Good morning,

Today, I end the week reflecting on the importance of context in fighting honorably for righteous ends.

First, here is the Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, July 30, 2021
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UPFRONT: Yesterday’s Texas Minute included a typo in the spelling of Ludwig von Mises’ name. My apologies for any confusion!

Abbott Takes Shutdowns Off The Table

• As hospitalization rates begin to rise in some parts of the state, Texas businesses have been worried they might once again be forced to limit their capacity under one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive orders. Brandon Waltens explains that changed for the better yesterday. 
       
• Back in March, the governor proclaimed, “It’s time to open Texas 100 percent.” Yet he had continued to re-up an executive order that provided for new rounds of severe economic restrictions based on COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the state’s 22 Trauma Service Areas. Yesterday, the governor reversed course to prevent closures from happening.
     
• The new executive order — which Abbott said is designed to “provide clarity and uniformity in the Lone Star State’s continued fight against COVID-19” — consolidates several previous executive orders, such as a ban on mask mandates as well as restating a narrow ban on vaccine requirements by governmental agencies and entities receiving public funds. 
     
• Most notable, however, is the lifting of a previous stipulation that allowed counties with high hospitalization rates to bring back COVID-19 restrictions.

• Speaking of Brandon Waltens… Apparently everyone else is on vacation this week, so he reluctantly asked me to be on The Headline with him. Join us live at 11 a.m., or catch the video archive and podcast this afternoon.

Grassroots Leaders: Unimpressed With Special Session “Effort”

• With eight days left in the 30-day special session ordered by the governor, Robert Montoya has a roundup of the reactions to it from grassroots leaders around the state.
   
• While legislative business has been stalled by Democrats who fled the state for Washington, D.C., busting the constitutional quorum requirements, House Speaker Dade Phelan is getting blamed for not getting work done in the regular legislative session.

• Reminder: the Texas Senate has passed all of the items on Gov. Abbott’s special session agenda – except for the measure restoring budget funds for the legislative branch.

Despite Publicity Push, Krause & Abbott Take No Action To Protect Kids

• More than a week ago, Gov. Abbott told Dallas radio show host Mark Davis that the reason legislation protecting kids from chemical castration and other “gender modification” procedures wasn’t on his special session agenda was because chances were “nil” it would pass the House.
      
• Gov. Abbott told Davis he “should be” announcing his own plan to deal with the issue “within the next week.”
       
• In response to the governor’s truth-telling about the House, Matt Krause (R-Haslett) claimed on social media he had “over 60 supporters... We have more than 76 votes.”
        
• As Jacob Asmussen reports, in the intervening time neither Abbott nor Krause have made substantive moves to advance the issue.
      
• In fact, a week and a half has gone by and Abbott still has not produced any plan.
          
• The whole thing appears to have been a publicity stunt by Krause and Abbott, giving some cover to those Republican lawmakers whose inaction killed the measure in the regular session. 

• Don’t know enough about this issue? Check out the Feature Video produced by Texas Scorecard called Saving James: Ending Child Mutilation In Texas.

Collin County Email Scandal

• Collin County’s chief executive, Judge Chris Hill, flatly denies allegations he “stole” emails from District Clerk Lynne Finley. Erin Anderson has the story on the heated exchange between the two Republican officials.
      
• In fact, Hill explained to Finley and other county officials, no emails were “stolen.” He had gone, instead, through “appropriate and legal” channels to request copies of certain emails from Finley’s office, seeking information related to Finley’s job performance dating back to 2019.
   
• “To be clear, there has been no security breach… and no records of yours were stolen,” said Hill. “You can stand up here and say they were stolen, but it is a lie.”
   
• In a statement, Hill added: “It is unfortunate that the District Clerk has failed to address the underlying issues that plague her office and continues to demonstrate the poor leadership that caused these issues in the first place.”

Friday Reflection: Fighting Honorably

As the saying goes, “Context is king.” Nowhere have I seen that so practically displayed as in Israel, where passages from the Bible spring to life in the context of their physical locations. Nagging questions get answered with a glance and a footstep.

Few biblical vignettes puzzled me more over the years than that found in 1 Samuel 24. Let me try to set the stage. King Saul and his men were chasing David - knowing the young man was ordained by God to be Israel’s ruler. David and his men flee into the wilderness region known as En Gedi, and are hiding in a cave. It was into that very cave which King Saul entered to “relieve himself.”

David and his men conspire about whether to attack him. How easy it would have been! As it happened, David snipped a piece of Saul’s robe (without the king’s knowledge), but regrets it as a cowardly act and forbids his men from taking action.

So it always puzzled me... How were David and his men not seen? How were they not heard? How could David have moved close enough to cut Saul’s robe without the king knowing it?

Well, it turns out very easily. The cave features a massive waterfall and raging stream that carved the cave from fragile rock. Back then, the cave would have been pitch black, the floor littered with man-sized chunks of rock. Several dozen men could have been standing there yelling and never be heard. The king would have had to carefully disrobe before going about his, er, task. 

When you stand there, it all makes perfect sense. All sorts of nefarious actions could have happened in that space. 

While Saul was a dishonorable king, David did not want to begin his own kingship in a dishonorable way. While Saul would probably have thought nothing of killing David with his pants down, David wanted Saul to keep his dignity. David wanted to honor God, even in the darkness of a cave against a man who wanted him dead.

When my wife and I stood at the mouth of the cave, looking down at the Jordan River below and marveling at the beauty of the place, it was hard not to think of the pressure to “win at all costs.”

The lesson at En Gedi reminds us that the ends cannot be justification for the means. If we want to be honorable men, we must behave honorably – even when it is inconvenient, even in the darkness, even when our friends tell us otherwise. As a self-governing people, we must first be able to govern ourselves.

That is, perhaps, the most important context for each of us.