How Texans screw themselves

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As if it weren't enough that Texans, thanks to a truth-denying campaign of right-wing historical revisionism, are turning themselves, and their children, into an ever more idiotic mass of state-wide ignorance, allowing for an exception here and there, they're now acting blatantly against their very own political and even economic self-interest by refusing in large numbers, especially in Republican areas, to fill out the Census:

File this under "problems that we really should have seen coming": conservatives, egged on by the likes of Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), declining to return census forms and possibly shrinking the political power of states like Texas. The Lone Star State's return rate for census forms, so far, is 27 percent. The national average is 34 percent. And the data are worse for Republican areas...

Why is this significant? Steve Benen explains:

 

No one should be surprised... that the spread of right-wing paranoia over the census is having an effect. (via Daily Kos)

Contrary to historical trends, some of the toughest challenges facing the agency responsible for measuring the nation's population are not from counting the traditionally undercounted groups such as African-Americans and Latinos. Instead, a new and growing threat to an accurate national head count is coming from anti-government conservatives who may not fill out their forms to protest against "Big Brother" in Washington.

The Houston Chronicle's report looks specifically at Texas, which is counting on the census to gain additional House seats, electoral votes, and federal funding relating to transportation, agriculture, health, education, and housing.

But some anti-government types are shooting themselves in the foot.

They are indeed. Boo-freakin'-hoo. With all due respect to those exceptions, this is hardly any loss to the rest of America, much of which prefers truth over propaganda and enlightenment over abject ignorance.