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It’s a pleasant spot. Texas is dry and hot as a rule, but the river walk is a level below the city, right at the water’s edge, with trees providing ample shade

by db48x 2y ago

It’s a pleasant spot. Texas is dry and hot as a rule, but the river walk is a level below the city, right at the water’s edge, with trees providing ample shade for the whole length. If you are visiting San Antonio you will definitely want to eat lunch there so that you can be in the shade during the hottest part of the day. But is it special enough to make it worth a trip to San Antonio just to see the it? No, probably not. You probably live near a river, and there are probably restaurants with a deck you can sit on while you eat lunch. Go to San Antonio to see the Alamo and remember all who died for your freedom there, then as long as you’re in the area go to the river for a leisurely lunch.

closewith 2y ago
> remember all who died for your freedom there The Mexicans or the Texans?
- SR2Z 2y ago
  The Texans were fighting for the slaveholding Republic of Texas, the Mexicans for a dictator. Probably not your freedom specifically, but the vague concept.
- superq 2y ago
  No Mexicans died for anyone's freedom, including their own or other Mexicans. They were serving under a dictator and didn't have a choice. (And, yes, there were some slaves in Texas, but comparatively few compared to the rest of the South.) The small force there knew they would eventually be massacred by the thousands of troops surrounding them. The defenders held them off for 13 days. When they requested parley, Santa Anna signaled no quarter. Legend has it that Davy Crockett was on the roof, fighting to keep the horde from coming up the ladder, but he died with the rest of them. Santa Anna ordered the execution of the six surviving prisoners of war. The Alamo defenders fought bravely and died in support of an idea: that men can govern themselves and live in freedom. It would take another 30 years before the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, would sign the Emancipation Proclamation and free the slaves.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    This is pretty revisionist. Slavery wasn't some ancillary factor that just happened to exist in Texas. It was core to the anglo side of the Texas revolution. The War Party was strongly proslavery and the increasing (Mexican) federal push towards abolition was a key point for them. They especially hated a Mexican predecessor to the Emancipation Proclamation called the Guerrero decree that (attempted to) free most slaves in the northern states. After independence, they wrote slavery into the constitution and some of the first laws passed prohibited slaveowners from freeing slaves without government approval. The events in Texas were just one of half a dozen revolutions opposed to Mexican federal centralization around the same time. None of this was politically palatable after the American Civil War and people certainly weren't going to focus on the non-anglo sides of the revolution that weren't so deeply proslavery, so the narrative that's taught in schools was sanitized.
    - stevenwoo 2y ago
      As someone who went to public school in Texas, the textbooks in Texas are vetted by revisionists who still claim the Civil War was about states rights and not slavery, my civic teacher argued this repeatedly in the 1980s. A lot of kids are indoctrinated with the BS that downplay the slavery aspect, it's like the Big Lie of the south.
      - scarecrowbob 2y ago
        One of the nice things about growing up in Texas is that I 100% know what being the target of state-sponsored propaganda feels like. The extra cool thing is that almost all the propaganda is pretty easy to refute and it is easy to access alternative (and IME more historically correct points of views) which aren't supressed by the state. That makes it a lot easier to understand the claim that folks often make, that any system is "propaganda free" when disagreements can be publicly stated with no governmental reprisal, is trivially false. At the same time, it's been pleasantly horrific to look at how objectively bad the reflexive assumptions most of my cohort hold about the world and then try to draw conclusions about how terrible and mistaken my own views have and probably continue to be. Thanks, Texas!
dylan604 2y ago
Not a bad comment until BAM! The Alamo is such a lackluster disappointing building. It's tiny. Even if you know it is small, it is still impressive in how small it really is. It is the exact opposite of knowing how big the Grand Canyon is but still being amazed at its size when you visit in person. It's also a total let down in that no bicycles were found there.
- db48x 2y ago
  Why does a building have to be large in order to be historically important?
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Because it goes against the everything is bigger in Texas narrative. It’s just hard to express how small it is until you’ve been there. Once you are there, it’s just underwhelming.
    - divbzero 2y ago
      Doesn’t the small size make it more impressive that the Texians held out for so long?
      - db48x 2y ago
        Not really. At the time of the battle the complex covered several acres, with the buildings built in a squarish shape around a courtyard. The Mexican army burnt most of the buildings down out of spite as they retreated, and like most other ruins it was mined for stone and brick to build new buildings with. Really only the chapel is left, and that was never intended for anything other than church services for a few hundred people.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
      Well, all that remains of the alamo is the chapel and a residential unit. It was originally a quickly fortified missionary complex which is a large plaza surrounded by walls.
sokoloff 2y ago
> Texas is dry and hot as a rule Brownsville and Houston would like a word… (Texas is a huge state and coastal Texas is not dry.)
- db48x 2y ago
  Yea, I've lived in Houston so I know all about how hot and humid it is. But the two areas are by no means equal in size: the hot and dry parts of Texas are vast and cover most of the state. There’s lots of variation too. El Paso is far dryer than San Antonio. But if you’re walking around downtown in midday in most parts of Texas the only thought on your mind will be where your next glass of ice water is going to come from.

by db48x 2y ago

closewith 2y ago

> remember all who died for your freedom there The Mexicans or the Texans?

