Good morning –

How hard would you fight to protect your family and neighborhood from an invading force? Would you hold them off for a year even if you knew it was a lost cause? I think you would, so I end the week reflecting on why.

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, October 29, 2021
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But first… Brandon Waltens was desperate for someone to be on the Headline with him this morning, so he asked me to pop on. We’ll cover a lot of ground, including the constitutional amendments election going on. Join us live at 11 a.m., or catch the podcast and video archive later today.

Where Was Abbott?

• Topics at the first GOP gubernatorial debate included border security, securing the state’s electrical grid, and vaccine mandates… but Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t participate. As Brandon Waltens reports, the three conservatives challenging Abbott for the Republican Party nomination made sure the incumbent’s record was front and center.
   
• Taking part in the gubernatorial forum—hosted jointly by conservative organizations in Wise, Parker, Grayson, and Cooke Counties—were former State Sen. Don Huffines, former Texas GOP Chair Allen West, and media personality Chad Prather.
   
• A full video of the debate can be found on YouTube.

Here Come The Lawsuits

• Democrats have deployed an army of attorneys to attack Texas’ new election security law. Erin Anderson reports that dozens of liberal lawyers have lined up to challenge Texas Republicans’ signature election integrity bill in court.
     
• Republicans have described the new law, Senate Bill 1, as making it “easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”
   
• Five federal lawsuits filed in September have now been consolidated into a single case that involves more than two dozen plaintiffs represented by at least 60 lawyers. A few individual voters are plaintiffs in the case, but most are Democrat-allied organizations like LULAC Texas, the League of Women Voters, the Texas Organizing Project, the statewide teachers’ union Texas AFT, FIEL Houston, and the Workers Defense Action Fund.

Federal Judge Sides With Southwest Airlines On Vax Mandate

• A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas is allowing Southwest Airlines to mandate the jab for its employees, despite the objections of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. Griffin White explains the decision came after the airline changed course and said they wouldn’t fire employees who refused to take one of the COVID vaccine regimens.
   
• “Requiring Southwest employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 will likewise improve the safety of air transportation, the efficiency of Southwest’s operations, and further the goal of safe and reasonable working conditions for pilots. In addition, because Southwest is a federal contractor, the Vaccine Policy is required by law,” wrote Judge Barbara Lynn, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton.

College Buys A Piano… For Distance Learning

• Odessa College used federal COVID relief money to buy a $200,000 piano, writes Robert Pratt in a new commentary. He explains this is one more example of just how “overfunded” many educational institutions have become.
     
• “Using taxpayer money for so-called ‘public’ art is often justified as a public good, and that is an argument for another time. Odessa College, a community college, using COVID ‘emergency relief’ money to buy a Steinway player piano is so wrong that it lends itself to that analogy of it being unsporting to shoot fish in a barrel.” – Robert Pratt

Who Are Texas’ Real Leaders?

• Hint: not the politicians!
   
• Join engaged citizens from around the state for the Conservative Leader Awards dinner on Dec. 4 in Irving. There, you will meet the real leaders in Texas: citizen-activists who fight tirelessly for liberty. This annual event recognizes the special achievements of difference-making activists by presenting them with engraved cavalry swords.
      
• The evening will be highlighted by naming the recipient of the 2021 Torch of Freedom. This special award is given to the individual who has made significant personal sacrifices in the effort to light brushfires of liberty.
     
• Individual tickets and sponsorships are available!

Friday Reflection: Real People, Holding Firm

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

Almost by definition, the stories of great battles are the stories of soldiers specifically trained to carry out the art and science of war. With the balm of time and physical distance, the horror of a battle is sanitized by telling ourselves that – even when the soldiers were conscripted – the participants knew what they were doing.

Sometimes that’s true, maybe even often. But it isn’t always. Take, for example, the story of the ancient Israeli city of Gamla. This town was the site of a ferocious siege involving thousands of people lasting more than a year.

Gamla had long been apathetically loyal to Rome – which is to say, they simply stayed out of everyone’s way. But as the Great Revolt led by independence-minded Jews gained steam in the 60s A.D., and the Roman military machine began committing horrendous atrocities to clamp it down, Gamla’s apathy turned into a resolve for independence.

Unlike the more famous Masada in southern Israel near the Dead Sea, Gamla was simply a town. Where Masada was purpose-built as a military fortress, Gamla was a collection of homes, shops, and a synagogue built on a steep hill. Even today the prominent outcropping resembles a camel’s hump – hence the name Gamla, which is the Aramaic word for that beast of burden.

Gamla was out of the way, overlooking from a distance the Sea of Galilee – but as its loyalties shifted, it became an object of Roman ire. Some 60,000 Roman soldiers laid siege to the town, which typically had a population of less than 3,000 – though by some reports the “population” might have doubled due to refugees just before the Romans arrived.

Yes, Gamla eventually fell. But, again unlike Masada where the entrenched defenders chose suicide over death or capture, the people of Gamla fought to the bitter end. This town – again, not a fortress, not a military outpost – held off the greatest military force the world had ever seen for more than a year. These simple people made a mockery of the Romans.

The people of Gamla fought with the righteous fervor of people who have no choice but to fight. As the Roman historian Josephus described it, “The effect on the Romans was devastating.”

The reason why is the most obvious: they simply refused to give up. The people of Gamla were not occupying an antiseptic position chosen by military tacticians, they were defending their homes. These real people fought not because they were conscripted, or even for the sake of esoteric principles in an ill-defined cause, but because they and their very real families were threatened.

A town that should have been casually wiped from the face of the earth instead drained the Romans of time and energy. People who should have withered at the sight of the advancing legions instead held firm. 

With defeat inevitable, the people of Gamla simply decided to go down fighting. They remained faithful to their families, their neighbors, and, yes, even to the cause to which they were reluctant combatants. 

We’re not always going to find success in our fights, but we, like the people of Gamla, should strive always to be faithful.