Rural Americans Are Bad People

[MistWolf]

https://life.gomcgill.com/uc-berkeley-instructor-says-rural-americans-are-bad-people-who-deserve-uncomfortable-lives?fbclid=IwAR2bkX7G7oroHDLgcnZgjsDBrEjam2M6HKo sZ7paWMDFhw3tcyATeDFvRoo

Jackson Kernion, a Berkeley professor, sent out a tweet that said rural Americans are "bad people who have made bad life decisions." He goes on to say that people who reject the more efficient city lifestyle should have to pay more for medical care, broadband internet, higher taxes and should have their lives be made as uncomfortable as possible until they move to the city. He says city dwellers shouldn't have to carry the burden rural Americans have placed on them through the inefficiency of the rural lifestyle.

I don't what I can say without resorting to wholly unflattering observations about the mental faculties of certain professors and the vileness of their agenda.

[Wise_A]

YES. PLEASE. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE BEEN ASKING FOR--STOP "CARRYING OUR BURDEN" AND LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE PLZ KTHNXBAI

In other news, when Mosby talks about the increasing balkanization of the United States, I'm beginning to suspect he's not crazy.

[blues]

I'd love to have him as a guest speaker in my rural town.

[ranger]

Where do all these superior Urbanites get their food, water, fuel, energy etc. Do all these necessities of life just magically appear? I think they need to read about what might happen in case of a disaster - either manmade, natural, pandemic, etc.

[5pins]

Where do these dumb asses think all their food comes from.

[blues]

Where do these dumb asses think all their food comes from.

Grubhub

[Paul Blackburn]

What an idiot.

[RevolverRob]

Jackson Kernion is NOT A UC Berkeley professor. He is a PhD student.

It’s an important distinction. It is an insult to class this individual in the same level as those who have worked and accomplished more. I do not let my students call me “professor” even if I am the instructor-of-record, because it is a earned title.

The point is that the opinion of somebody who has accomplished nothing, published nothing, is worth precisely what you paid for it via Twitter; nothing.

Good luck on the job market with a Philosophy PhD, kid.

[Joe in PNG]

If only we could somehow harness the energy dumbasses put into being dumbasses. Global warming would be a thing of the past.

[fatdog]

I remember this singer/song writer type on NPR (back decades ago when I sometimes listened) named Bill Harley who made the same argument, in a kid's song he wrote no less, but not quite as rudely. It is one of those things that stuck both in my head and in my craw. I remember thinking that I was paying taxes to hear the asshat and for him to have access to the airwaves. Disgusting.

[spence]

I believe I saw this elsewhere a couple months ago. I have indeed been to the "city". I'm a fish out of water. It's always humorous to see the Wrangler jeans, flannel shirt clad, shit covered rural folks walk in and require interaction with those who are "urban". They simply do not know what to do with us.

I'm sorry, I couldn't stand it. I deal with some urban folks in business, and many rural folks. The city dwellers have a serious lack of common sense, at least in the horse world.

As a Christ follower, I also find it absolutely abhorrent how many church folks are these days, as well. This post really does a lovely job of dealing with some of those realities of urban/soft living vs those who are of a much harder life.

https://ericconn.com/hard-men-world-softness/?fbclid=IwAR2EL-YW0ApB32B75airqyzFjFUfFlC4_tZz9VT2QLlKmI1UHNeF5gYT n0o

[blues]

If only we could somehow harness the energy dumbasses put into being dumbasses. Global warming would be a thing of the past.

But where would all the hot air go?

[spence]

But where would all the hot air go?

The only place left for it to go would be up their own third point of contact.

[CCT125US]

My yard cattle do not agree with this.
47876

[Totem Polar]

As expected, I’m with the majority on this. The one sentence rebuttal:

"You’ve got a deal, stud, if you’ll grow 100 percent of your food in your little shithole apartment in return."

[RevolverRob]

On the one hand, the ideal efficiency metric, would dictate that ~95% of the population would live in urban environments. In fact, most of us should be living in high-rise apartment complexes, where we also work, there should be no cars and the need for public transit infrastructure would be very minimal - and caloric needs could be met in the form a 2,000 calorie/day vegan paste.

On the other hand - Reality is different than ideal. And in reality, I'd no sooner live in an apartment complex with Kernion, and eat a 2,000 calorie/day vegan paste than I would gouge my own eyeballs out with an lobster fork.

And since we live in the United States of America - I do not have to do those things. And if Kernion wants to make me, he's welcome to come give it a try.

___

PS: Also guys stop paying attention to Twits. It's laughable, folks on the Twitters seem to think that Twitter actually has some bearing on the real world. People were losing their shit the other day the hashtag "HotGirlsForBernie" was trending and I saw tweets like, "This is the future! We're seeing change happen live." - Really? :rolleyes:

[Tensaw]

Well,... we already know that we are deplorable so,... at least we got *that* going for us. Yes, please throw me in the briar patch Mr. Urbanite.

[Greg]

There are urban snivelers on the right (allegedly).

Read some of David Brooks or Tom Nichols whineyass bleatings .

[FrankinCA]

I believe this warrants “an educational beat down”

[fatdog]

...David Brooks .

Not a real conservative, just a guy acting like what the NYT thinks a conservative should actually be...

[Joe in PNG]

There's always been people with pretensions of aristocracy badmouthing those they believe to be beneath them.

Whereas those of a few generations ago would base their snobbery on the presumption of noble blood (or ape those who did), the modern version gets his unearned superiority based on a pretty piece of paper.

And typically, it is the ones who are the least secure in their status who are the most sensitive to degrees of status.

[HCM]

Where do these dumb asses think all their food comes from.

47882

[JAD]

There are urban snivelers on the right (allegedly).

Read some of David Brooks or Tom Nichols whineyass bleatings .

David Brooks is to the right of AOC, maybe, but he’s not right. If you want a right wing urban sniveler I recommend WFB — and I don’t believe he was ever dumb enough to say something like this.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

.

___

PS: Also guys stop paying attention to Twits. It's laughable, folks on the Twitters seem to think that Twitter actually has some bearing on the real world. People were losing their shit the other day the hashtag "HotGirlsForBernie" was trending and I saw tweets like, "This is the future! We're seeing change happen live." - Really? :rolleyes:


I am fairly convinced that the continued success of twitter is just a matter of journalistic laziness... you can either research the shit out of something, know a bunch of stuff, and explain it for everyone else, or, for the same money, you can look up the tweet of someone famous and screen cap it.

I don't use it myself and now that I have completely stopped listening to Canadian state radio, I find that unless I search this stuff out, basically everyone I meet thinks that the SJW phenomenon is bizarre and limited to a tiny group of annoying spoiled rich kids.

I was looking at numbers the other day and the news hour broadcast from Canadian state television has around 350,000 viewers nationwide; it's always positioned as the main news broadcast in Canada and it's very left.

Turns out that the popular News hour in Toronto, for example, has 1.4 million viewers in Toronto alone.

Nationwide it's reasonable to say that the CBC reaches less than a tenth of news viewers that mainstream private broadcasts do.

Anyway I'm not saying nothing is wrong but twitter is a joke and the opinions of its twits seem fairly insignificant to me.

[JAD]

Incidentally David Byrne did a similar riff in “The Big Country,” which is a great song on one of my desert island albums. It’s his ‘Southern Man,’ though he isn’t nearly as vitriolic or talented as Neil.

I disagree with him, but I disagree with a lot of music and film I really like.


https://youtu.be/0ws46DuJABs

[Joe in PNG]

However, I am getting pretty damn sick and tired of people who know bugger all wanting to micromanage my life via government regulations, red tape, bans, more regulations, and on and on.

Especially those miserable rat bastards running for President on the Democratic ticket, who have spent the last year saying how they are going to ban this and that and give me more regulations and more red tape and more bans and take more of my taxes in exchange for a crumb of some government services I don't want, don't need, and would rather not have, thank you very much.

And the funny thing is that those who are demanding the right to micromanage my live are not exactly demonstrating that they can actually run their own lives. Most of them are miserable disasters, unhappy and unhealthy, people who get a faint glimmer of something from spreading the misery around.

I didn't like the Moral Majority Puritans back in the 80's. This lot is far, far worse.

[SeriousStudent]

On the one hand, the ideal efficiency metric, would dictate that ~95% of the population would live in urban environments. In fact, most of us should be living in high-rise apartment complexes, where we also work, there should be no cars and the need for public transit infrastructure would be very minimal - and caloric needs could be met in the form a 2,000 calorie/day vegan paste.

