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Never reinforce failure, said Napoleon.

And he was never in Paris, Texas.

Most citizens have a big blind spot when it comes to what the Paris,Texas leadership does or how they carry out the few things that they do – or try to do when they do do something.

A majority of citizens say a lot of good things about one of the 23 towns named Paris in the U.S. of A.

Of course, Ted Bundy’s mother had good things to say about her darling boy.

Belle Gunness – known as “Lady Bluebeard” – who was married at least twice and killed up to 15 men for their insurance had something good working for her. Evidently.

And Joe Biden has only good things to say about his son, Hunter “China” Biden, the famous artist, drug addict, computer expert, and woo-er of an Arkansas stripper with access to funds from several very highly successful foreign economic ventures. (No. Not the stripper: “Hunter”!)

The same or similar good words are true of every serial killer, every paid-for politician pushing more big-government, freeloaders, a profligate immoral wastrel, today’s “Superstars”, a city like Baltimore. Chicago. Seattle. LA. San Fran. Houston. NYC. Milwaukee. Or good ol’ Paris.

Nowadays, if you can’t lie with a straight face, you can’t be a leader. Its in a law book. Somewhere.

Our local bunch try to convince the world – and especially themselves – that Paris is pretty much normal. And whatever is normal in Paris is normal in Paris, but it’s unsettling when you’ve done everything and there are no results.

So, most people in Paris are on medication of some kind … even if its just 77-pounds of fruit and vegetables everyday in a little-bitty pill.

A lot of people who come from families of local social standing or semi-moral character seldom consider Paris as a visitor’s destination. They’re happy under their medical care. Many non-visitors are happy, too, claiming their decision is what makes them proud to be a Texan.

But Paris has a great many qualities. One of those qualities is ignoring anything that means long-term progress, which in Texas is hard to do. Other qualities are resisting watching things close-up; not taking sides; refusing to join in on a worthwhile fight for survival, and seriously not getting involved.

Yet, Napoleon was never in Paris Texas.

But most people in Paris Texas think its almost good to be alive.

They have an aching heart in a city full of them.

 

Paris Texas is a quiet, sorta’ sleepy, strangely unsettled town, nestled in Lamar County, an area that once was a part of Miller County, Arkansas. Today, parts of the city’s heart have stopped beating. Historically, the downtown area was the heart of the city, pumping economic blood from city limits to city limits. But it’s likely that the central economic muscle will never return. 

There has been by-pass surgery of sorts, but to survive, Paris needs a new heart or a vast new miracle to get it working again.

In NE Texas, Paris is a clean air area. When folks in the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex want a breathe of the unpolluted stuff they can visit Paris. They can purify their lungs with some deep breaths and admire the local Eiffel Tower, the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial, visit the Lamar County Historical Museum or John Chisum’s grave site or drive around and look at all the litter.

 

Other people, unless they have relatives here, who wander in or deliberately visit Paris, never fully quite understand why they do so –– Especially, after July 4th and on into the middle of September. Rain clouds drift along the Red River, and then off into the Land of the Razorbacks. Every year, the heat encourage locals to do strange things as they enjoy 100-degree temperatures that feel more like 110.

Saying people in Paris sweat is truly superfluous. And some don’t wait for summer to do it.

Strangely, a lot of people who live and work in North Dallas, Richardson, Plano, and other bedroom cities thrown together in northern areas of the metroplex, have never seen parts of an old town. So, when they wander into and around Paris, an old town, where most areas show it, Paris terrifies them.

 

Paris is blessed with numerous assets and, because of them, numerous opportunities. Maybe so many that our leadership can’t make a decision on what to do or how to do it, which keeps Paris from saving itself. It keeps looking for someone or something to do it.

The Paris Texas Chamber could … but the leadership refuses to ask HOW.

It’s a shame.

Because those assets remain unused; the opportunities are wasted.

Think not?

Then, please explain how – in 50-years or less – Paris went from the largest city in a 100-mile circle of NE Texas and SE Oklahoma, one of economic prominence and prosperity, the North Star of Texas, to the ugly, junky, weedy, litter-covered, population-losing, boarded up, tax-wasting, self-deluded mess we’re in today?

 

Name one Paris decision over the last 25-30-or so years that has made a significant difference in population, appearance, better-paying jobs, family incomes, community attitudes, etc. – anything beyond a stopgap measure or some project that had a limited impact?

You can, dear reader, get angry – cuss and be disgusted – but IF you’ll drive around Paris, inside the Loop you’ll see a community reeking with 3rd world results.

So, how can you honestly believe that Paris got to the shape it’s in by making intelligent decisions for community and economic improvement over the last 25-30-or so years?

Neither can we.

 

 

Nearly all schemes for uplifting society fail because the originators make the error of thinking that society is a manufactured thing, which can be altered by changing the process of how things are done. Most people see social order, economic growth, education and prosperity as being unobtainable unless engineered into existence – usually, by the government or the organization sponsoring a scheme for progress. This is one of the Big Myths.

These believers demand that each of us be deeply and forever in debt to the state or the sponsoring organization carrying out the process. They dogmatically believe that each of us owes these secular creators everlasting thanks and offerings – and they scold everyone who refuses to accept such an open-ended claim.

This is the Big Myth: To complain about paying taxes – and, worse, to actively oppose or reject the manufactured process – is selfishly resisting to give what is owed by each of us puny beneficiaries for the state’s or secular creator’s beneficence, magnificence, and grace.

Another Big Myth is that government carries out the will of the people as long as its top officials are chosen by majority rule. This niave faith in majoritarian democracy is a mistake because there is, in fact, no “will of the people.”

If, as individuals, we each have a sentient mind with our own hopes, fears, dreams and preferences, how do we become “the people” – as politicians like to refer to us?

“The people” is not a sentient creature with a mind and hopes, fears, dreams and preferences. Naturally, individuals can come together to make a group, but this does not transform the group of people into a giant individual equivalent to each of the flesh-and-blood men, women, and children who make up or comprise the group. It doesn’t mean that two or more individuals cannot agree upon an objective and goals to pursue together.

For centuries, individuals have pooled their resources to create communities, build roads and highways, and organized ways to defend ourselves (or even to attack others). But all this is a form of democratic decision-making, a “best means” way for registering the preferences of each individual in a way that results in an acceptable collective decision.

But this reality does not mean that the results of the democratic decision-making process reveal that “the people” have a will that is in any way similar to the will that is possessed and exercised by each individual. All that even the best collective decision-making process does is to discover a compromise outcome that is acceptable to each member of the group.

Supposing that the results of majority rule express the will of this collective creature – creates the false and dangerous impression that if any individual objects to a majority-rule outcome, this individual is attempting to elevate his paltry self over a will not only as real as his own but also greater because it is that of many individuals. But, again, “the People” is not a being with a mind or a will. It follows that no method of collective decision-making, not even the most ideal form of democracy, reveals the People’s will.

That which is unreal cannot be revealed.

And the most pernicious of all Big Myths is that the economy and society – or, at least, any economy that is productive, and any society that is good – are the conscious creation of the state or the collective control that leads to enslavement and human misery.

Society is not a manufactured process that can be controlled and managed.

It is a living entity, comprised of sentient individuals each with his or her own mind and preferences and fears and hopes. And for too long, the reality is that Paris has treated citizens as its resource.

The Paris leadership should remember that community growth will come from Paris being a resource for its citizens.

 

return to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce