Kelly said:
Don't think I can sign on to that theory, Al. The Independent Republic of Texas was run entirely by Democrats for about a gazillion years until just recently. Permit rules are very lax here compared to many other states, and have been so forever, best I can tell.
Sure, and the same can be said about just about every state south of the Mason-Dixon, right? (I know this is a little OT, but we are talking about permitting in general, eh?)
Correlations are about trends, and you have to look at many factors lest you correlate the wrong thing. With regard to Texas and the South in general, I'll borrow a page from my Democrat friends (I have several) and point out the obvious -
those folks were Southern Democrats! There's no way you can compare the Dems who ran any Southern state to those in the Northeast or far West. (could Teddy even win dog catcher in TX?) And there are other factors - like predominantly urban vs rural/farm/ranch and so on.
Once you correlate enough similar attributes (ie, 'apples-to-apples') you see obvious trends. There is far more regulation - of all sorts - in NJ, MA, CA, HI, WA than in KS, AL, TX, CO, AZ. Just ask Terry how the Seattle folks are taking to the new laws regulating the size of your house as a percent of your lot size.
-art-