On the other hand - Reality is different than ideal. And in reality, I'd no sooner live in an apartment complex with Kernion, and eat a 2,000 calorie/day vegan paste than I would gouge my own eyeballs out with an lobster fork.

And since we live in the United States of America - I do not have to do those things. And if Kernion wants to make me, he's welcome to come give it a try.

<snip>

Yeah, I read that book a while back: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CIXX144/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

[Yung]

That individual's tweet was made November of last year.

But if you guys really want something fresher to chew on, they did retweet something from a Culver City councilman, Alex Fisch, earlier this month:


Interesting how nobody worries that $28 billion in farm subsidies might create a culture of dependency in predominantly white areas, or that the US public is supporting welfare kings driving F-350s.

[RevolverRob]

Anyway I'm not saying nothing is wrong but twitter is a joke and the opinions of its twits seem fairly insignificant to me.

Written like someone who practices radical self reliance and individuality. What are you, some kind of anti-socialist?!

Besides doing work I spent half of my day today looking up gear and travel routes for the new truck. I gotta get the fuck outta the city a bit more. See some places without the Twits.

A 4WD truck, a tent, my wife, my dog, a cooler full of meat, veggies, beer, and a 1911 on my hip. Seems like something that would make this Philosophy Dweeb shit his pants.

[txdpd]

Man I’d love to round up all the meth heads and degenerates out in the country where I grew up and move them to a city. Tremendous opportunities abound for stealing every damn thing in sight that isn’t bolted down.

There’s a huge swath of rural America that you couldn’t make life tougher on if you tried. They’d love for someone to come along and break them out of the cycle poverty.

I grew up in rural America and I couldn’t get away from that shit fast enough. If you have a good life in rural America,good for you, and I really mean that. It’s a miserable existence for a lot of folks too. I don’t see how it’s any different than saying that blacks living in the projects make poor life choices and we should make there life as miserable as possible until they move somewhere else.

[Coyotesfan97]

Yeah, I read that book a while back: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CIXX144/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

Or The Forever War
https://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Book-ebook/dp/B00PI184XG/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2CV4Q81PGTGHC&keywords=joe+haldeman&qid=1580190805&s=digital-text&sprefix=Joe+hal%2Caps%2C410&sr=1-2

[Caballoflaco]

Man I’d love to round up all the meth heads and degenerates out in the country where I grew up and move them to a city. Tremendous opportunities abound for stealing every damn thing in sight that isn’t bolted down.

There’s a huge swath of rural America that you couldn’t make life tougher on if you tried. They’d love for someone to come along and break them out of the cycle poverty.

I grew up in rural America and I couldn’t get away from that shit fast enough. If you have a good life in rural America,good for you, and I really mean that. It’s a miserable existence for a lot of folks too. I don’t see how it’s any different than saying that blacks living in the projects make poor life choices and we should make there life as miserable as possible until they move somewhere else.


I don’t know what sort of idealized rural America half the people in this thread live in, but the truth is that at least here in Alabama a good chunk of rural Americans aren’t producing anything for our country but neph-children, meth and crime. If you graduate high school, or college and want to move back the job opportunities in most small towns down here include working at the Dollar General or being a manager at the gas station Subway restaurant. Small towns here are depressing.

There. are. no. jobs. there anymore.

[Bergeron]

I think that in the context of this discussion, “rural” carries a very broad set of definitions, while “urban/cities” are limited to the eastern and western megapoli, and also Chicago.

I’ve lived in both. There’s more rural poverty, in general. I spent a couple of years getting into every industrial plant that possibly could, and those tended to be crewed by more rural sort of folks. Educational “choice”, such as exists in the ‘burbs and the cities, can be almost unknown in rural areas. I was living a rural life throughout high school and got lucky to go to an excellent public school.

[rob_s]

I enjoy, and prefer, more “urban” living. Currently we live in a more sub-rural area, so I even prefer to make my vacations “to the big city”. However, I’d prefer that it was reversed and that I lived “in the city” and vacationed in the “country”. However, I don’t really see either group as particularly bad, or redeemable for that matter, based solely on where they live or work.

But I don’t get a big chuckle out of the disbelief from the metros and the MSM post-Trump because they just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they finally pushed too far and the rurals had enough and pushed back.

[RoyGBiv]

I lived in a rural part of NC for 5 years. Back when internet connect speeds were measured in baud rates. I visited my old town this past weekend and internet connection speeds are up to 2 meg via DSL. When the cell tower a half mile from my old house goes 5G, I'm moving back.

I spent a half hour chatting with some old neighbors out walking the dog Saturday morning, on the gravel road that runs from the county maintained to the dozen home sites, out of sight of each other, that made up my old "neighborhood". I miss it every day.

[Zincwarrior]

Where do these dumb asses think all their food comes from.
The grocery store.
https://sayingimages.com/wp-content/uploads/a-man-with-a-shade-said-duh-meme.png

Cities make fun of rural areas. Rural areas make fun of cities. Suburbs make fun of everyone. Its the great circle of life.

https://youtu.be/dmFgAMTEg0E

[SAWBONES]

PS: Also guys stop paying attention to Twits. It's laughable, folks on the Twitters seem to think that Twitter actually has some bearing on the real world. People were losing their shit the other day the hashtag "HotGirlsForBernie" was trending and I saw tweets like, "This is the future! We're seeing change happen live." - Really? :rolleyes:


I'm glad to say that though I joined Twitter in April 2009 at the specific invitation of an old friend, I've neither ever posted a "tweet" nor perused anyone else's "tweets" unless it was by the indirect method of clicking on a link somebody else (including folks here) provided as a means of showing a pic or vid of some sort.

Twitter is mostly twaddle. :p

As a means of personal expression, it ranks with crayon on the sidewalk.
JMNSHO

[ranger]

I work in an industry that makes money out of trees. Trees are in rural America. As our current workers retire - we are struggling to find a new generation of workers as many people have left rural America seeking opportunity in the Big City. Meanwhile high paying jobs are going unfilled leading to an investment in technology to insure our operations are sustained. Then the people who moved to the Big City seek higher wages for service jobs (not everyone is a Lawyer, Google-MS-Amazon executive or Politician). It will be interesting to see how this plays out but I predict a higher percentage f people living off the government dole.

I am near the end of my working career - I worry about my kids and grandkids.

I agree with some other posters, the Sci Fi books are looking prophetic.

[Zincwarrior]

Well,... we already know that we are deplorable so,... at least we got *that* going for us. Yes, please throw me in the briar patch Mr. Urbanite.

In a twisted way he does have a point in that urban environments are more efficient for most services, purely based on transportation costs and networks. Additionally, and slightly related, rural areas face severe problems in adequate medical care, housing, grocery access and other items.

The inlaws just moved into an assisted living place (and loving it). Prior to that they lived 28 miles out of the nearest village, in a locale of 187 people. The hospital and grocery were very out of reach for these old folks, who had driving difficulty. This was also a difficulty for my parents, who lived 30 miles from the nearest hospital.

[mtnbkr]

I lived in a rural part of NC for 5 years. Back when internet connect speeds were measured in baud rates. I visited my old town this past weekend and internet connection speeds are up to 2 meg via DSL. When the cell tower a half mile from my old house goes 5G, I'm moving back.

The Internet really makes rural living doable I think. Stuff you can't find locally can be ordered from a number of sources. If you're lucky enough to have a job that allows you to work from home, you can literally live anywhere you have a good connection.

Chris

[Yung]

I'm a through-and-through suburbanite. I like to eat steak.

Steak doesn't seem like it would be the same if it came from the city or the burbs.

[willie]

If you grow up in the country and your loved ones have meth mouth, when you move to the city, your loved ones may still have meth mouth. The converse is true. Perhaps data describing social negative attributes congregate within lower socioeconomic groups whether the groups live in Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta or the inner city. This statement has no hidden meaning. In these places people get away with more shit than they would have at one time whether they be white, black, or Brown. Hence, some rob and steal with impunity. I have noticed that it seems like that people who talk the most shit about cops call them more than anybody else.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Written like someone who practices radical self reliance and individuality. What are you, some kind of anti-socialist?!

Besides doing work I spent half of my day today looking up gear and travel routes for the new truck. I gotta get the fuck outta the city a bit more. See some places without the Twits.

A 4WD truck, a tent, my wife, my dog, a cooler full of meat, veggies, beer, and a 1911 on my hip. Seems like something that would make this Philosophy Dweeb shit his pants.
Given that I usually ask what Erin would like to do before doing what I think is best, I would argue that I am in fact a DEMOCRATIC anti-socialist.


