Plan B Forum

It isn't just politics; it's what we want from life and how we see the world:

http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/ ... onal-life/

I don't dispute the findings, but many are inconsistent with what I have experienced.

On the other hand

Well, I suppose I'm at least partly a living breathing stereotype: I far prefer city life, with everything in walking distance, ready access to museums, theaters, concert halls and other arts, and an ethnically, socially and religiously diverse community. (In fact, I'm counting the days til my kids are out of the house and we can move back into the city.) I think most of my friends IRL would probably identify as "liberals" (although it's not how I would describe myself, except in its crudest sense), but many of my closest friends are firmly in the conservative camp -- at least, the Northeastern Republican demographic, which I suppose is now viewed by the rest of the GOP as some kind of wing of the Communist Party. I consider all of you here my friends as well, and you are the people with whom I talk about politics the most, by a long shot. And given the politically mixed group we have, I can't see that any of us are confined to opinion silos. (In fact, I am generally much more interested in the opinions of those who disagree with me, and in understanding their perspective; it would just be boring to hear my own opinions reflected back.)

I prefer that same kind of community life as well, even though I grew up in the country and have deep affection for rural areas (not to mention an entire rural state). But they are wonderful places to visit, I don't want to live there any more. I prefer smaller homes, too, because really, who wants to live inside, or be house-poor. Definitely not me - I love old homes, densely concentrated communities, public transportation, and shared common resources (you know, parks and beaches and conservation land), rather than chopping up the green fields for big house, big yards, and more isolation. Save the fields for the local farms (so I can access their yummy healthy bounty)!

I go out of my way not to be confined to an opinion silo. I think its the worst thing you can do if you really want to be an effective policy maker/changer, or even an informed, opinionated, active citizen.

While I wouldn't mind living in a city, I wouldn't want to live in a apartment the size of a closet to do so. And while I generally love walking and public transportation afforded by a city, I'm not certain I would want to give up the mobility and freedom my car affords (even if it is only an illusion), at least at this point in my life. Opinion silos? I don't live in one, except if it's Northeast republican (as sue mentioned)--we rarely elect any democrats, and most of my friends are on the right side of the aisle (though few are teapartiers), yet we seem to get along.

Can't wait to leave the city and live in a cottage in the countryside again!

I was born and raised in a small, "rural" Massachusetts town, Dighton - only a half hour or so from Boston, but in the 70s it was still a farming town with housing developments just starting to spawn.

My childhood there, and summers on Cape Cod, led to an affinity for small towns and green spaces that persists to this day. I was miserably unhappy living in both Tempe and Yuma, AZ - except for loving some of the people I met there. Too hot, too much pavement - some culture, but not a very good representation of political balance.

I came to Montana in 2007 thinking it would be the perfect place for me - and in terms of being rural and beautiful, it fit the bill entirely.

But it's here that I learnt how I'd taken for granted the other bits, the access to culture, the diversity and range of political belief, the concentration of intellect that I'd left behind in eastern Massachusetts.

I've spent the most recent two years in a Montana county that is 80% conservative Republican, dealing with 'freemen' and Sovereign citizens, in a 'city' with four bars, twice as many churches, and one mini-museum of local history. Maybe 10% of the population has had 'some college' or above.

It's stunningly beautiful here, but I can't wait to leave Montana after the end of this year and get back to a village in coastal Massachusetts (or possibly, Maine), close to everything that matters to me.

(Also, I was born by the sea and that's where I'm meant to live, I'm sure of that one thing entirely - something in me just feels 'right' when I am within sight of the ocean. I could live delightedly on a small island running a lighthouse and reading by candlelight, if only to be by the ocean.)

These days it takes a lot longer than 30 minutes to get into Boston from that area -- Route 24 is one of the worst highways in the Commonwealth for traffic, speeding, and stupid accidents. You might also be shocked by how "conservative" the South Shore is becoming, especially the Cape (of course, that's still Massachusetts "conservative').

Guin, if you could spend only a week in this dusty cowboy mountain town . . . well, I wouldn't wish that on anybody, really. (With Yellowstone close by and Glacier not much further away, there are far better cowboy towns in Montana in which to stay, anyway.)

