Good morning,

Most of us aren’t called to man the walls of an old church, outnumbered by superior forces –but all of us are called to face a hostile world. I end the week reflecting on the choices we have as a result.

Here is the Texas Minute for Friday, March 4, 2022.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

‘Pro-Trans’ UNT Mob Disrupts Conservative Event

• Protesters at the University of North Texas in Denton disrupted a lecture on the dangers of adults trying to “transition” children’s genders. Erin Anderson has the full report.
     
• The event was organized by the UNT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas. Their speaker was Jeff Younger, a Texas father who advocates for parental rights and against forcing dangerous drugs and life-altering “sex-change” surgeries onto children in the name of “gender transition.”
       
• The mob constantly shouted obscenities, heckled, screamed, and used noisemakers in trying to drown him out. “Your professors have misled you,” Younger shot back. “You’ve been mis-educated to think this is normal.”
     
• Younger spoke for close to an hour before being escorted out of the building by police.
      
• Protesters outside the building shouted “F*** Jeff Younger” and “F*** Kelly”—a reference to Kelly Neidert, a graduate student at UNT who previously headed the YCT group and has been a frequent target of leftist threats and online harassment.
       

• Such is the state of “free speech” on the campuses of Texas’ taxpayer-funded universities.

Problem-Plagued Elections In Harris County

• In a new commentary, election worker and long-time activist Felicia Cravens writes that Texans must stop tolerating the problems plaguing Harris County elections.
      
• “We overlooked the learning curve for a couple of elections with the new machines, because the problems could have been normal from implementation. We can no longer overlook election after election plagued with problems, errors, technical nightmares, missed deadlines, inadequate training, ignorant support staff, understaffed locations, and misplaced priorities.” – Felicia Cravens

GOP Voters: Eliminate The Property Tax

• More than 75 percent of Texas Republicans voted in support of a ballot proposition focused on eliminating property taxes. Katy Drollinger has the details from the primary election ballot.
   
• The official language included on the ballot asked voters if they believed that, “Texas should eliminate all property taxes within ten (10) years without implementing a state income tax.”
   
• Although eliminating property taxes is already a part of the official Republican Party Platform, state lawmakers have yet to make meaningful progress on the issue. Of the multiple bills proposed in the last legislative session that would have started the process of shrinking property taxes, none were prioritized by top Republican lawmakers.
   
• Tim Hardin of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility said “this election has shown… taxpayers want property taxes to be eliminated.”

GOP Voters: Defend Life

• In Tuesday’s Republican Primary, 83 percent of voters supported a non-binding resolution calling for an “Amendment to defend the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, from fertilization until natural death.”
   
• Last year, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature enacted the “controversial” Heartbeat Act, which prohibits an individual in the state from killing a pre-born child once the baby’s heartbeat is detected (though the law still does not protect a baby in the first few weeks of life).
   
• Check out Jacob Asmussen’s report.

Friday Reflection: The Alamo Fell, And Texas Rose

In a final call for reinforcements, the men who held the Alamo had given themselves a binary choice: "victory or death." Nearly two hundred years later, we know the framing of their choice, and their decision to make it publicly known, helped ensure that victory for Texas would be the result.

When William Barret Travis sent his famous letter from the Alamo, the choice had already been made. That line in the sand had already been crossed. Mexican troops were amassing, and it was generally understood that everyone in the Alamo would die without an unconditional surrender.

Travis and his men chose to fight.

Let’s be clear: once the seize began, there was not much of a chance for them to win without quick and overwhelming aid. The defenders were a ragtag bunch, just shy of 200 men, facing the mightiest military power in the western hemisphere under the command of Antonio López de Santa Anna – known as the Napoleon of the West.

Too often in life we attempt to engineer success, when what is required of us is faithfulness. Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and the others at the Alamo certainly had no death wish, but they also understood the importance of being faithful to their mission. They understood the importance of being faithful to the cause of Texas and liberty – faithfulness even when facing death at the end of a Mexican canon, bayonet, or rifle.

That happened in the early hours of March 6, 1836. They were slaughtered that day when Mexican forces stormed the Alamo.

They died, but the cause of liberty bloomed. When our Texas forefathers shouted "Remember the Alamo" in the battles that followed, they didn’t exactly mean the place – they meant the men. They meant how those men died. And they meant how those men faced that death: faithfully, and with honor.

Perhaps Texas’ war of independence would have gone differently if rather than putting the garrison to the sword Santa Anna had merely taken them prisoner. Perhaps, were it not for the barbarism, the loss of the Alamo would have dampened the spirits of Texans rather than fueled their passion.

But that’s not how history unfolded. The grounds of the Alamo became the final resting place for the Alamo defenders. The resolve of patriots was hardened by the horror.

Rather than surrender, or commit suicide, the defenders of the Alamo became something more: they became heroes of a fledgling republic. Not only did their death gave birth to a nation, but the way they faced their final hours provides for us even today a model for honorable action.

Most of us aren’t called to man the walls of an old church, outnumbered by superior forces, but all of us are called to face a hostile world. 

How we respond is our choice. We can surrender, we can cower, we can slink quietly into silence.

Or, like William Travis and his men at the Alamo, we can stand and fight, faithful to end.

Remember the Alamo!