Anyway I can't really speak to rural America because I've only really traveled through it rather than lived in it (although generally speaking I have spent a lot less time worrying about my bike getting stolen in big cities than in small towns, and nobody in a really small town has ever tried to strongarm me off it, which has happened a couple of times in big cities: once in Atlanta and once in Vegas.


But I imagine the flavour of rural living would be regional, like in Canada. I now live in a pretty small town here, in the midst of a very large rural area, and it's more like a snow globe version of a small town than what I think of as reality; there's no crime at all. People are super friendly. There's less money than in Vancouver, say, but that's true of almost anywhere I've ever been because that's one of the wealthiest cities on the planet and if I had to guess I would say I've seen a thousand Maseratis driving down the street over the years I was there, and a 5-series BMW is not seen as a luxury car at all, but more like a baseline commuter vehicle. Here you see a lot more trucks that are ten years old, and I don't think I've seen anything fancier than maybe a new Audi SUV here. There are no supercars, ever. The odd 911 on the highway, but that's about it.

So there's definitely less money flying around, but the overall standard of living is high, and there's very little noteworthy povery. So that's rural living in my region: unlocked doors, ten year old trucks and not really much in the way of illegal drugs. Society is cohesive and everyone is enjoying it.


But if you go to rural Manitoba, you've got serious problems. Or other parts of BC, even. I would attribute this to two factors: social trust and generational mobility.

Anywhere that people have not felt able to leave for generations, I find high levels of poverty, because the local economy has to support the population, regardless of how impractical that is. And anywhere that there is a low level of social trust across the whole population I find crime. My area is extremely homogeneous, which is correlated with high trust. Rural Manitoba is more like two opposing camps, whites and natives, and there's a huge amount of hostility between the two sides and the resulting social trust is extremely low and crime is really bad.

So I would say if you're in an area where people are really tied to the land, and the population has obvious identifiable cleaveages which limit the general levels of cooperation, you're in trouble. You have the big city diversity, which correlates negatively with social trust, but you have fewer opportunities, so the poverty is more universal.

On the other hand, if you're in an area that people who are all pretty similar are voluntarily choosing to live despite there being fewer economic opportunities, it's probably going to be a lot nicer than a big city.

Just my seat-of-the-pants take on why some people's experience of rural America is probably a lot better than others'.

[Borderland]

This is the "more efficient city lifestyle" in Seattle.

https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/eric-johnson-commentary-seattles-social-experiment-has-failed

Six bystanders were recently shot in a gang related incident downtown in the city center. I used to live there in N. Seattle in the 70's but I got tired of my vehicle being stolen and drug dealers hassling me. You literally can't be away from home for more than a week now without some asshole breaking into your house. I moved out of the metro area in the 90's. We have to drive 6 miles to a grocery store and 30 miles to a hospital now. Not a convenient situation but I haven't had any break ins or theft in 25 years. That's mostly because people are armed in this neighborhood and it would be a bit risky. They also know each other and generally moved here for the same reasons.

Some cities would be fine to live in but there aren't any near me.

[willie]

Homogeneity does not may not necessarily correlate with low crime rate. Black communities here have a high crime rate.
This occurrence is an example of black on black crime which, by the way, is a taboo subject. I am not stating an opinion but instead am restating published data.

[frozentundra]

So I would say if you're in an area where people are really tied to the land, and the population has obvious identifiable cleaveages which limit the general levels of cooperation, you're in trouble. You have the big city diversity, which correlates negatively with social trust, but you have fewer opportunities, so the poverty is more universal.

On the other hand, if you're in an area that people who are all pretty similar are voluntarily choosing to live despite there being fewer economic opportunities, it's probably going to be a lot nicer than a big city.

Just my seat-of-the-pants take on why some people's experience of rural America is probably a lot better than others'.


This seems like a pretty good assessment. In my neck of the woods, I find that it usually also shakes out into three different tiers:

Rural America
Rural America with chronic alcoholism
Rural America with chronic alcoholism and meth/pills

It amazes me how a Venn diagram of the above can so heavily overlap in any given area, and the people from each tier can generally live in their own little world, with very little experience of the other worlds. When you drive down any given road, you can enter isolated areas where the Venn diagram skews totally one way or another, but in many places it is completely random.

Unlike urban areas, where the sheer population acts to give some anonymity to the bad actors, everybody knows who everybody is around here. You can usually identify them by their vehicle. This has a strange insulating effect whereby the Rural Americans pretty much avoid meaningful interaction with the dregs. Anybody can point out the meth/pill people to the police, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter.

The gas stations and grocery stores are the main common ground for all three tiers. Also, the public schools where the children of the meth/pill people and chronic alcoholics attend alongside the children of rural Americans.

It's a strange state of affairs.





As to the thread title, I've long given up trying to think of myself as a truly good person. The world has far too many problems that I turn a blind eye toward. Mother Teresa was special for a reason. As Lemmy said, "I ain't no nice guy after all".

There are a lot of us who are completely oblivious to the darker sides of our nature and the far-reaching consequences of our lifestyles.

[BobLoblaw]

I live in WV and I'm glad those types see us that way. I have family from outside of Chicago who think they're better than us due to where we live. They never come around and it's wonderful.

[snow white]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

[blues]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

Similar situation here. Smallish town, 6k residents or so...then leaf peeper season, mountain biking, climbing, hiking, craft beer and international music festival swell the numbers a few times per year.

I don't know what the shit talkers have to say as I haven't spoken to them.

[snow white]

Similar situation here. Smallish town, 6k residents or so...then leaf peeper season, mountain biking, climbing, hiking, craft beer and international music festival swell the numbers a few times per year.

I don't know what the shit talkers have to say as I haven't spoken to them.

Allot of my jobs have involved interacting with the public in one form or another so I've had the pleasure to witness this mindset often.

[Joe in PNG]

For some people, it's not enough that they are "correct" in their lifestyle choices, taste, preferences, and so on- other people have to also be "wrong", and they feel a need to rub their faces in it.

[blues]

For some people, it's not enough that they are "correct" in their lifestyle choices, taste, preferences, and so on- other people have to also be "wrong", and they feel a need to rub their faces in it.

I say "Take a Bromo, Cuomo, or get your ass kicked all the way home...oh!."

[NH Shooter]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

They just don't get the Live Free or Die thing.

[blues]

They just don't get the Live Free or Die thing.

But it's nice to visit and buy a license plate...:rolleyes:


A lot of the reason I live where I do now is because of the years I spent up in the White Mountains and the Adirondacks. Spent years backpacking, x-c skiing and climbing up there.



(One of my sisters lives in NH as well.)

[snow white]

They just don't get the Live Free or Die thing.

The struggle is real man. Its double shitty because the town panders to them. I understand as we are a "resort town" and thus need the tourists money to stay afloat but it's a kick in the nuts when they think they own the place. The summer people are also comming from EXTREME wealth. Think Marriott's, Romneys ect... the people who live here year round are ( for the most part) lower middle class. The dichotomy is interesting to say the least, my town is also considered to be the "ritzy" town in the county. Go a town or two over and you'll see some real rural NH with all the alcoholism and domestic violence you can hope for.

[randyho]

When the cell tower a half mile from my old house goes 5G, I'm moving back.You'll need to be a little closer.

[Borderland]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

Just charge them double, take their money and agree with them. Business owners in resort towns know how to deal with these people. They just sheer them like the sheep they are.

I've found that people with money to burn generally don't go on vacation to resort locations to hang out with the locals.

[Borderland]

Here's a fun little story.

I was in Vancouver BC once checking into a modest downtown hotel. Two women came in and ask for a room. They spoke french to the desk clerk and he replied that he didn't speak french. Jeesus, they came unglued and informed the desk clerk that Canada was a bilingual country and if he hadn't learned french in school he sure as hell should have. They finished their conversation in English and they left. I really felt sorry for guy and ask him what that was about. He said that hardly anyone there spoke french and he was used to being dressed down by people from Quebec. He said he didn't mind however because he was authorized by the owner to add a 10% surcharge to their bill for being polite and professional, which he was.

[RoyGBiv]

You'll need to be a little closer.

Direct, unobstructed, line of sight won't get me decent data rates? 10-meg or better?

That would be sad news.

https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/ericsson-technology-review/articles/fixed-wireless-access-on-a-massive-scale-with-5g

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Here's a fun little story.