The Cape is definitely not as I remember it from my childhood - but then, what place is? And I certainly know from my 8 months fundraising for legal aid on the south coast in 2007 that it's not all liberal - but it's light years ahead of where I am at the moment, and generally speaking, MA is far more liberal than most of the rest of the country. I'm good with that.

Having grown up in the Washington suburbs, I have been pretty spoiled when it comes to museums and art galleries...(I also spent a fair amount of time in New York)

The folks in San Francisco like to think of themselves as rather cosmopolitan (and perhaps to people from Iowa they might seem to that way) but coming from the background I had, when I first moved out here they seemed to me like a bunch of provincial, backwater yokels...

Shortly after I moved here, I was sitting in a bar and struck up a conversation with a young lady, and she asked me where I was from; I replied "DC"...

To which she responded, "Oh, Daly City?"

(That kinda told me something right off the bat... )

In the late 80's, I took a lady I was dating at the time and her young son to The De Young Museum...

They had a great time; my reaction was, "I can't believe I just spent 30 bucks to look at a stuffed bear...this is what passes for a museum out here? And you have to pay to see it?...."

And don't even get me started on the newspapers....

When I first moved out here there were two; The Chronicle and The Examiner...

The Chronicle had Joe Bob Briggs, and Hunter S. Thompson was writing a column for The Examiner, and those were the only reasons to buy the papers...

I grew up reading The Washington Post and The New York Times; The Chronicle and The Examiner didn't even meet the journalistic standards of The Charlottesville Daily Progress (the Chronicle still doesn't; it dreams one day of being as good a paper as The Richmond Times-Dispatch)

But I digress...

Going to the larger point of the kind of environment one wants to live in, I'm a definite suburban kid...

I like having an urban environment near at hand, but I don't want to live in it. Where we live now is technically in the city limits of San Francisco, but out here near the beach, it's really a suburban type environment. We can go "down town" easily to take advantage of what's on offer there, but if I feel like going for a walk at one in the morning, (which I feel like doing occasionally) I can step outside my house and do so without worrying that somebody might come up behind me and knock me in the head...

(In fact, I am generally much more interested in the opinions of those who disagree with me, and in understanding their perspective; it would just be boring to hear my own opinions reflected back.)

I couldn't agree more with that...

That's part of the reason I first started posting at the Cafe Darte...

I enjoy having my ideas challenged; I can't imagine anything more boring than living an ideological echo chamber...

I have more liberal friends then conservative ones; my father was a life long Democrat who only voted Republican once in his life, (Nixon in '72) and my mother was a local Republican activist...

My closest and oldest long time friend is gay and an atheist; when I was in College I lived with a girl for a year who was a self-avowed communist; (she even had a subscription to a Red Chinese newspaper written in French... )

My wife is a Democrat, (and she's trying to turn my daughter into one; but that's an ongoing battle... )

It would never even occur to me to decide who to socialize with based on their political or religious views; it's just not at all in my make up...

I enjoy the company people who are articulate, and have a mind, and a good sense of humor...

Without regard to how wrong-headed their conclusions may be....

I really enjoy having diversity of political perspective around me, but I prefer it be the kind of folks who can argue intelligently and agree to disagree at some point. Where I'm living right now there are too many folks who embrace ignorance as a badge of honor, seem to feel that if you yell the loudest, you win, and who believe truly nutty things about the government.

I remember a friend saying to me something about minutemen and survivalist types when I was planning to move to Montana; I should have paid closer attention.

I enjoy having my ideas challenged;

I thought you just liked arguing.

TPFKA@W wrote:

I enjoy having my ideas challenged;

I thought you just liked arguing.

Well there's that...

It's tough being a Reagan Republican these days...

Not just being a Reagan Republican where I live, (which is of course politically impossible; at least in terms of being politically effective) but in many other places...

Reagan Republicanism is based on two basic principles:

1. Low taxes, because Reagan Republicanism understands that the way we thrive is to create a bigger "pie"; and lower taxes invigorate the private sector so that we can have that "bigger pie"...the way we create more funds for the public sector is not by raising taxes; it's by creating more taxpayers...individuals and small businesses..

