing along the Midwest, and many other States to generate a crushing Electoral win. Wilson then proceeded to press an agenda to fundamentally transform the United States of America along Progressive ideals.

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The Republic of Texas

by on March 3, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

With Negroes banned from carrying weapons to defend themselves and successfully denied the right to vote, what power base Republicans had in Texas and the other Southern States effectively evaporated. The literacy tests and poll taxes also weeded out many of the poorer White families, but that was no matter. Those the Democrats wanted to vote were granted grandfather status. The rest were just Poor White Trash who could not be trusted to vote the way they were told, so losing their votes was a feature, not a bug. Texas voter turnout dropped from nearly 90% to just over 20%, allowing the Democrats to generate a solid lock on political power. Similar disenfranchisement tactics in other Southern States built a nearly insurmountable Democrat majority that would dominate national politics for a century.

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Happy Birthday To Me

by on March 2, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Yeah…I just passed my birthday again. At over forty, that puts me solid into the middling of my years, unless my plan to live forever works out. Then I’m just starting on this merry go round. 😉

I got a bunch of birthday wishes, the first one coming from Hallmark. Fitting I suppose. Then a bunch of random e-mail from companies whose newsletter mailing lists I’m on. Thank God I didn’t get one from Bloomberg. Then some people I actually know. Thank you. All of you. 🙂

I got in a fun game of BattleTech, where both me and a friend who will remain nameless for his own protection found out just how powerful electronic warfare can be. C3 for those who know it. For the rest of you, think of it as really good equipment for shooting stuff far away as if it is really close. It was a good game. It was a fun game. And spending time playing is always a good way to spend a birthday weekend. We also ate Indian, so it was a good time all around.

On a not-so-good point, one of my favorite authors released a new list of fans that made it into his work, and it appears my part has been edited out. He wrote me in after a call for names with the standard qualifications that nothing is guaranteed and that editing phase can take anybody out. And from what he said, this particular editing phase was particularly complicated with many scenes cut and added. Given matters are as they are, I expected I would be edited out, but it still disappoints me to see it happen. And finding out about it on my birthday weekend was a real bummer.

Outside that, on a personal update, I’m still writing my stories and about to publish a new one. Two are pretty much ready for it, but I’ve got real life matters to look at first. Taxes. Woohoo. And the not-so-fun job of seeking an eviction for homebuyers who decided they were going to stop paying me money for the house. So I go to court in a week. I’ve successfully gone over forty years without spending time in a courtroom, now a pair of squatters has me seeking it out. On the plus side, if I can get them out, and find someone else to buy the place and really give me actual money for it, I get to rebuild the retirement savings I lost to Obamacare. Which is pretty much a really good reason to go through with all of this lawyer and court stuff.

So Happy Birthday to Me. 🙂

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The Republic of Texas

by on March 1, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The Democrats established a firm control of Texas politics after Reconstruction ended, and their local paramilitary white supremacy organizations continued to suppress the vote of the former slaves. But when the freedmen pushed a Republican to the federal House of Representatives in the 1890s, despite everything they did, the Democrats were done playing nice. They were the rightful rulers of Texas, not the Northern Carpetbaggers, not the so-called Southern Scalawags, and definitely not those Negroes who needed to be shown their place again. If assassinations and terror tactics did not do the job, then they would just have to change the laws so it would be illegal to vote. They added poll tax requirements, instituted White Primaries, and added literacy tests all while making certain that the segregated schools would not teach the skills needed to pass them. They banned Negroes from jury duty and law enforcement, which also banned them from carrying weapons of any kind, and turned them, once again, into second-class citizens not fit to show their faces in polite society.

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The Republic of Texas

by on February 29, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The 1876 election is generally considered to be one of the most controversial elections in American history. Democrat organizations like the Red Shirts and White League operated openly, unlike the defunct KKK, organizing armed marches numbering in the thousands to drive out or murder Republican officials, or keep Republicans from voting at all on election day. They printed ballots with Republican symbols but Democrat names to entice illiterate voters into casting the wrong ballot, and vote stuffing was so impressive that it resulted in 101% of the possible vote tallied in one State. Three States sent two official election results to the Electoral College. One endorsed by the existing State government, and one endorsed by the Democrats. And the Oregon governor disqualified one elector because he was a Postmaster, and therefore a government employee, and replaced him with a Democrat elector. An Electoral Commission awarded all disputed votes to Republican President Hayes, and a hasty series of backdoor meetings between Republicans and Democrats followed. The Republicans finally agreed to pull out the last of the federal troops enforcing the now-unpopular Reconstruction efforts, and the Democrats agreed not to protest the election. And so Reconstruction came to an end in the United States of America.

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