I’m a liberal Democrat but I find many posts in this thread idiotic. Sure, many Red State policies need opposition. But quite a few of us who live in Red States are working to improve them. And our states do have some good qualities, beyond politics.
Alas, some folks here apparently believe that 100% of the people in each state have identical beliefs–based on the Electoral College map. It’s not that simple…
Ever read the Texas Observer? Have you heard of the Texas Freedom Network? No, our public schools do not teach Creationism–but the Perry-appointed fools keep trying…
What’s it like to live in a state that is 100% perfect?
In a nutshell: The TP is mostly the work of “local notables,” local elites, in the South and West. They’re well-off themselves – what matters to them is not whether their states are well-off but whether they get to continue to exercise local power without federal interference.
My state isn’t perfect. My state is a shithole. My best friend is looking to move out of it just so they can live somewhere where they can get married. Shit like that shouldn’t happen, ever, but the US is backwards and bigoted so it still will. I understand fully well there are plenty of people who are good in red states.
My entire contention was with ITR Champion’s claims of how republicans respect freedom of religion, while democrats don’t. Which is laughable and awful. Note how he reacted to the republicans who cheered and applauded at burning mosques.
Is he going to start claiming the KKK are neutral on matters of race, next?
*What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home”? “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons. *
I’ll be less ticked off if these good upstanding self sufficient states and their people (the morons) would get off the federal dole. You know, that whole inequity in subsidies thing. California consistently pays into the Fed, while “those fine self sufficient people” suck it up in subsidies.
Oh, and keep their religious baggage to themselves and out of politics. This is not the Dominionist States of America (yet).
I’m going to be honest and say that I only skimmed this thread, but did anybody point out the idiocy of using states as the data set? Suppose I whip up a table of high school graduation rates and, say, the 2012 Presidential Election. WY and CA take up the same amount of space to the casual eye - strike one. We know that CA is approximately twenty billion times larger than WY by population.
There’s so much variance within each state that you end up with mostly useless averages. So WY went 65% for Romney and CA went 60% for Obama. You’re wiping out the difference between precincts of highly-educated liberals (90% college/90% Obama) in CA (and probably in WY for that matter), poorly educated liberals (10% college/90% Obama), and the same for all the other cases and converses. Strike two.
And it’s 2013 - we have county and city and census-tract level data for damn near about anything you could dream up a correlation in, they’re on the Internet for free (if the government shutdown hasn’t closed the Census websites) and each of us is accessing this website on a computer that can handle data sets of tens of thousands of points, and probably even in a low-power mode. Strike three.
States are porous and don’t have meaningful cultural differences across borders. The people in Siloam Springs, AR don’t live appreciably differently than the ones in West Siloam Springs, OK. And, being in Tulsa, OK, I have much more in common with somebody in Little Rock, AR or Omaha, NE than with somebody in West Siloam Springs. So why do we still do rankings of states? Comparisons of states matter where they matter - for political or legal questions where the jurisdiction is actually directly important to the question. But please, if you’re writing your editorial, blog, whatever, or just arguing talking points with somebody, and you’re cooking up rankings of Most Educated States or why the “Red States” have the lowest Life Expectancies, just stop.
You seem to be suggesting that people have never recognized states vary by population. Have you noticed that California is not number 1 on every list? Of course comparisons are done per capita.
The rest of your argument against comparing states is equally useless.
And many of those retirees move out of California because they don’t want to see their retirements eaten by taxes, despite what BobLibDem thinks. The state spends so much money supporting those here illegally and/or who cannot be arsed to take care of themselves, that we have retirees leaving as soon as they can sell their houses. The husband and I both have pensions and IRAs, and the plan was to reverse mortgage the house and stay here after he retires but that may not work out. The taxes and cost of living is going up so fast that it may turn out that we would not only be better off elsewhere, it could be that we would be VERY much better off.
And the more folks with incomes who move out of California, the closer the state slips to full over bankruptcy. Not that Gov Moonbeam seems to be aware of this.
I understand your point, but it’s important to remember that states’ economic, educational, and quality-of-life measures are the result (at least in part) of the political and legal questions you distinguish. People in West Siloam Springs may be no different from people in Siloam Springs, but they live under different governments with different budgets and under different sets of laws. Their schools get nearly $2,000 less per pupil, for example.
The OP is not merely asking why the people in red states suck, but the states themselves. I take no position on whether the OP’s premise is accurate. I should note that I live in Florida because my parents brought me here, it’s warm, and as purple as warm places get without going to the West Coast.
Snort. There’s someone with an eye to the future, telling someone who is actually paying taxes and buying despite the high prices to leave just because he doesn’t like something he read on the interwebs.
“Oh, it won’t matter when those awful wage earners leave, we’ll just raise taxes to cover the shortfall!”
“Erm, Woody? There’s no one left with any of their own money…”
Yeah, what I say is bullshit, eh? It’s not like anyoneelse has considered leaving.
You’re one of the top 3 or 4 absolutely stupidest posters on this board. All you ever do is whine and complain about shit - shit about which you’re generally ill-informed - and you don’t seem able to grasp the concept of “cognitive dissonance” (suckling at the government teat while constantly bitching about freeloaders). I pay taxes in California, too, you dumb twat, and since I actually work, I imagine I pay more than you. Since, in the Bay Area where I live, we have plenty of massively wealthy tech industry workers who want to live here - since, you know, this is where the industry is located - I’m not too concerned that losing your social security income would be a huge blow to the state’s economy. So by all means, get out, so you won’t have all your taxes going to keep dirty foreigners living in the lap of luxury that your own government has cruelly denied you.