2. A strong national defense; second to none.

But my party is now under attack, (and that's the way I would frame it; "under attack" ) by Radical Randians and Neo-Spencerian dunderheads, (Not that most of them would even know who Ayn Rand and Herbert Spencer were)

People who on the one end of aisle, want to repeal "the social contract" in it's entirety; not make it work better, not use the engine of private enterprise to create better results; (which is what Reagan Republicanism is about)

But to eliminate it entirely...

And on top of that, we've got another group of knuckle heads, (led by people like Rand Paul) who are hell bent for leather to abandon the Second Pillar of Reagan Republicanism...

A strong national defense...

How stupid can you be, to think "the big problem" we ought to be worrying about, is the government using drones to kill people at Starbucks?

That is, in a word, nuts...

The Junior Senator from Kentucky has actually had the nerve to compare the Director Of National Intelligence to The Traitor Snowden...

Reprehensible...

I'm deeply disturbed by Rand Paul....

He doesn't come across as a nut case like his father, (he's much smoother, and more politically adept)... but he believes the same things..( ask him about "the conspiracy" at The Federal Reserve...you'll see what I'm talking about...)

It's all well and good that he's drawing more, younger people into the party over the "War On Drugs" thing...

But when he says he's bringing "younger people" into the party based on the fact that he's trying sell them on a national defense and security policy that would make Dennis Kucinich look like George Patton, he's playing to their youthful idealistic naivete, and selling them a false bill of goods...

I believe that at the end of the day, in 2016, my party will nominate Jeb Bush, and I will happily and enthusiastically support him....

But if by some strange quirk, my party should nominate this Paul fellow, I'll be workin' (not just voting; working) for Hillary Clinton...

As I said before, when it comes to national security and national defense, compared to Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton is Curtis LeMay....

If we elect another Bush, I'm leaving the country. Full stop.


However, at the GOP's present level of dysfunction, I think it's unlikely we will see another (R) President anytime soon.

bigskygal wrote:I could live delightedly on a small island running a lighthouse and reading by candlelight, if only to be by the ocean.

bigskygal wrote:If we elect another Bush, I'm leaving the country.

Just thinking ahead.

Why do I keep thinking this is a counterpoint to Gobs "nice tackle" thread?

Sue, thanks for the suggestion!

Love where I live. Small city with a lot of cultural advantages. Saw that nice Victor Wooten a couple of weeks ago, saw Bela Fleck before that. Great annual arts fest with open studios (widely coped but it started here). When it comes to art and culture it is participation that matters.

Love my neighbors. Just going to the garden store and the market fills me with joy to get out and meet more of them. Nice looking people too. The most attractive group of 50-something women I've seen anywhere. When I go for walks I get to see a lot of UCSC faculty that I've known, current and retired. More and more of the latter with the passage of time. Love the fact that when we had a catastrophic earthquake everyone pitched in to help each other, just like we did when flooding knocked out power for most of a week and pushed a major bridge into the river back in '81.

Love the natural landscape; peregrine falcons every year, red-shouldered hawks, a cougar sighted just 100 feet from our house, bobcats in the yard, Anna's, Allen's, blackchinned hummingbird residents and rufous hummingbirds dashing through to points north and then south. I love the way the fog collects on the redwood needles and drips off between midnight and sunup providing the year-round watering that makes it possible for them to exist here. Grey foxes boldly going where no foxes have gone before. (if you knew the species, you'd get it).

Love the diversity here. Portland seemed oddly homogenous, nearly all white with a small Vietnamese community and a salting of others (Russian cab drivers and a few odd tech workers in Hillsborough).

yrs,
rubato

I was born and raised in the "inner city." My neighborhood was mostly "colored."

I have been living in three different suburbs since 1977 and I hate suburban life. The idea that I have to get into the (fucking) car to do 90% of the stuff that needs doing drives me nuts. If I could move back into my childhood home right now I would do it in a minute, in spite of the fact that it's only about a third of the size of my current house, has only one bathroom and no garage. Because I could WALK to the store, church, the library, and a hundred or so restaurants. I could walk to two large city parks or bicycle to three more of them. The area is infinitely diverse which just adds to the charm, as far as I'm concerned.

My wife was raised three blocks from where I was, and the only way I could get her back to the City would be in a box.

So it appears I will live out my life in the 'burbs.

I guess I don't fit the "conservative" stereotype.