I was in Vancouver BC once checking into a modest downtown hotel. Two women came in and ask for a room. They spoke french to the desk clerk and he replied that he didn't speak french. Jeesus, they came unglued and informed the desk clerk that Canada was a bilingual country and if he hadn't learned french in school he sure as hell should have. They finished their conversation in English and they left. I really felt sorry for guy and ask him what that was about. He said that hardly anyone there spoke french and he was used to being dressed down by people from Quebec. He said he didn't mind however because he was authorized by the owner to add a 10% surcharge to their bill for being polite and professional, which he was.

That's entertaining. French is optional in BC schools, because it is basically useless here. Lots of kids take Spanish or Chinese instead, because they're actually valuable. I happen to do okay with French but when I lived in Montreal, the number of places I ended up where nobody on staff spoke English was enormous. I don't recall melting down over it. On the other hand, I do remember watching other people there melt down when I described Quebec as a province, like Saskatchewan, or New Brunswick. I got pretty good at arming the phrase up to dig in...it's all in the delivery.




In other news I have to admit that my "there's no crime here" statement has been proven incorrect in a spectacular fashion...this just happened, not in my town technically but just down the highway in a town I pass on the way to work every day. I guess I was wrong about the safety of my region and I'm not sure how the local papers will be able to avoid this absolutely dominating the news cycle for the foreseeable future. Ugly.

Wooden baby bear stolen from Chemainus ice cream shop

https://www.cheknews.ca/wooden-baby-bear-stolen-from-chemainus-ice-cream-shop-640708/

Granted the thief felt guilty and returned it a few hours later but the innocence is shattered forever.

[randyho]

Direct, unobstructed, line of sight won't get me decent data rates? 10-meg or better?

That would be sad news.

https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/ericsson-technology-review/articles/fixed-wireless-access-on-a-massive-scale-with-5g
My observations are that vendor claims differ from non-vendor claims.

5g requires an increase in antenna density. Shorter range is a matter of physics. Due to a couple of decades of experience, I'm a pessimist when it comes to ranges.

Given my retirement preferences, I would LOVE for 5g, an inevitable, to be an answer to rural connectivity. But, I'll need to see it before I believe it.

[blues]

misanthropist

^^^^The horror!!! when you find out that innocence is lost.

(And ha-ha to the Quebecois!)

[SAWBONES]

I say "Take a Bromo, Cuomo, or get your ass kicked all the way home...oh!."


Not everyone below *ahem* "a certain age" may know what a "bromo" is...:)

[blues]

Not everyone below *ahem* "a certain age" may know what a "bromo" is...:)

I wondered about that myself.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/darkroom-cdn/2017/03/md-darkroom-bromo-03.jpg

[CWM11B]

I prefer Brioschi. My wife is Italian after all...

[Borderland]

deleted.....

[revchuck38]

I prefer Brioschi. My wife is Italian after all...

Lemon flavored, lemon tasty, mild Brioschi's best for you!

[HeavyDuty]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

Fuck them. I’m relocating to NH, very possibly near you - and the appeal is the culture. People who move someplace and try to change it to be like where they came from deserve a beating.

[blues]

I prefer Brioschi. My wife is Italian after all...

So's mine...but if I say I need a Brioschi she's gonna say:

https://img.nbc.com/mpx-static/image/432/770/140228_2749633_Rita_s_New_Car_anvver_2.jpg

"Wassamatta, you no like-a my sauce?"


In my wife's home when she was growing up the answer was Fernet Branca as a digestive.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

misanthropist

^^^^The horror!!! when you find out that innocence is lost.

(And ha-ha to the Quebecois!)
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers

We are trying to stay strong

[blues]

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers

We are trying to stay strong

We're with you brother...


https://youtu.be/2E064kb3UnU

[Dan_S]

I live in rural NH in a very touristy area. My town goes from about 6k residents in the winter to over 60k in the summer. I am constantly hearing people from major cities who come here talk so much shit about the area. We are all just a bunch of red necks/ country bumpkins. How somebody can come to an area because of how beautiful it is and proceed to talk so much shit blows my mind.

Yup. I detest the flat-landers that come up to the Green Mountains, and proceed to try to turn it into what they left behind down in Ny or Ct. What really gets me annoyed is how dependent our economy is, on those same annoying hordes of short and long term tourists.

[blues]

Yup. I detest the flat-landers that come up to the Green Mountains, and proceed to try to turn it into what they left behind down in Ny or Ct. What really gets me annoyed is how dependent our economy is, on those same annoying hordes of short and long term tourists.

That is a universal lament no matter where you go. Whether from the city to the 'burbs or rural environs...or rural to the city...someone's shouting:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1429722285_10.jpg

[Dan_S]

That is a universal lament no matter where you go. Whether from the city to the 'burbs or rural environs...or rural to the city...someone's shouting:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1429722285_10.jpg

Easy enough to poke fun at the sentiment, when they aren’t literally destroying your way of life.

It’s almost impossible now to farm. There’s no future in it. The way I was raised, unless you have a boatload of money, is very difficult to maintain, simply trying to keep up with the myriad regulations introduced by people that know nothing about farming, or livestock, or getting by in rural agriculture communities.

It’s really sad when one has to leave their chosen lifestyle, in order to maintain it. I work in an industry that is about as far from agricultural as it can get, and that’s what I have to do to not only keep the dream alive, but hopefully one day return to the land I was raised on, and try to keep it afloat financially for another generation.


I took time off work recently, to drag this back to the family property - it would never have been a possibility to get this much needed equipment, if not for my working in a non-agricultural industry, not being able to plant what I want to plant, raise what I want to raise, and have the lifestyle that I really want. It’s being taken away from us, slowly, incrementally....step by step, the urbanites are trying to make our way of life impossible - and trying to force us all into the concrete jungle that we so detest.

47943

[StraitR]

Funny, I was just thinking of creating a Twitter account and blessing the world with "Anyone stupid enough to pay $3000 a month to live in a 600sqft box amidst millions of other people should have their heads checked." But then I thought, "Nah, I'll just mind my own fucking business.", and then I went back to doing what bad rural people do, work.

[blues]

Dan, the area I live in in western NC is similarly afflicted. My closest friend was the last plant manager of the company that was the biggest employer in the area. It's now gone. Similarly, those whose livelihood was derived from farming or livestock have also faced obstacles and roadblocks.

I'm not at all making light of it. I am surrounded by folks who derive income from cattle, pigs, chickens or crops. Some of them are my friends. When I moved here my intent was to be a good neighbor and fit in. I'd like to think I have fulfilled that goal.

I don't know how to alter the course of shifting demographics and economies.

[Dan_S]

Dan, the area I live in in western NC is similarly afflicted. My closest friend was the last plant manager of the company that was the biggest employer in the area. It's now gone. Similarly, those whose livelihood was derived from farming or livestock have also faced obstacles and roadblocks.

I'm not at all making light of it. I am surrounded by folks who derive income from cattle, pigs, chickens or crops. Some of them are my friends. When I moved here my intent was to be a good neighbor and fit in. I'd like to think I have fulfilled that goal.

I don't know how to alter the course of shifting demographics and economies.


Thanks for the clarification. It’s really...sad...how things have shifted. I don’t know any other way to put it.


In no way related to what you said, blues, but a general gripe...


I wish people that didn’t have a clue, would stop yammering about farm subsidies. If you don’t want to eat real food, maybe try printing some on that 3D printer, or some such. Fact is, I don’t know anyone that’s gotten direct funding - from the dairy farm, maple farm, LittleLebowski ‘s Father’s ranch, etc... Oh, wait, I do know of someone that got a grant to study the effect of cattle on woodlands...yeah, that was...ridiculous, but, point is, your average working farmer or rancher ain’t getting shit.

[VT1032]

That's entertaining. French is optional in BC schools, because it is basically useless here. Lots of kids take Spanish or Chinese instead, because they're actually valuable. I happen to do okay with French but when I lived in Montreal, the number of places I ended up where nobody on staff spoke English was enormous.

That's funny, I've had the exact opposite experience. I can't say I've ever lived there but I've traveled in Quebec pretty extensively and it always blew my mind how many people were at least partially bilingual compared to the US. Virtually everyone I ran into up there spoke at least some English, enough where between that and my smattering of college french, we got by. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I ran into someone who just straight didn't speak any English, and they were almost exclusively at gas stations in the absolute middle of nowhere.

Granted, I've had people get pissy at me for not speaking French, but they always did so in English...


Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[blues]

There are about 30,000 folks in the county I live in, about 6,000 folks in town. (I live about four miles outside town in a small wooded subdivision on gravel roads.)

Other than the family which owned the local telecommunications company until recently, and a few established businesses, landowners and entrepreneurs, most folks that are native to the area are not living high on the hog. There are lots of folks who require assistance to get by, whether they have jobs or not.

If you don't have a job with one of the utilities, the government or other company with relatively deep pockets, it's a hard road to support one's family, let alone obtain benefits many of us took for granted with our jobs elsewhere.

I'm sure that's why many young folks leave the area when they finish school, and retirees who have already saved up for their later years end up moving in.

I don't personally know your pain, but I feel for you and those like yourself who are struggling to find the means to keep a way of life alive.

[blues]

That's funny, I've had the exact opposite experience. I can't say I've ever lived there but I've traveled in Quebec pretty extensively and it always blew my mind how many people were at least partially bilingual compared to the US. Virtually everyone I ran into up there spoke at least some English, enough where between that and my smattering of college french, we got by. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I ran into someone who just straight didn't speak any English, and they were almost exclusively at gas stations in the absolute middle of nowhere.

Granted, I've had people get pissy at me for not speaking French, but they always did so in English...


Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


When I worked in Miami I probably spoke Spanish as much as I did English. I wasn't perfectly fluent but good enough to where I could interview, take statements and support them at trial when grilled by the defense.

If you didn't speak Spanish you were at a real disadvantage. While I enjoy and enjoyed speaking a second language, it is nice to speak English again as my primary language since moving up here. (Of course my Spanish has suffered as a result since I don't use it as much anymore.)

[Greg]

Social Media is about as valuable as syphillis or the bubonic plague.

[blues]

Social Media is about as valuable as syphillis or the bubonic plague.


https://youtu.be/GU0d8kpybVg

[BehindBlueI's]

I've lived lots of places. Rural people suck. Suburbanites suck. Urbanites suck. The difference is rural people don't have any strangers so you know who sucks ahead of time. Ed grows a little pot and stays drunk, but stays to himself. Take him a watermelon if you have a spare, he likes them. Josh is hooked on pills and he's a thief and nobody cares if you beat the shit out of him if you find him snooping around your barn. Ron is a pervert. The men have already had a chat with him that he'll disappear if he bothers the women here.

On the same note, I noticed a huge difference in car buying and mechanics in a large city vs a small town. Fuck someone over in a small town, your reputation will quickly tank and you might as well close up shop. In big cities there's plenty of strangers who don't know you're a thief.

So, personally, I lean toward agrarian romanticism a bit. There's still shitheels, but they aren't surprise shitheels.

[RoyGBiv]

When I first moved to rural America, we cleared some land for a house. While the local guy was installing the septic system, I was out there with a friend cutting and splitting firewood. Lots of trees = lots of wood. A week or so later I go into town, to the local hardware/lumber store to get a new chain for my saw. I ask the guy at the counter, and he's looking at me funny (at this point I noticed the swastika tattoo). After a few seconds he says "You're the Yankee with the chain saw!".

Apparently I made an impression on the septic guy. I'm still not sure whether it was a good or bad impression. Word gets around in small towns... I shopped elsewhere after that.

[Borderland]

I've lived lots of places. Rural people suck. Suburbanites suck. Urbanites suck. The difference is rural people don't have any strangers so you know who sucks ahead of time. Ed grows a little pot and stays drunk, but stays to himself. Take him a watermelon if you have a spare, he likes them. Josh is hooked on pills and he's a thief and nobody cares if you beat the shit out of him if you find him snooping around your barn. Ron is a pervert. The men have already had a chat with him that he'll disappear if he bothers the women here.

On the same note, I noticed a huge difference in car buying and mechanics in a large city vs a small town. Fuck someone over in a small town, your reputation will quickly tank and you might as well close up shop. In big cities there's plenty of strangers who don't know you're a thief.

So, personally, I lean toward agrarian romanticism a bit. There's still shitheels, but they aren't surprise shitheels.

We use this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextdoor

Seems to work if you want some advice about hiring contractors and services. Like you say, you don't want to shit your nest in a small community.

[NETim]

Here in Nebraska, farms continually grow larger and small towns grow smaller and smaller and eventually disappear. I suspect it is the same story across most all of rural America. It makes me sad to see the little towns drying up and a way of life disappearing. I still love to drive highway 26 through the Nebraska Panhandle and see the sights, even if the once vibrant little towns are rapidly declining. Kids by necessity have to move to the "big city" to earn a living.

Farms have to be huge to have any hope of providing a living for a family. And most of the time, the spouse is working in town somewhere to get insurance benefits.

Living in rural America is still a great way of life though if you can find a way to make a living.

[snow white]

Here in Nebraska, farms continually grow larger and small towns grow smaller and smaller and eventually disappear. I suspect it is the same story across most all of rural America. It makes me sad to see the little towns drying up and a way of life disappearing. I still love to drive highway 26 through the Nebraska Panhandle and see the sights, even if the once vibrant little towns are rapidly declining. Kids by necessity have to move to the "big city" to earn a living.

Farms have to be huge to have any hope of providing a living for a family. And most of the time, the spouse is working in town somewhere to get insurance benefits.

Living in rural America is still a great way of life though if you can find a way to make a living.

Very true, not allot of opportunity here where I live. I have a town job and its probably the best I'll get without traveling an hour just to get to work. They treat me well with good benefits and half ass decent pay. I'm lucky enough to have zero debt and nowhere near a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle but allot of people here are not so fortunate. The knife cuts both ways as it were.

[RoyGBiv]

Inheritance taxes killed the family farm.

[BehindBlueI's]

Inheritance taxes killed the family farm.

Economies of scale and massive increases of yield per acre killed the family farm locally. None of the family farms around where I was as a youth were near big enough to reach the levels required to trip the estate or inheritance taxes. The price per unit, regardless of if that unit was animals or bushels, got lower and lower to the point small players couldn't make any money. The hogs, sheep, corn, soybean, and chicken farms are all gone and none of them because the old man died. Just wan't any money in it. There's still some corn and soybeans, but most of it is for guys raising small herds of beef cattle, and a few folks are raising llamas or emus, but that's the extent of it.

[Borderland]

I used to hunt in eastern WA a lot. Back in the 30's when wheat farming became mechanized there were many small towns in the Palouse. The names are still on the maps but there isn't anything there. Even the small towns that are left are dying. Wheat farms now are hundreds of thousands of acres and owned by corporations. It's very hard to find out who actually owns those farms because there are so few people living on the land and farming it. A good friend owned a rather large family farm in Ohio along with her brother and sister. They recently sold it as nobody in the family had farmed it in 30 years, mostly just leased the land. Times are pretty tough for family farms and I don't doubt they will get tougher. I was told by someone who should know that the family farmers that he knows in E WA. all have AG business degrees.

[10mmfanboy]

I'd rather die than go back to city, suburb life. If I can't go outside and take a piss, then it's not for me.

As far as taxes go, they can't get any worse. Now I even have to pay a 10% tax even if I sell something used that I already paid taxes on. I was hoping people would wake up one day, but they have all turned into PC cucks.

I get a kick out of people bickering about who to vote for. To me it's like voting on how you wish to be enslaved. Want to know the meaning of life? It is very simple, you are a tax I.D. number and nothing else. You are a walking talking piece of skin that sole purpose is to eat, shit, procreate new life so the taxation can continue after you are gone to feed the evil system. The more evil you are in life the more successful you will become. The system rewards evil behavior, so if you are good like me you are screwed. If that makes me a loser to not want to be part of an evil system, than I am a proud "loser".

You are taxed for being born, taxed your whole life and then taxed for dying and failing the system. That's why you don't see anyone being inherited anything anymore, because the government just takes back what you earned after you die.

If you would like to remain happy and blissfully ignorant to what is going on then just go back to sleep like everyone else on this planet.

Oh and I love the new term "globalism" doesn't that sound groovy? Sounds way more pleasant than a New World Order.

[Welder]

LOL to a couple of posts prior, I have an Ag Business degree, Ag Econ actually. IMO it's a very outdated idea for anyone to think that today's farmers are a bunch of high-school dropouts. Have you set foot inside of a modern tractor? I was born into farming and spent my teens in the last decade of the purely mechanical age. My family was always technologically advanced; farming definitely has a *cutting edge*. The days of a few chickens and goats and cows and 40 acres supporting anyone are long gone, except in EXTREMELY unusual circumstances.

