The Republic of Texas

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

Spain explored Texas in the late 1600s to hunt down rumored French outposts in the area, and sent full colonies to plant their flag in the 1700s. But they soon found Eastern Texas not worth the effort to maintain and decided to abandon those colonies. And when the Tejano colonists refused to leave, Spain shipped them back to the other colonies at gunpoint. The Tejanos did not appreciate these heavy-handed tactics, and independence movements began to take heart in their communities. What did Spain know about their daily lives? What did Spain know about their dreams and visions? What did Spain care about their world out beyond the frontier? And what gave Spain the right to demand anything of them? The longer they thought and stewed over those questions, the more they could see a world where they were free of the Spanish crown telling them to do anything.

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The Republic of Texas

by on January 28, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Spain claimed and colonized New Mexico in the 1500s, though that far region was hard to control and defend against the Indian tribes further to the north. It actually seemed as if Spain might abandon the region in the 1600s, which encouraged the Franciscan priests to make the region more Spanish by force. They evicted the locals from the best farming lands, banned the practice of local religions, seized and burned religious artifacts, and arrested local religious leaders. By the late 1600s, they officially arrested nearly fifty medicine men for practicing sorcery, and sentenced four of them to death. That sparked what historians call the Pueblo Revolt and evicted Spain from the region. Spain’s initial reaction to the revolt was muted, though they returned in force a decade later upon hearing rumors that France was trying to take over the area. The insurrection would continue on and off until the end of the century, though Spain eventually prevailed and many Pueblo moved further north and west to evade their control. But this was not the end of independence movements in the New World.

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The Career Bureaucracy

by on January 27, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

One of the more fascinating arguments I’ve heard during the recent Impeachment is over who decides our foreign policy. And as a reader and writer of science fiction, I have a deep interest in this kind of thing.

On the one hand, there are those who argue that foreign policy is decided upon by our elected leaders. They argue that the elected officials should conduct it in their role as representing the public who put them into position. In the United States of America, that power is granted to the President.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that foreign policy is decided upon by the professionals in the career bureaucracy. They argue that career officials who have had years and decades to study foreign countries can make much better decisions than some elected flunky who can’t stick a finger on Iran if given a world map. In the United States of America, the State Department performs this function.

The debate in this case of course concerns whether or not we should Impeach a President who is described to have conducted a side foreign policy in contravention of the official foreign policy decided upon by the career bureaucracy in the State Department. And numerous State Department bureaucrats have been called forward to testify on this.

As I prefaced on this, I have read a lot of science fiction, and there is an entire genre of sci-fi that deals with something like this. Vast numbers of dystopic fiction deals with places where the elected officials are little more than figureheads for the career bureaucracies that truly decide…everything. The laws people live under. The punishments they get if they violate those laws. The people sent to enforce the laws. The trope of the “vast bureaucracy” is actually inherent enough in fiction that a certain website has a rather appropriately vast page dedicated to it. Go there at your own risk.

The point I’m going to make is simple. It is often very interesting to read stories about people struggling in a world where the career bureaucracy dictates everything. I do not wish to live in such a world though. I like a world where the people I elect to represent me have a say in what the government does, or more preferably, does NOT do.

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Republic of Texas

by on January 26, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Though Spain claimed Texas as far back as the 1500s, they ignored it for most of the centuries that followed. It was a backwater, inhabited by people they considered to be uncivilized savages. They did have some settlements on the Rio Grande, El Paso being one of the more famous examples, but simply didn’t bother with the northern expanses. Until they heard rumors that France was trying to take over the area in the late 1600s. They planted Spanish colonies far beyond the Rio Grande in the 1700s to put their stamp on the area. They lived a mostly ranching life beyond the borders of normal civilization in western and eastern Texas. These Tejanos would become the primary source of power and civilization in the region for the next century, and built traditions and laws that continue to influence Texas to this day.

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Republic of Texas

by on January 25, 2020 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

It is impossible to tell the story of Texas without also telling the story of the Mexican States. New Spain was claimed under Papal authority and conquered by Spain in the 1500s. They built missions to spread Christianity throughout the New World, and ruled the region for centuries. The parts of New Spain that would later become Mexico and Texas were rather restive members of their empire though, filled with surviving Indian communities that did not want Spanish rule, or often colonized by Spaniards who didn’t want to be ruled too closely. Those communities often merged, giving what would become Mexico an interesting fusion of local Indian and Spanish culture and blood. And as the centuries passed, they wanted more and more independence from the crown of Spain. That drive for independence was rarely met with welcome, and Spain put down a number of rebellions with a brutality that often jumpstarted the next generation of revolutionaries.

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