Ah, you are one of those who cannot grasp the difference between a federally imposed pension plan and welfare, nor do you seem to understand that my SS comes from the fed, not the state. Not sure why you would think I am stupid when your intellect fails so badly. As for how much taxes either of us pays, that is hardly the point, is it? If you don’t mind paying out to support half the state, that’s great but your opinion is not that of everyone.
As for me moving, you really should also brush up on your reading. As I said, we cannot do anything until my husband retires because, like you, his industry is mostly located here.
What dirty foreigners?
When have I ever wanted the lap of luxury, especially provided by someone else? The only thing the government is denying me is confidence that our pensions and retirement plans, which look comfortable now, will actually be enough to live on in ten years.
Stupid cow, your assumptions about others’ ignorance will always be in error. Nowhere did I say you were suckling on the state teat - I said “government teat”, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you were getting state aid as well. If you think it’s OK to take federal money rather than state, that’s your own weird hypocrisy. In any case, the “federally imposed pension plan” you speak of is mostly used to supplement the income of people who have retired at age 65 or later, not young sponges like yourself. Now, I actually don’t give a flying fuck if you’re collecting social security in your prime earning years if you’re eligible for it and are suffering from something that won’t allow you to work - except that you seem to believe such programs apply only to you, and everybody else getting government aid is a worthless freeloader. Many, many people on this board have made that distinction to you, and yet you still continue to whine about immigrants getting all your hard-earned money. When I talked of your social security income, I was merely pointing out the source from which you pay your state taxes.
Now we working stiffs are paying for “half the state”, according to you? Damn, that’s a lot of illegal immigrants/welfare recipients (probably black, am I right?) that I’m sure you’ve got an unimpeachable cite for. You criminally dumb person.
Well, the husband is a wage earner but yeah, probably should have said “tax payers”.
Insults - the argument technique of the weak minded.
And I pointed out that you were wrong.
More ignorance - one can only claim one or the other, not to mention that state disability doesn’t last very long and I’ve been disabled since 2007.
Um, you don’t take any tax refunds you might get? Use whatever write offs you can claim?
How young do you think I am?
As for what it is mostly used for, it was supposed to straight up be a pension (not a supplement). Then they added giving the money to any spouse or children a pensioner left behind, then they added disability payments for those who can no longer work, at a rather significant penalty. Obviously the government thinks we should be getting back the money they force us to pay in, no matter how they happened to waste it prior to our qualifying for it.
More ignorance. Social security is not aid of any kind, any more than any pension is aid. Food stamps, subsidized housing, MediCal, DentiCal, etc - those are aid. Those are things that the government just gives out whether the recipients have paid into the system or not. Back when those programs were first formed, they were just supposed to be a helping hand, but now there are far too many people who consider it a way of life.
Many many people have been wrong. To the point that I think it’s just willful.
I do not whine, nor have I said much if anything about immigrants.
Ah. Well, that’s wrong too - we pay our taxes from my husbands income.
Now that’s just funny! First you say that I’ll be able to provide a cite, then you say I’m criminally dumb. Which is it? And you throw in a racial slur to boot for some bizarre reason.
Actually, what is totally funny is you are spending all this effort judging me for - wait for it - judging people. Except my target isn’t anyone specific, I’d just like it if people would start being responsible for themselves and if California would quit coming up with more and more ways to pay people to not be responsible. You are showing your superior point of view by pretending that my point of view is unique and trying to insult me into submission. Good job.
I guess that’s a matter of opinion. As I said, I don’t care about you getting assistance if you’d shut your stank mouth about having to pay for others’ assistance. Yes, I know, you paid into your SS benefits, so they’re yours, all yours!
People can absolutely get both state and federal aid. See TANF - though I guess that’s for families with kids, which I guess you don’t have. Still, it exists.
Sure, but I don’t then go and complain about how nobody else should get those benefits because they’re somehow not as deserving.
So you’re getting your money and still whining? Because you live in fear of some theoretical day when it’s going to dry up because of perceived fiscal mismanagement? Anyway, your SS check doesn’t just come out of the money you put in, in case you’re actually that stupid (you are). Plenty of people never collect social security because they die before they’re eligible to receive it. And some people pay way more into it than others. Why are you OK taking their hard-earned money?
They are programs, like SS, that we all pay into even though many of us will never receive the benefits because we as a society have decided it’s to our benefit. Sorry this isn’t a glorious Randian world yet.
Lies.
The “unimpeachable cite” line was sarcasm. Many people consider the ability to recognize it as a sign of intelligence.
Anyway, I tire of you. I should have known better than to engage you, but it was a slow day. Oh, and I’m not trying to insult you into submission - you’re a lost cause. I insult you because you’re a moron and it’s amusing.
Your assertion is false. A whole shit load of people, especially retirees with large nest eggs, do move for tax reasons. Nevada has no state tax and in the last 10 to 15 years or so has had a huge influx of people due to tax reasons. Companies have come out here as well. Most of the influx has come from Cali, which is just fucked. In fact my new job is with a company that is opening a data center out here and bailing on Cali. The reason they are coming out here is directly related to Cali’s taxes.
So I get a 20% increase in salary, Cali loses another business and the company saves money. Only one loser in that situation. And a whole shit load of companies are moving here.
And on top of that, the housing is affordable (though the influx from Cali hosed the housing market here during the run up, prices are back to reasonable), I have world class food 20 minutes away and some of the best entertainment in the country. And it is cheap.
Plus boobs are on display all over the place. Whats not to love?