The average farmer is competing with the entire global farm economy, and trying to get that additional bushel off the land, or that additional tenth of a pound average daily gain is a total technology race. Nowadays the same land that was getting 150 bushels / acre of corn when I was a kid will average well over 200 with no sweat. You can buy an old 4-row mechanical corn planter for $10,000 but if you want to plant corn accurately and consistently, in the same area you'll see 16-row vacuum planters that go for $200,000 running over the land. Agriculture is a very detailed, wide, and deep science.

The small producers that are making it are mostly getting it done with out-of-the-box thinking. You can't wake up early enough and work late enough to make a profit anymore; you have to specialize in something that limits your competition. Take yourself out of the global free-for-all and produce a non-homogenous product on your limited acres. That's really the only option that allows survival of strictly farm-only income without supplementation. Examples include farmers' markets, direct-to-consumer approaches, specialty crops, etc.

My family is still farming successfully, but they're not going head-to-head with anyone outside of a 100-mile radius. As for myself, I realized I didn't want to work 16-hour days 7 days a week for my entire life, and I took my farm-learned work ethic and put it to use in a way that I could live with.

[Caballoflaco]

LOL to a couple of posts prior, I have an Ag Business degree, Ag Econ actually. IMO it's a very outdated idea for anyone to think that today's farmers are a bunch of high-school dropouts. Have you set foot inside of a modern tractor? I was born into farming and spent my teens in the last decade of the purely mechanical age. My family was always technologically advanced; farming definitely has a *cutting edge*. The days of a few chickens and goats and cows and 40 acres supporting anyone are long gone, except in EXTREMELY unusual circumstances.

The average farmer is competing with the entire global farm economy, and trying to get that additional bushel off the land, or that additional tenth of a pound average daily gain is a total technology race. Nowadays the same land that was getting 150 bushels / acre of corn when I was a kid will average well over 200 with no sweat. You can buy an old 4-row mechanical corn planter for $10,000 but if you want to plant corn accurately and consistently, in the same area you'll see 16-row vacuum planters that go for $200,000 running over the land. Agriculture is a very detailed, wide, and deep science.

The small producers that are making it are mostly getting it done with out-of-the-box thinking. You can't wake up early enough and work late enough to make a profit anymore; you have to specialize in something that limits your competition. Take yourself out of the global free-for-all and produce a non-homogenous product on your limited acres. That's really the only option that allows survival of strictly farm-only income without supplementation. Examples include farmers' markets, direct-to-consumer approaches, specialty crops, etc.

My family is still farming successfully, but they're not going head-to-head with anyone outside of a 100-mile radius. As for myself, I realized I didn't want to work 16-hour days 7 days a week for my entire life, and I took my farm-learned work ethic and put it to use in a way that I could live with.

You mean there isn’t an international conspiracy (except probably Monsanto) to deprive rural folks of a way of life, rather, the technology has simply advanced to the point that smaller farms growing feed corn or soy beans are simply obsolescent.

Kinda like cobblers. Nobody is going to make a living making basic sneakers or dress shoes in their basements a couple of pairs a day because there are factories that do that now. But a few artisans can probably make a living doing specialized high end work.

And they are out there; this is a pretty cool series on PBS about Veteran-Farmers who are finding new ways to make money farming smaller farms. (Unfortunately I cant find any episodes online, but I’ve seen it on PBS create if you have that channel)

https://www.pbs.org/food/features/homegrown-heroes/

[Borderland]

You mean there isn’t an international conspiracy (except probably Monsanto) to deprive rural folks of a way of life, rather, the technology has simply advanced to the point that smaller farms growing feed corn or soy beans are simply obsolescent.

Kinda like cobblers. Nobody is going to make a living making basic sneakers or dress shoes in their basements a couple of pairs a day because there are factories that do that now. But a few artisans can probably make a living doing specialized high end work.

And they are out there; this is a pretty cool series on PBS about Veteran-Farmers who are finding new ways to make money farming smaller farms. (Unfortunately I cant find any episodes online, but I’ve seen it on PBS create if you have that channel)

https://www.pbs.org/food/features/homegrown-heroes/

We have a few of those around here. They sell local to small markets and have their own produce stands. Nobodies getting rich, just making a living doing what they like to do. Pretty cool. Some fishermen doing the same thing. One guy has a thriving business raising mussels.

[Crow Hunter]

Yes.

Very bad. Horrible people. You will hate it here. We don't have that there Starkbuks or that darn Enternets or hot Yogurt studios or nothin like that. Just corn whiskey and cousins for entertainment.

Stay in the city. It's terrible out here.

We don't even have shoes or jobs and we don't eat anything but cornbread and greens except on New Year's when we have some hawg jaw. We just lay around every day being racist/homophobic/anti-immigrant/climate change denying/deplorable/Bible thumping luddites who only watch Hee Haw/Dukes of Hazard re-runs and spit tobacco and play banjos and shoot guns.

Seriously.

Stay in the city.

Yee-Yee.

[willie]

Being from Mississippi, I can talk shit about Arkansas but no other place. The reverse is true for those living in Arkansas.

[pangloss]

Being from Mississippi, I can talk shit about Arkansas but no other place. The reverse is true for those living in Arkansas."Thank God for Arkansas!" as the saying goes.

Sent from my moto e5 cruise using Tapatalk

[peterb]

Economies of scale and massive increases of yield per acre killed the family farm locally. None of the family farms around where I was as a youth were near big enough to reach the levels required to trip the estate or inheritance taxes. The price per unit, regardless of if that unit was animals or bushels, got lower and lower to the point small players couldn't make any money. The hogs, sheep, corn, soybean, and chicken farms are all gone and none of them because the old man died. Just wan't any money in it. There's still some corn and soybeans, but most of it is for guys raising small herds of beef cattle, and a few folks are raising llamas or emus, but that's the extent of it.

For decades we’ve been making policy and economic decisions driven by the belief that low prices for commodity crops were an absolute good. The result is that in the US we pay less for food per capita than almost anywhere else in the world. But there are a lot of social costs that come from those choices. Pure economic efficiency is probably not the best path to human happiness.

I’ve lived in cities and rural areas and enjoyed both for what they had to offer.

Urban poverty gets all the attention, but rural poverty is just as grim.

[Trooper224]

Being from Mississippi, I can talk shit about Arkansas but no other place. The reverse is true for those living in Arkansas.

No, you can both bag on West Virginia.

[willie]

No, you can both bag on West Virginia.

I'd rather criticize Arkansas. A couple years ago my wife and I traveled in Arkansas for the first time. I fell in love with northern Arkansas. We passed a high school whose mascot was a sand lizard. I howled with laughter. Stopping at a Walmart, I teased my wife by saying that I would start making fun of the lizard. She begged me not to. Inside Walmart, I observed that everybody looked retarded. Then two kids with cone heads walked by. My anxiety level shot up.

Here's the deal. A local center serving developmentally challenged persons had taken two bus loads of clients there on a field trip. The cone heads were unrelated to the other group--merely two local kids goofing off. Northern Arkansas was a neat place. I wish that I lived there. W Virginia is not my choice. I heard that everybody shits in the woods, even those who have an indoor toilet. Just kiddng.;)

[HCM]

I'd rather criticize Arkansas. A couple years ago my wife and I traveled in Arkansas for the first time. I fell in love with northern Arkansas. We passed a high school whose mascot was a sand lizard. I howled with laughter. Stopping at a Walmart, I teased my wife by saying that I would start making fun of the lizard. She begged me not to. Inside Walmart, I observed that everybody looked retarded. Then two kids with cone heads walked by. My anxiety level shot up.

Here's the deal. A local center serving developmentally challenged persons had taken two bus loads of clients there on a field trip. The cone heads were unrelated to the other group--merely two local kids goofing off. Northern Arkansas was a neat place. I wish that I lived there. W Virginia is not my choice. I heard that everybody shits in the woods, even those who have an indoor toilet. Just kiddng.;)

If you shit in your indoor toilet yep out have to clean it. Who’s dumb now ?

[LOKNLOD]

If you shit in your indoor toilet yep out have to clean it. Who’s dumb now ?

Yeah. And then it'll make the next batch of moonshine and/or meth you make taste funny shitty.

[Trooper224]

I'd rather criticize Arkansas. A couple years ago my wife and I traveled in Arkansas for the first time. I fell in love with northern Arkansas. We passed a high school whose mascot was a sand lizard. I howled with laughter. Stopping at a Walmart, I teased my wife by saying that I would start making fun of the lizard. She begged me not to. Inside Walmart, I observed that everybody looked retarded. Then two kids with cone heads walked by. My anxiety level shot up.

