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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf We Don't Overcome This Tendency.....
we are doomed. If you can't stand to live where people you disagree with politically are in the majority the answer is to move where everyone thinks the same way? Now this is about some poor conservative snowflakes who can't stand the evil liberals in California. I've heard some of my fellow liberals here in my conservative area express similar feelings. While I understand it, bugging out is not the answer. If we further divide ourselves by retreating to places where everyone thinks the same way, we are truly screwed as a society. Diversity of thought is as important as all other human diversity. Everyone thinks they're right all of the time. I've got news for everyone. You're wrong.
There are no cardboard boxes or bubble wrap or heavy duty packing tape in Tim Stokes' 1,600-square-foot Sacramento, Calif., home. But, according to the 36-year-old, he and his pregnant wife, their three kids and their two 100-pound mastiffs are on the verge of selling the house they bought just over a year ago.
Though Stokes was born in Nevada, he has spent all but the first six months of his life in California. For most of that time, any move away from his hometown and family would have been unthinkable for him. But in the past six years, Stokes, who is a Republican, said the political climate and the seemingly unstoppable swing further to the left in California have become unbearable.
"It's the simple fact that I'm trying to raise a family," he said, before adding that he's tired of feeling like an outsider in his hometown.
He is a regular voter and in recent years has voted against a long list of proposals. He opposed a hike in gas taxes, the legalization of marijuana and Proposition 57, which allows the early release of some nonviolent offenders from prison in order to alleviate overcrowding. They all passed.
It is these types of unrelenting political blows, he said, that have left him feeling thwarted and outnumbered. And it is the reason behind the family's imminent move to Texas, a state where he believes he will finally be surrounded by people who share his conservative values.
Read it here: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/27/546391430/texas-becoming-a-magnet-for-conservatives-fleeing-liberal-states-like-california
bearsfootball516
(6,377 posts)I'm happy that my fiancee and I are adding two more blue votes to a swing state that's worth a lot in the electoral college.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I can't imagine why anyone would want to actually LIVE in Florida .
As a transplant from Maryland to Indiana, I do understand why you'd want to get out of here, though I have found my tribe, and Indy really is a lovely city.
bearsfootball516
(6,377 posts)I'm 24, spent the first 18 years of my life in Fort Wayne and then the next 6 in Muncie. But, my fiancee scored a really good internship in Florida, and we felt like it was the right time for us to start our lives living together.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)We came here because my wife got a tenure track job at BSU.
I wish you all the best in your life together!
Dread Pirate Roberts
(1,896 posts)I don't want to get too deep into this but what makes where we live home and why would you want to leave just because there are more people who have a different view of politics than you do? I also think that these people are in for a rude awakening. There are a lot more liberals in a place like Texas than they realize.
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. My parents were decent people, but, sadly, never outgrew the racism of their youth and supported Trump. The community was heavily influenced by Southern Baptists and other right-wing strains of Christianity. I even went to a Southern Baptist school for middle and most of high school(as a gay man that wasn't fun.) Overall, I never felt home in TN. I recently moved to NYC and, honestly, I feel more at home here than I ever have in TN. I still love my family and I have friends that I miss there, but I never felt at home there.
SHRED
(28,136 posts)I encourage them to move.
The others I tell them it's a hell hole and to stay away.
Laxman
(2,419 posts)with no place else to go! It's so sad! What horrific crime did everyone there commit to be exiled there?
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)I visited San Francisco and fell in love. If I can ever afford it, I'd move there. It was wonderful.
Girard442
(6,085 posts)Life is too short to live among people you have little in common with and who hold beliefs you find pernicious.
Cary
(11,746 posts)They are useless. They are dead weight.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)DU itself is not very tolerant of differing opinions and the echo chamber is getting kind of sad.
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)When liberal Democrats start burning crosses on conservatives' lawns, I will have some sympathy.
They have been driving people of color, Jews and LGBT from their communities for decades. I have ZERO argument eith those who choose to leave oppressive local conditions.
That being said, I also wish that we could tolerate different views as a society... but when they burn down your house and set up lawn chairs to watch - as happened recently with a gay family, it's probably time to move.
Laxman
(2,419 posts)that California is an oppressive state? Is it your contention that all conservatives are racists and bigots? You're talking about the fringes of thought and behavior. That's quite different than what this article is about. That's the danger of this approach.
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)If conservatives find protection of civil liberties, a secular state and appropriate enforcement of anti-discrimination laws oppressive, they are welcome to leave.
I certainly don't.
Hope that answers your question.
Laxman
(2,419 posts)I would wish they wouldn't leave because I believe that the points you make above will eventually become unifying principals (and the fact that they aren't now is disturbing) for our nation. Whatever differences we may have, there are core elements that should bring us together. You have pointed out some of the most important.
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)...with a diverse, multi-ethnic state. Lots of the leaders of the Religious Right have been using exclusionary language for a long time, to the point where I am not sure they WANT a state of equal citizens. The question is whether coexisting with them in a secular Republic is possible - especially given the racist, sexist and Christian-only worldview they espouse - and if so, how to do so?
My sense is that the Constitution is our guide - which is what makes our current leadership so troubling.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)MrsCoffee
(5,803 posts)He will love Texas.
dalton99a
(81,599 posts)uponit7771
(90,364 posts)... articles like this usually offer little in empirical data.
onecaliberal
(32,902 posts)DFW
(54,445 posts)He won't find himself in the majority in Dallas, Houston, Austin or El Paso. He'll find himself in good company in somewhere like Waco or Lubbock, but it's booooooring out there!
defacto7
(13,485 posts)divorced from reality. The premice of the article is sound but it has no resemblance to human nature. If someone wants to live their life as a martyr for change in a conservative stronghold may they be blessed with the disposition of a monk. Living life in a fish bowl is no life for me.
On the other hand, if they can't stand being a monk in a land where politics is leaving them behind surrounded by sub-religious and pernicious open-mindedness, then they had better stop up their ears, cover their eyes and plug their noses as they flee... because facts won't change and people will evolve. They can run but they can't hide.
Everyone just do what you need to do. We'll either be better for it or we'll learn a lesson.