SR2Z 2y ago
The Texans were fighting for the slaveholding Republic of Texas, the Mexicans for a dictator. Probably not your freedom specifically, but the vague concept.
superq 2y ago
No Mexicans died for anyone's freedom, including their own or other Mexicans. They were serving under a dictator and didn't have a choice. (And, yes, there were some slaves in Texas, but comparatively few compared to the rest of the South.) The small force there knew they would eventually be massacred by the thousands of troops surrounding them. The defenders held them off for 13 days. When they requested parley, Santa Anna signaled no quarter. Legend has it that Davy Crockett was on the roof, fighting to keep the horde from coming up the ladder, but he died with the rest of them. Santa Anna ordered the execution of the six surviving prisoners of war. The Alamo defenders fought bravely and died in support of an idea: that men can govern themselves and live in freedom. It would take another 30 years before the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, would sign the Emancipation Proclamation and free the slaves.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  This is pretty revisionist. Slavery wasn't some ancillary factor that just happened to exist in Texas. It was core to the anglo side of the Texas revolution. The War Party was strongly proslavery and the increasing (Mexican) federal push towards abolition was a key point for them. They especially hated a Mexican predecessor to the Emancipation Proclamation called the Guerrero decree that (attempted to) free most slaves in the northern states. After independence, they wrote slavery into the constitution and some of the first laws passed prohibited slaveowners from freeing slaves without government approval. The events in Texas were just one of half a dozen revolutions opposed to Mexican federal centralization around the same time. None of this was politically palatable after the American Civil War and people certainly weren't going to focus on the non-anglo sides of the revolution that weren't so deeply proslavery, so the narrative that's taught in schools was sanitized.
  - stevenwoo 2y ago
    As someone who went to public school in Texas, the textbooks in Texas are vetted by revisionists who still claim the Civil War was about states rights and not slavery, my civic teacher argued this repeatedly in the 1980s. A lot of kids are indoctrinated with the BS that downplay the slavery aspect, it's like the Big Lie of the south.
    - scarecrowbob 2y ago
      One of the nice things about growing up in Texas is that I 100% know what being the target of state-sponsored propaganda feels like. The extra cool thing is that almost all the propaganda is pretty easy to refute and it is easy to access alternative (and IME more historically correct points of views) which aren't supressed by the state. That makes it a lot easier to understand the claim that folks often make, that any system is "propaganda free" when disagreements can be publicly stated with no governmental reprisal, is trivially false. At the same time, it's been pleasantly horrific to look at how objectively bad the reflexive assumptions most of my cohort hold about the world and then try to draw conclusions about how terrible and mistaken my own views have and probably continue to be. Thanks, Texas!

dylan604 2y ago

Not a bad comment until BAM! The Alamo is such a lackluster disappointing building. It's tiny. Even if you know it is small, it is still impressive in how small it really is. It is the exact opposite of knowing how big the Grand Canyon is but still being amazed at its size when you visit in person. It's also a total let down in that no bicycles were found there.

db48x 2y ago
Why does a building have to be large in order to be historically important?
- dylan604 2y ago
  Because it goes against the everything is bigger in Texas narrative. It’s just hard to express how small it is until you’ve been there. Once you are there, it’s just underwhelming.
  - divbzero 2y ago
    Doesn’t the small size make it more impressive that the Texians held out for so long?
    - db48x 2y ago
      Not really. At the time of the battle the complex covered several acres, with the buildings built in a squarish shape around a courtyard. The Mexican army burnt most of the buildings down out of spite as they retreated, and like most other ruins it was mined for stone and brick to build new buildings with. Really only the chapel is left, and that was never intended for anything other than church services for a few hundred people.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    Well, all that remains of the alamo is the chapel and a residential unit. It was originally a quickly fortified missionary complex which is a large plaza surrounded by walls.

sokoloff 2y ago

> Texas is dry and hot as a rule Brownsville and Houston would like a word… (Texas is a huge state and coastal Texas is not dry.)

db48x 2y ago
Yea, I've lived in Houston so I know all about how hot and humid it is. But the two areas are by no means equal in size: the hot and dry parts of Texas are vast and cover most of the state. There’s lots of variation too. El Paso is far dryer than San Antonio. But if you’re walking around downtown in midday in most parts of Texas the only thought on your mind will be where your next glass of ice water is going to come from.