Here's the deal. A local center serving developmentally challenged persons had taken two bus loads of clients there on a field trip. The cone heads were unrelated to the other group--merely two local kids goofing off. Northern Arkansas was a neat place. I wish that I lived there. W Virginia is not my choice. I heard that everybody shits in the woods, even those who have an indoor toilet. Just kiddng.;)

The only place that can compete with Detroit for a post-apocalypse/Walking Dead vibe is West Virginia. I've ben all over the world, including a good part of CONUS and I've never seen a more soul sucking place than WV.

[Crow Hunter]

I'd rather criticize Arkansas. A couple years ago my wife and I traveled in Arkansas for the first time. I fell in love with northern Arkansas. We passed a high school whose mascot was a sand lizard. I howled with laughter. Stopping at a Walmart, I teased my wife by saying that I would start making fun of the lizard. She begged me not to. Inside Walmart, I observed that everybody looked retarded. Then two kids with cone heads walked by. My anxiety level shot up.

Here's the deal. A local center serving developmentally challenged persons had taken two bus loads of clients there on a field trip. The cone heads were unrelated to the other group--merely two local kids goofing off. Northern Arkansas was a neat place. I wish that I lived there. W Virginia is not my choice. I heard that everybody shits in the woods, even those who have an indoor toilet. Just kiddng.;)

You must have been in the middle of North Arkansas west of Crowley's Ridge. Next time go a little further east. If you are still in love with it, you should probably have your head examined.

Unless you really like rice.:D

And you don't have to worry about shitting in the woods. There aren't any. ;)

It is a joke where I live now. If you say something sucks you can always say, "But at least we aren't in Arkansas."

[SouthNarc]

Being from Mississippi, I can talk shit about Arkansas but no other place. The reverse is true for those living in Arkansas.

I love that people talk shit about Mississippi as it keeps them out of the Gulf Coast.

[blues]

I love that people talk shit about Mississippi as it keeps them out of the Gulf Coast.

I've got a special place in my heart for MS.

First, it was the birthplace of true American blues.

One of my (late) partners was from Hattiesburg, R.I.P. Wadie. Another partner in the HIDTA task force, from Forest.

And last but not least, Shelby Foote.

[TCinVA]

The only place that can compete with Detroit for a post-apocalypse/Walking Dead vibe is West Virginia. I've ben all over the world, including a good part of CONUS and I've never seen a more soul sucking place than WV.

The impoverished parts of it can be very depressing.

My grandfather pastored a church in Logan County for 20 years. I've been all over some of the most economically depressed parts of the state.

It's one of many reasons why I've never had much sympathy for the argument of "white privilege"

A bunch of stupid motherfuckers out there do not seem to understand the difference between whites with privilege and white privilege.

Whites with privilege are some of the worst people you are going to encounter in life. Their attitudes and behaviors are by no means universal.

[willie]

During WW2 numerous POW camps held captured Germans. One escaped and was caught in my home town. He was surprised that the town marshall who caught him was not armed. He was amazed that mothers of American GI's insisted on feeding him. When MP's arrived to transport him back to his camp, he begged to stay. In 1953 the dude came back as an immigrant, married, and raised a passel of little Knuckleheads, all of whom did quite well.

[Caballoflaco]

During WW2 numerous POW camps held captured Germans. One escaped and was caught in my home town. He was surprised that the town marshall who caught him was not armed. He was amazed that mothers of American GI's insisted on feeding him. When MP's arrived to transport him back to his camp, he begged to stay. In 1953 the dude came back as an immigrant, married, and raised a passel of little Knuckleheads, all of whom did quite well.

Here’s a short video you might find interesting willie


https://youtu.be/7l3_ardFJ_0

[Josh Runkle]

The only place that can compete with Detroit for a post-apocalypse/Walking Dead vibe is West Virginia. I've ben all over the world, including a good part of CONUS and I've never seen a more soul sucking place than WV.

I would move to WV if my wife would let me. The slogan “Wild and Wonderful” is not just a description of nature. I stopped at a neighbor’s place down there on my way home from a meeting in DC once and I was still in a suit. The neighbor ran out in the yard yelling at me and pointed a shotgun right at me. I calmly stated who I was, he apologized and said he didn’t have his glasses on. They invited me in for supper and we sat on the porch and ate pie.

If a post-apocalypse world has pie, I’d consider pushing the button.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Trooper224]

The impoverished parts of it can be very depressing.

My grandfather pastored a church in Logan County for 20 years. I've been all over some of the most economically depressed parts of the state.

It's one of many reasons why I've never had much sympathy for the argument of "white privilege"

A bunch of stupid motherfuckers out there do not seem to understand the difference between whites with privilege and white privilege.

Whites with privilege are some of the worst people you are going to encounter in life. Their attitudes and behaviors are by no means universal.

My oldest son made the mistake of marrying two successive women from West Virginia. Consequently, I've spent more time there than I ever wanted to. Thankfully, he's now divested himself of the last one, so the probability of ever going back to the sweaty ball sack of CONUS is slim to none. I've told him if number three winds up being a native he's on his own, I'm not going back. The only other state on my list of no return is California.

[scjbash]

The only place that can compete with Detroit for a post-apocalypse/Walking Dead vibe is West Virginia. I've ben all over the world, including a good part of CONUS and I've never seen a more soul sucking place than WV.

🙄

As mentioned, there are some impoverished areas, but even in those places there are some of the best people I've ever met. Happy too.

I've seen equally soul sucking places in other states. Nowhere is immune. Sometimes it's poor white rural folks. Sometimes it's poor black urban folks. Regardless, it's everywhere, just as great people and places are everywhere.

It's also largely a matter of perspective. The most soul sucking I've ever endured was a week in Manhattan. And I can't say the people I saw and met there seemed any happier than the people in southern WV or eastern KY or any other impoverished rural areas. In fact most of them looked downright depressed. And they sure as fuck weren't friendlier.

[Joe in PNG]

Here's what I'm wondering- why in the hell is the Democratic party glomming onto Aristocratic Disdain & Arrogant Snobbery as a winning elections strategy?

[blues]

Here's what I'm wondering- why in the hell is the Democratic party glomming onto Aristocratic Disdain & Arrogant Snobbery as a winning elections strategy?

Maybe because it has worked for someone else, (however shameful),...and they're desperate.

What I'm wondering is why some of us here are trashing one another's home states. It seems...unseemly.

[Joe in PNG]

Maybe because it has worked for someone else, (however shameful),...and they're desperate.



Look at Trump- he ran on the idea that the elitist suck(media, GOP establishment, Hillary, et al), they want to meddle in your lives, and he's here to defend the little guy against those elitist.
And it's working for him.

Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to think that Hillary's "call them Deplorables" strategy failed because she didn't do it hard enough.

[blues]

Look at Trump- he ran on the idea that the elitist suck(media, GOP establishment, Hillary, et al), they want to meddle in your lives, and he's here to defend the little guy against those elitist.
And it's working for him.

Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to think that Hillary's "call them Deplorables" strategy failed because she didn't do it hard enough.


https://justyna.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cf6ad53ef010536bcebf5970c-600wi

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"

[spence]

Here’s a short video you might find interesting willie


https://youtu.be/7l3_ardFJ_0

I've lived not far from Alva OK for years now. Didn't know until maybe two years ago when we went to the museum there that it had been a German POW camp. Fascinating stuff.

[Welder]

What I'm wondering is why some of us here are trashing one another's home states. It seems...unseemly.

Agree.

[Arbninftry]

The only place that can compete with Detroit for a post-apocalypse/Walking Dead vibe is West Virginia. I've ben all over the world, including a good part of CONUS and I've never seen a more soul sucking place than WV.

You obviously have not been to Miami Oklahoma.

[Trooper224]

You obviously have not been to Miami Oklahoma.

I try my best to avoid Oklahoma entirely.

Over the last few months, I've taken my mother in law to OKC on several occasions for dental work. I try to get in and out as quickly as possible, lest any of those cooties infect me.

[Arbninftry]

I try my best to avoid Oklahoma entirely.

Over the last few months, I've taken my mother in law to OKC on several occasions for dental work. I try to get in and out as quickly as possible, lest any of those cooties infect me.


You are very wise:cool:

[spence]

I try my best to avoid Oklahoma entirely.

