{"id":33274,"date":"2018-11-05T15:14:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T15:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33274"},"modified":"2018-11-05T15:14:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T15:14:13","slug":"stop-speaking-for-me-lt-gov-patrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33274","title":{"rendered":"Stop speaking for me, Lt. Gov. Patrick!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dan_patrick.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-33275\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dan_patrick-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dan_patrick-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dan_patrick.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I should have written this note to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick long ago. OK, I&#8217;m late with it, but I&#8217;ve got to get something off my chest.<\/p>\n<p>Here goes:<\/p>\n<p>Dan &#8212; I&#8217;ll call you Dan, OK? &#8212; I wish you wouldn&#8217;t purport to speak for me. Your TV ads keep saying &#8220;Democrats&#8221; want to do this and that. The implication is that Democrats all think as one. They&#8217;re all lemmings. Sheep. Mindless robots.<\/p>\n<p>Let me stipulate something right off the top. I consider myself a liberal. I align with the Democratic Party. I am inclined to vote for more Democrats than Republicans when I vote on Tuesday. However, I do split my ticket and I&#8217;ve found a few Republicans on the ballot worthy of my electoral support.<\/p>\n<p>However, not all Democrats support the things you say they do.<\/p>\n<p>Open borders? Nope. Sanctuary cities? This one&#8217;s tougher, but &#8220;no&#8221; on that one, too. Granting undocumented immigrants the right to vote? C&#8217;mon, man \u2026 <em>knock it off!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And I do not want to &#8220;turn Texas into California.&#8221; I moved to Texas for a reason back in 1984. I came here to take a job as an opinion journalist in Beaumont. I like Texas just fine. I like the people. I like the diversity. I like the lay of the vast land. I like <em>not having to pay a state income tax<\/em>. That was 34 years ago, Dan.<\/p>\n<p>I am not crazy about the political climate here, but then again, my life isn&#8217;t centered on politics. There&#8217;s more to living than worrying about politicians. I choose not to be consumed 24\/7 by the whims of political leaders.<\/p>\n<p>If I wanted to &#8220;turn Texas into California,&#8221; Dan, I would move to California. Just so you know, I happen to like California, too. I am sure you&#8217;ve been there. The state has a lot to offer. Tall trees and mountains, pretty beaches, sandy deserts, great skiing, glitz and glamor.<\/p>\n<p>And San Francisco, Dan, is arguably the most beautiful city on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>But for crying out loud, dude, stop trying to put words in my mouth! Stop purporting to speak for me. You and others of your political ilk don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re talking about.<\/p>\n<p>Well \u2026\u00a0Now, I feel a lot better.<\/p>\n<p>I intend to vote Tuesday with a clear head and clearer conscience and I am hoping it all turns out the way I want it to turn out.<\/p>\n<p>Have a great day, Dan.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I should have written this note to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick long ago. OK, I&#8217;m late with it, but I&#8217;ve got to get something off my chest. Here goes: Dan &#8212; I&#8217;ll call you Dan, OK? &#8212; I wish you wouldn&#8217;t purport to speak for me. Your TV ads keep saying &#8220;Democrats&#8221; want to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=33274\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stop speaking for me, Lt. Gov. Patrick!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[1255,1941,4108,4675],"class_list":["post-33274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","category-sports-news","tag-dan-patrick","tag-gop","tag-sanctuary-cities","tag-texas-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33276,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33274\/revisions\/33276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}