Living in Miami for the last ten years has been interesting. Being a transplant from Texas to South Florida, I’ve come to learn a lot from the multitudinous left-leaning lemmings in Miami. Things like the US sucks, Europe is yippee, traditional values are for the vapid and non-evolved, there is no right or wrong (just pleasure and pain) and that terrorists are angry because of . . . uh . . . something we must’ve done. Yeah, it seems nowadays, here on the Gold Coast where I live, as if I am constantly having to defend classic America, God, our founding principles and the war on terror on a 24/7 basis.

Having had it “up to here” with the secularized rancor I regularly experience, I had to have a little retreat. Where did I go to get away from the “progressive” paranormals that populate Florida’s floating sod? I went back to the motherland, Texas.

Yeah, when I needed to clear my head and get a dose of hope for my country, I headed northwest to the Lone Star State. Being the hunter that I am, I called my dad and we went deer hunting at my friend Phil’s ranch in the heart of the Texas hill country. Not only did we get to successfully hunt whitetail, axis deer, bobcat and black buck antelope on Phil’s beautiful place, but I also got to see and hear pro-US sentiments coming from my hunting compadres.

It was weird (in a good sense) to observe and listen to people who are still:

1. Proud of the US. The Texans I was fortunate to hang with are not blind to the few (compared to other whacked nations) faults we have in our land. Having said that, they still think we are an awesome country and not the Great Satan that the lunatic left and Islam deem us to be. Yes, the guys I hunted with have not surrendered to “the US sucks” cheer that the secular regressives keep trying to shove up everyone’s tail pipe.

2. Hard working. During my jaunt in Tejas, I didn’t see too many people loitering and trying to suck off the entitlement tit. As a matter of fact, I found a low tolerance for low output people. They believe that if you work your butt off, no matter what your stripe, life pays you back in spades.

Not only do they believe such a supposed “arcane notion,” but they are also examples of success that flowered from an initial rough start. I heard no entitlement mentality while visiting. And another thing . . . when we went into town for supplies, the store employees weren’t talking on their stupid cell phones to their lovers while they smacked gum and looked at you weird when you asked them for a little help. The employees were nice (imagine that), well dressed and ready to help the customer. Unbelievable! What a time warp I stepped into.

3. Church going. Another thing that fish slapped me was the fact that all the guys I hunted with are churchgoers. They aren’t tree humping, hippy pantheists. They are not pluralistic, irrational, global group huggers with insane, geo-ecclesiastical expectations. They aren’t the “make it up as you go” spiritual goons that gobble up oxygen on South Beach. They are God fearing, Bible believing, imperfect people who believe (and worship publicly) a perfect God and Christ. What a breath of fresh air compared to the putrid and puerile O2 I have to breathe that’s belched forth from the atheists and the anything-but-Christ cabal that constitutes secular South Florida.

4. Gun owning and toting. This too, for me, was a major perk to behold. I had indeed found my tribe. Yeah, I had landed within a group of people who love guns, who buy guns (many of them of various calibers, gauges, types and actions), who use guns, who tote guns and who make zero apologies for the aforementioned. They understand the 2nd amendment and relish in what it affords them as citizens and sportsmen. Ka-Pow.

5. Very pleasant. A crazy thing that I noticed that was different to my South Florida surroundings was how friendly everyone was. How weird. I didn’t hear people yelling and screaming because the barista at Starbucks put one 1/8th of an inch too much foam on their skinny cappuccino. I did not see the middle finger flying with more regularity than a ferret turns its head. Where I live in Miami, I have an acquaintance that has used his middle finger so much it is actually shorter and thinner than all their other fingers. (There should be a tax write off for that somewhere.)

While in Texas, I heard things like “please,” and “thank you,” and “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am” . . . not just coming from octogenarians of yesteryear either, but from (believe it or not) peers and teens. Teens of all people! Yeah, the young people there were not some sneering, chip on their shoulder, 5o cent wannabes who are ready with an F-bomb if you happen to look at them for a nanosecond.

6. Military honoring and terrorist hating. The Texan brethren I had the good fortune to hunt with also had in tow an utter disdain for all Islamic miscreants who wish us ill. And you know what else was cool? They were up-front and didn’t try to sterilize their contempt and their wishes for death to all those who would try to derail the American dream for them, their children and their children’s children.

One last thing that struck me, while hunting in Texas, was the many young soldiers I saw at the airport. These young warriors @ DFW walked with heads held high and were greeted and thanked by the many Texans who saw them cruising through the airport. B-e-a-u-tiful.

Compared to South Florida, Texas was weird, in a good way. To be honest, I have been severely tempted to move back. However, I kind of think I might lose my edge if I left the whacky waste places of zany South Florida. Who knows? What I do know is that I’m proud to be from Texas, proud to know such people and proud to be a red neck rather than a pink, yellow or no neck, rootless and feckless, secularist regressive.

* Logon to ClashRadio.com for Doug’s interview with author Mark Steyn, as they discuss his new book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. Also, Giles’ 3-Minute video blog can be viewed at ClashRadio.com and can be seen throughout the week on NRB TV [Direct TV Channel 378]. His latest book, Bulldog Attitude: Get it or Get Left Behind, can be purchased at Amazon.com.