You have to love Texas. If any group of people could care less about how unpopular their decisions are, it’s Texans. It’s especially fun to read the backlash that is just now coming from Europe regarding Texas’ decision to rewrite their history. Yes, between talking about ash shutting down plane flights and how poorly the euro is doing-because it turns out global economics is complicated, who would have thought?-people across the pond seem more than a little startled at how one of the States in our Union is doing whatever it pleases.

The particular article I’m talking about is from guardian.co.uk, and is entitled “Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns.” I’m not about to summarize it, but it does a very apt job of making it seem like Texas is being willfully ignorant. I would beg to differ. I think that Texas is just doing what everybody else in our country is doing.

Many politicians in this country tread on the Constitution every day. Admittedly, sometimes it’s hard not to. There are many tough real world decisions that put good men in positions where they have to follow their gut, and it leads them to infringe on something just enough to get the results they want.

But it’s important to keep in mind that the old, archaic piece of parchment they infringe on is the only thing that gives them any kind of real power. What a paradox; how can politicians disregard some parts of the Constitution while keeping a finger firmly fixed on the parts that outline how they have authority?

We as a nation are made of paradoxes. We talk about life and liberty, and then wage war in other countries for reasons the average person can’t even articulate. Obama ran on the peace platform. Did he say there would be further operations in Afghanistan? Yes, he did. I don’t recall him outlining in his speeches what is going on now.

According to John T. Bennett at Marine Corps Times, Marine Corps General James Cartwright has said that we can expect to keep fighting the good fight in Afghanistan for the next “5 to 10 years.” Five to 10 years? I’ll be 33 if the war in Afghanistan goes on for the next 10 years! Only in America does the peace platform include a decade of war.

So if Texas wants to rewrite history, that’s pretty much par for the course at this point in the game. I’m not really sure where people in this country get off screaming, “But what about the integrity of the teachers!?” Integrity is a sharp sword to be sure, but one that you have to be strong enough to lift before you can swing it.

Form this mental picture in your head: America, sitting on the sofa, shoveling chips into its gaping face, watching some garbage reality TV, while out the window the environment dies and businesses foreclose. America flips through the channels and lands on a newscaster talking about Texas and what it’s doing; for a second America stops inhaling potatoes chips and screams, “Where’s the integrity!?” and then promptly continues flipping channels.

I’m not saying what Texas is doing isn’t completely ignorant, I’m just saying that I understand it. Shortly after The Honorable Mr. Obama’s election to the presidency it is rumored that Li’l Wayne said, “We President now.” What Texas is doing right now is their way of saying, “We history now.”

Orwell wrote it long ago, “He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past.” Texas is trying to promote what it believes, to pass on a heritage to its children. Writing its willful ignorance into the curriculum is the smartest thing it could do.