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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

No one is attacking regulation. Virtually everyone I've seen is in agreement that better regulation is necessary in this situation.

Rick Perry specifically attacked regulation.

https://news.yahoo.com/rick-perry-suggests-texans-prefer-191...

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He's not speaking against all regulation, only a specific subset of regulation, namely federal. (I apologize for being unclear: I did not mean to imply that all regulation is accepted equally, merely that nearly everyone accepts that stricter regulation at some level of government is necessary to prevent future blackouts. Many Texans would demand state-level regulation but would spurn federal). I'm not sure why he even brought it up, to be honest. It seems irrelevant to the current situation. Tougher state regulations are a foregone conclusion, and the applicable federal regulations (such as those applying to gas suppliers) are not something Texans have any influence over at this time.

As a side note, Rick Perry is pretty much irrelevant to Texans AFAICT. Perhaps that's why he's making these unsolicited, strong statements.

He recently ran the department of energy, didn't he?

As in, he was the federal regulator who failed here. There's a self interested reason to bad mouth federal regulation to avoid blame

You are correct that he held that position under Trump and bears responsibility for problems with federal regulations.

However, his strict anti-federal stance goes back many years. He did not adopt it or even emphasize it to make excuses for this situation. He's just like that.

Perry was governor in 2011 when it was undoubtable improvements were necessary if another freeze like that were to be mitigated to a greater degree rather than exacerbated like we have seen occur instead.

Present Governor Abbot followed Perry and Abbot is just the opposite of advanced.

He had plenty of time to improve the situation, whether it was regulation or ERCOT reorganization or any number of other details that ratepayers have already paid for for decades, no one else was in a stronger position to do something to make up for Perry's Bozoness.

And Perry,

>He's just like that.

Even less advanced.

What's the opposite of advanced anyway?

I thought so.

No, that source does not validate your claim. Rick Perry did not "attack regulation".

I'd like to try to gently point out that this isn't a very helpful way to comment. Perry did make very strong statements that show hostility to federal regulation. I myself would not characterize it as "attacking regulation", but it's not completely unreasonable to. One should allow for that kind of difference in viewpoint—speaking from experience, quibbling about precise wording won't get us anywhere, so it's usually better to allow your opponent (or partner) a generous amount of leeway. (Sometimes there are exceptions, as defining something as a "riot" or "insurrection" can be the whole crux of an issue, but this is rare compared to number of times that debate over wording completely derails a discussion).

I agree with your statement in the sense that, as I posted above, he was only criticizing one specific type of regulation. But if that is your take, or if you have a similar point to make, you really need to spell out exactly what you mean. Your current comment comes off as "you're wrong" without any helpful explanation. But, as I explained, his choice of wording is not at all unreasonable. It's very difficult for anyone to know how you think he's wrong if you don't spell it out.

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