Over the last few months, I've taken my mother in law to OKC on several occasions for dental work. I try to get in and out as quickly as possible, lest any of those cooties infect me.

The thing about Okies is they have money. This state is freaking broke. If I was entirely dependent on it for my living, I might go bankrupt. Or have to get a "real" job, for those that have disparaging things to say about my career choices. It's a very definitive geographic line, where there's some money vs a bunch of cheapskates.

Plus I always felt like those in OKC had a semblance of ability to drive. Wichita always feels like a rat race.

Maybe I'm a closet Okie. Who knows.

[willie]

Maybe because it has worked for someone else, (however shameful),...and they're desperate.

What I'm wondering is why some of us here are trashing one another's home states. It seems...unseemly.

Thank you for pointing out that we should not trash others' states. When we do, we are generalizing from negative perceptions or experiences that are not representative of the whole.

[JRB]

All I know is that any place is awful if you keep awful company. Seems to me that most folks who complain about anywhere in the South, the Midwest, Appalachia, etc. all hate those places because of people they hate. Exes, family, etc.

Personally, I think more of those folks need to spend some time in larger cities outside of the US. Then spend some time in LA, Chicago, or the beltway.
Then revisit all these 'awful' places in the South and Midwest and Appalachia with a renewed appreciation of just how incredibly not bad those places really are.

A neighbor that's quick to offer pie and quicker with a shotgun sounds like my kind of people, personally.

[Totem Polar]

All I know is that any place is awful if you keep awful company...

#truth (https://pistol-forum.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=truth)

[Zincwarrior]

The thing about Okies is they have money. This state is freaking broke. If I was entirely dependent on it for my living, I might go bankrupt. Or have to get a "real" job, for those that have disparaging things to say about my career choices. It's a very definitive geographic line, where there's some money vs a bunch of cheapskates.

Plus I always felt like those in OKC had a semblance of ability to drive. Wichita always feels like a rat race.

Maybe I'm a closet Okie. Who knows.

Wichita was a rat race? You realize 'the Road Warrior' is just a documentary about driving on Houston's freeways don't you?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTH6ZPvYq-wyQDI0WGIG5rcgNx2QK6rnNk4ec-D7jTsVX6MHHNB

[blues]

Plus I always felt like those in OKC had a semblance of ability to drive. Wichita always feels like a rat race.

Maybe I'm a closet Okie. Who knows.

The things I remember most from the last time I traveled across Oklahoma on my motorcycle were the incessant wind, and how many pretty girls were working at various places my wife and I stopped to eat or get a room at. (Maybe this was before meth hit big time virtually everywhere in the USA. It was the late 90's.) I think Erick, OK had more pretty girls than you could shake a stick at back then.

Even my wife, who was, some years earlier, a part time runway model for Macy's agreed when I mentioned it. (She didn't feel insecure about being around other good looking women.)

I dated a gal from Oklahoma many moons ago, and she was a looker too. Must've been something in the water.

Of course the only gals I see from Oklahoma lately are on "Live PD" and are admittedly a pretty scary bunch. ;)

[spence]

Wichita was a rat race? You realize 'the Road Warrior' is just a documentary about driving on Houston's freeways don't you?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTH6ZPvYq-wyQDI0WGIG5rcgNx2QK6rnNk4ec-D7jTsVX6MHHNB

Realizing I don't get out much, thus I have not encountered the "Road Warrior", I was only comparing OKC to Wichita since I've spent more time in the two of them than anywhere else. Albany NY is probably third.

That said, my sister lives in Houston and that place. Yeah, that's a whole other subject. It's actually kind of funny. I went to visit a couple years ago, and it wound up making more sense for her to navigate since she knew where she was going and me drive. I can adapt to city driving fairly quickly, and I think she was suffering from pucker factor at the end of those couple days.

[spence]

The things I remember most from the last time I traveled across Oklahoma on my motorcycle were the incessant wind, and how many pretty girls were working at various places my wife and I stopped to eat or get a room at. (Maybe this was before meth hit big time virtually everywhere in the USA. It was the late 90's.) I think Erick, OK had more pretty girls than you could shake a stick at back then.

Even my wife, who was, some years earlier, a part time runway model for Macy's agreed when I mentioned it. (She didn't feel insecure about being around other good looking women.)

I dated a gal from Oklahoma many moons ago, and she was a looker too. Must've been something in the water.

Of course the only gals I see from Oklahoma lately are on "Live PD" and are admittedly a pretty scary bunch. ;)

No sir, that hasn't changed.

The wind or the women. Then again, pretty much anywhere in Kansas or Oklahoma is going to be a wind cesspool. There's also no shortage of nice looking women, even in the backwoods parts of the northern end of the state where I work mostly.

[blues]

No sir, that hasn't changed.

The wind or the women. Then again, pretty much anywhere in Kansas or Oklahoma is going to be a wind cesspool. There's also no shortage of nice looking women, even in the backwoods parts of the northern end of the state where I work mostly.

Agree with you on all counts based upon my own experience traveling extensively across the U.S.A. and Canada, including pretty remote areas.

Even dated a gal for a short time from Pittsburg, KS.

Yep, there's beauty everywhere. All you have to do is keep your eyes open. :cool:

[RoyGBiv]

The wind or the women. Then again, pretty much anywhere in Kansas or Oklahoma is going to be a wind cesspool. There's also no shortage of nice looking women, even in the backwoods parts of the northern end of the state where I work mostly.
There's something about women from OK, KS, TX, NE that strike me as a bit more down to earth. Less BS, less mascara and more wind and sun. Except for Dallas, of course. I couldn't live in KS for the wind and flat. I'll skip OK's severe weather, but like to ride in eastern OK (and NW AR) when the weather is good. TX is pretty awesome all around.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

All I know is that any place is awful if you keep awful company.

This is true and probably the biggest criticism I have of my entire circle of friends: they universally choose terrible company. I am frequently rather appalled at the abysmal standards for the company they keep - in fact it seems to be the one trait all my friends have in common.

[MistWolf]

Wichita was a rat race? You realize 'the Road Warrior' is just a documentary about driving on Houston's freeways don't you?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTH6ZPvYq-wyQDI0WGIG5rcgNx2QK6rnNk4ec-D7jTsVX6MHHNB

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Having earned my Combat Driving ribbon in Los Angeles at the age of 16, I find this amusing.

Yes, I have driven in Houston- at the height of the "The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Under Construction" era.

[StraitR]

https://life.gomcgill.com/uc-berkeley-instructor-says-rural-americans-are-bad-people-who-deserve-uncomfortable-lives?fbclid=IwAR2bkX7G7oroHDLgcnZgjsDBrEjam2M6HKo sZ7paWMDFhw3tcyATeDFvRoo

Jackson Kernion, a Berkeley professor, sent out a tweet that said rural Americans are "bad people who have made bad life decisions." He goes on to say that people who reject the more efficient city lifestyle should have to pay more for medical care, broadband internet, higher taxes and should have their lives be made as uncomfortable as possible until they move to the city. He says city dwellers shouldn't have to carry the burden rural Americans have placed on them through the inefficiency of the rural lifestyle.

I don't what I can say without resorting to wholly unflattering observations about the mental faculties of certain professors and the vileness of their agenda.

Mr. Kernion, could you tell me again about making better life choices, carrying the burden others, and the inefficiency of rural lifestyle please?

49881

[peterb]

Mr. Kernion, could you tell me again about making better life choices, carrying the burden others, and the inefficiency of rural lifestyle please?

49881

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/814917520/rural-towns-insulated-from-coronavirus-now-may-take-a-harder-hit-later

Rural areas may be insulated from the first wave of infection, but once disease spreads to those areas there aren’t many healthcare resources to draw on.

I was a small-town volunteer EMT. I can assure you that those folks are not sitting around laughing at the city dwellers.

[StraitR]

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/814917520/rural-towns-insulated-from-coronavirus-now-may-take-a-harder-hit-later

Rural areas may be insulated from the first wave of infection, but once disease spreads to those areas there aren’t many healthcare resources to draw on.

I was a small-town volunteer EMT. I can assure you that those folks are not sitting around laughing at the city dwellers.

Oh, it's not a laughing matter at all. The point I was making is, that for the most part, using the map as a guide, Mr. Kernion's superior urbanites are blessing our country with this particular burden. This brings to question his opinions on superior decision making and efficient lifestyle, not to mention the asinine statement, "It should be uncomfortable to live in rural America." For all intents and purposes, you just made it uncomfortable, thanks.