Comments on: Another Reason To Drink Stolichnaya

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:43:26 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Terry. The Rio Arriba revolt in northern New Mexico followed hard on the heels of Texan independence and was a backlash against the same centralist policies that drove the Texans into rebellion. You’ll get no argument from me about Texan boundaries. They also had the audacity to lay claim to Albuquerque and half of what is New Mexico, so they could be pretty imaginative in their mapmaking.

By: tcowan

tcowan — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:35:08 +0000

Your point is correct, Daniel. 1830s Mexico was a mess. Arguably, if Mexico had held to the Constitution of 1824, Texas would not have seceded–or at least not until much later. And the ONLY reason we got away with it at all was that provinces all over Mexico were seething and in revolt. That said, Texas stopped at the Nueces River and never extended to the Rio Grande, either in theory or in practice, despite claims made by the Repulic of Texas. And of course, the US was able to make good on a claim that Texas was never strong enough to do, precipitating the Mexican War. I can say this as a 7-generation Texan.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:39:44 +0000

It might be an ideal world “for some people.” My point about 1830s Mexico was that it is a strange thing to choose as an ideal time *especially* if you’re Mexican.

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 20:42:40 +0000

There’s some evidence that Mexican gangs are targeting blacks in certain neighborhoods.

By: Roach

Roach — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:26:37 +0000

I’d say with a million mestizo Mexican columnists coming here illegally ever year, insecurity is exactly what any sane American should feel. These ignorant peasants working in our car washes and landscaping companies are not themselves that political. But their kids, after hearing about US complicity in the Holocaust, endemic racism, and other half-truths in public schools will be truly problematic. Just look at the way so many Mexicans behaved during the LA Riots: criminally and similarly to poor urban blacks.

By: Bustrofedon

Bustrofedon — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:55:33 +0000

A little insecure, are we? I don’t see the problem with it since “for some people” it indeed would be an ideal world. It is a commercial for an alcoholic drink, for goodness’s sake.

Don’t much care either way about the borders of the Southwest one way or the other – whether Chihuahua and Sonora were American states or California and Arizona were back under Mexican rule. For me, a map of such an “ideal world” would have mean’t that Constantinople wouldn’t have fallen on May 29, 1453 or the Invincible Armada would have been invicible. Or Ungern Von Sternberg’s descendents would rule today a pan-Buddhist/Orthodox Mongol Empire.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:00:22 +0000

Absolutely. No pun intended.

By: Daniel Maxwell

Daniel Maxwell — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:46:16 +0000

Say what you will about the Mexican-American war, but Texas broke away far and square as a Republic, and joined the US more or less on their own free will.

Even not as an immigration hardliner, the whole thing does kinda upset me. Even for all its flaws, would you rather live under the American regime – or the Mexican regime?