Texas House Representative Jared Patterson retweeted Texas Democrats about abortion, saying, “This is what evil looks like.”
58% of Americans oppose Texas’ heartbeat bill. This is why the Texas Democratic Party tweeted, “Abortion access is necessary. Abortion access is essential. Abortion access is healthcare. Abortion access is freedom. #LiberateAbortion”
Jared Patterson retweeted and said, “This is what evil looks like.”
Jared Patterson’s moral compass is obviously broken because, like many other Republicans this last year, Patterson spent the legislative session working to hurt Texans and take away their constitutional rights.
Let’s talk about this.
What is evil?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, evil is something that is “profoundly immoral and wicked.”
Jared Patterson thinks he’s some moral authority, or he’s trying to present himself that way. The reason why that’s disingenuous is according to his voting record; he frequently votes on bills that the rest of society considers profoundly immoral.
In 2019, Patterson co-sponsored and voted to put more guns in public schools.
This was something that the National Association of School Resource Officers and the Major Cities Police Chief’s Association were adamantly against. They were against it because it makes it more difficult for officers to identify an assailant, there’s a high risk of unsafe storage, and a lack of training for the responsibility of having a firearm in an education facility.
Considering America’s high rates of school shootings, some might think it immoral to place more guns in public schools.
There were armed officers in the recent school shooting in Arlington last month and in the school shooting Michigan last week. It didn’t make a difference. Patterson, like most Republicans, would rather contribute to gun violence instead of taking measures to reduce it.
Jared Patterson wants you to believe he’s “pro-life.”
In 2016, in Texas City, a teenager committed suicide after being cyberbullied. Studies have shown that teenagers who are cyberbullied are at an increased risk for suicide. That’s why in 2019, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that classified cyberbullying as a crime. But, of course, being the pro-lifer that he is, Representative Patterson voted against it.
Many would classify Patterson’s stance on suicide prevention as immoral and perhaps even evil.
Jared Patterson’s voting record shows he’s in favor of violence.
In 2019, he also voted against requiring family violence convictions to be reported to the DPS. Why? Because he didn’t want domestic abusers to lose their guns.
Why is that immoral?
Because every month in America, 57 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner, the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%. The victim is female in 94% of all murder-suicides. Studies have been done linking the rates of gun ownership directly to domestic homicide. And women in America are 21x more likely to die from gun violence than any other developed country on Earth.
Some would characterize Jared Patterson’s stance on allowing domestic abusers to keep their firearms as evil.
But Patterson is pro-life, right?
In 2019 he also voted against requiring children under two to be in a rear-facing car seat. How could someone be pro-life but vote against child car seat safety?
The United States of America Constitution grants all citizens the right to protest peacefully. Unless you’re protesting a pipeline. Jared Patterson was one Republicans who voted to implement a 10-year prison sentence for protesters who opposed oil pipelines.
Some may characterize taking away a person’s constitutional rights for the sake of padding one’s own pockets with oil money as corruption. Many classify corruption as evil and immoral.
Representative Patterson is pro-violence.
That’s why this year, he co-sponsored and voted in favor of punishing cities that invested in community initiatives to help curb police brutality.
When so much of police violence involves systematic racism, one has to wonder what Patterson’s drive for that vote was.
This year, when it came to protecting the rights of Black and brown Texans to vote, Patterson fell in line with all of the rest of the GOP, making it harder to vote, reducing polling hours, penalizing simple mistakes, and reducing polling places. Patterson also voted in favor of taking away the voting rights of houseless individuals.
The voting suppression bills from the Texas Legislature this year were racist.
A lot of people characterize racism as evil.
The voter suppression bills weren’t the only racist legislation Patterson voted in favor of.
Jared Patterson co-sponsored and voted in favor of the GOP’s so-called anti-CRT bill, which extended white supremacy in public education, barring the teachings of Fredrick Douglas and Martin Luther King, and substituting it for a mandate that teachers teach an opposing view to “controversial subjects” like civil rights and the Holocaust.
Jared Patterson also voted in favor of the racially gerrymandered maps this session.
Then, the unconfirmed rumor swirled around Austin that Patterson was having an affair with a married female House member.
Those in glass houses….
Representative Jared Patterson characterizes the majority of Texans as evil for having a different opinion on abortions than him. He said that even though most Texans might consider his stances on violence and race evil and immoral.
How do people like this land in public office?
Not enough people show up and vote on election day, extreme gerrymandering, and voter apathy. We have to change this. We shouldn’t be electing people who characterize more than half of the state’s population as evil. Instead, Patterson will write and vote on bills to hurt those he considers evil, in turn we’ll all be worse off.
Vote them all out. We, the people, have had enough.
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