The United States of America is supposed to be the beacon of freedom for the world, but we keep losing our freedoms under the Biden administration. That is why I'm glad I live in Texas. Texas is known for Whataburger, Dr Pepper, and freedom. So why is Texas always in the middle of the pack for freedom at number 21, according to the Cato Institute?

Texas is number one in freedom for businesses, but we have a lot of work to do in other areas. According to the Cato Institute, Texas is ranked 49th in personal freedom. The Cato Institute stated that "personal freedom includes a variety of categories, including victimless crimes, guns, tobacco, and education." Although Texas just passed open carry, Texas is only ranked 31st for guns, which means that as far as Second Amendment freedoms go, 30 other states are considered freer than Texas.

Texas is also dead last in Occupational Freedoms, which is described as "occupational licensing, education, and experience requirements."

So how can Texas work on becoming freer?

Since the thing that's hurting Texas the worst is our insane regulation process for certain workers, such as cosmetologist, plumbers, electricians and real estate agents, we need to lower the pay-to-play restrictions on these careers.

If you're a real estate agent and went through the classes to get your license, why would you need to take more classes every two years? Why does it cost $200 dollars a month to keep an active license? I know about real estate because I have a license. It's a little extreme. The licensing programs in Texas need to be looked at.

The next big issue Texas has is victimless crimes. Essentially, this means things like drug use and how Texas prosecutes it. I do not think that we need to change drug use in general, but I think there's a conversation that needs to be had about marijuana. Texas is slowly opening the door to treatments that would include THC, but shouldn’t that be between a doctor and their patient? I'm not really a fan of opening the door to marijuana as a recreational drug, but I do think that warrants a conversation as well.

There are a lot of other things that could be worked on. Something that Texas has looked at fixing but has never been willing to do it is the state inspection process for your car. Gambling in Texas is another thing that has fallen completely flat. I'm sure that I could name many others that we could work on as well.

In the end, I don't think Texas is going to change anything. We're nowhere near the bottom with the likes of New York and California, but when blue states like New Hampshire, Nevada and Pennsylvania are considered freer than Texas, it's time that we start looking at how to fix the problem.

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Everything's bigger in Texas, including the tall tales! Our state can seem pretty strange to people from far away, or even our immediate neighbors. There are several myths about Texas that range from quirky to fun and just plain ignorant and insulting, and even some people born and raised her believe 'em. Here are a few we can dispel today.

Can You Guess These Towns From Their Satellite Photos?

I'm always down for a good brain challenge. This one however got the best of me.
It's always a fun time looking up address or cities and seeing them from a satellite point of view. You start pointing out landmarks and things you recognize.

One thing you don't account for however is something looking bigger or smaller than you seemed to think it was. So we started grabbing a bunch of these satellite pictures of cities and towns around Amarillo.

As we looked at them, we thought to ourselves, "how fun would this be to actually have to GUESS what these places are?". So away we went.

Go ahead and try to see how many you can guess correctly!

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