The State Has a Thousand Eyes

[hso]

We would also like to avoid the Chicago folks as well.

We'd like to avoid them as well, by having them stay there.

 

[armoredman]

And out of AZ, too.

 

[ChanceMcCall]

We'd like to avoid them as well, by having them stay there.

As Chicago has become a nightmare of taxes and regulations and unfunded local government debt, it has been forcing the rest of the state of Illinois down the same drain by its ironclad grip on the Illinois statehouse and all of the statewide offices. For many of the anguished downstaters, moving to another state seems to be the only answer to the problem of Chicago liberal run state, especially since the last election.

For the non-liberal, Illinois now, has little to offer. Our votes no longer count for much except at the local level, the unfunded liabilities promise even higher taxes, and our conservative values of the Bill of Rights are under constant attack by Chicago area liberal Senators and Representatives. As a consequence, many downstaters are fleeing Illinois for different states.

It only makes sense for those of us who want to retain our rights and who are tired of having our resources stolen by those determined to buy votes by giving our money to those who want to live off of other people’s sweat. It makes even more sense given that our votes no longer count and that we have no control over outcomes.

That moving is hard for many of us should not need to be even stated. In my case, my family came to Illinois early enough to have to fight Indians to remain safe. Generation after generation of hard-working family were born and died in Illinois. We’ve had farms and businesses, employed hundreds if not thousands over the years. We have graduated from the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Augustana, Bradley, Mac Murray, and Illinois Wesleyan. Our roots are here. But the Chicago area liberals are destroying our way of life and we are so outnumbered that moving is the only real choice.

Unfortunately, liberal publications are suggesting that liberals need to move also. They are telling them that they will be rescuing the nation, by using their influence to swing the right-wing states to the left.

I have a message to liberals thinking of starting a new life in the red states, I beg of you: Please do not move to the red states. You all broke Illinois, California and most of the East Coast. Your job is, and should be, to stay there and fix it. Some of you, mostly Californians, have already moved to Oregon, Washington, and Colorado and we have seen the results. Stay put and fix the messes you created with your liberal views and politics.

Americans make gentrification and displacement possible by seeing any place that doesn't have what we like or want as being somehow “empty,” dismissing and erasing whole peoples, stories, and landscapes. It's also what allows us to ignore what might be best about all of the other planets in the universe — that we ****ty humans are not on them — and think, “You know what would be great out there? People like us.”

This is, of course, what ruined California, Illinois and most urban centers as well. It's easy to blame greedy developers and tyrannical mayors for the fall of San Francisco, but that is an abdication of responsibility. A certain type of person was attracted to the city starting in the ‘80s and ‘90s and used the greedy developers and tyrannical mayors to help create the city they wanted to live in: a city that was so expensive it would drive out the poor, a city of racially and economically homogeneous neighborhoods, a city with services that could be navigated with apps rather than direct human contact, and a city that protected its well-educated, financially secure citizenry at the expense of all others.

The historian Sarah Schulman tracked the population influx of suburbanites — the children of the white-flight generation — back into New York City in her 2013 book Gentrification of the Mind. But rather than embracing the diversity and urban adventures their parents had fled, they arrived with suburban values and expectations intact. She wrote, “This new crew, the professionalized children of the suburbs, were different. They came not to blend in or to learn and evolve, but to homogenize. They brought the values of the gated community and a willingness to trade freedom for security.”

Please do not move to the red states. You liberals broke the areas you are thinking of leaving. Your job is to stay there and fix it.

When I hear liberals taking about moving, I think back to years ago to some of the big city kids at Boy Scout camps. Rather than cleaning up the messes they made and the far too shallow latrines they dug, they just wanted to move their camp site. Even some of their Scoutmasters felt the same way.

Rarely, when someone is asked why they are moving somewhere, does one reply with a bald-faced “to gentrify the **** out of it,” but that is basically what we have here when liberal move into a stable red state. Frustrated by being priced out of the cities they created through excessive regulation, liberals look to do the same to other people in a place they did not belong.

The red states are often portrayed as disposable areas, or the origin point of all racism and bigotry and misogyny in this country.

Of course, it's not just a sense of blindness that allows someone to build over what's already there — contempt works, too. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in late August, causing more than $150 billion in damage and killing at least 80 people, liberals — who typically boast that they have more empathy and compassion than judgmental, austere conservatives — cheered on the destruction of the evil red state Texas, calling it justified retribution (in the way some social conservatives used to blame gays and feminists for natural disasters) and arguing against rescue and rehabilitation funds. Everyone from probable Russian trolls to blue-check verified commentators to celebrities like Bette Midler joined in this cynical chorus. A common argument against this grim refrain was that Houston itself voted for Hillary Clinton in the election, therefore the city's voting habits made the citizens worth saving. Being vulnerable human beings was not enough.

The red states are often portrayed as disposable areas, or the origin point of all racism and bigotry and misogyny in this country. In the movie Bushwick, which came out recently, a Texas militia invades the Brooklyn borough for reasons that remain unclear, and their mindless violence and vague aims turn them into any other Hollywood-style terrorists. Meanwhile, the good-girl protagonist, played by Brittany Snow, is a pretty white thing and her manly savior is also white, while all of the looters, rapists, and murderers are men of color. And while critics rightly called the plot thin and the characters flat, few took the time to point out the dehumanization of the red staters on display.

Again, there is precedent for this, like Britain's argument for not intervening in the 1940s famine in Bengal, part of the British Empire at the time. Indians, Churchill argued, brought this on themselves, as they “breed like rabbits and must pay the price of their own improvidence.” Or the way native tribes in South America were discussed by Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th century, who also had a financial interest in the rubber found on the natives' land. They were of course backwards, savage, violent, illiterate heathens, and there was nothing of value in their culture or their lives. So much the easier, then, to take what was theirs.

Problems are never solved by invasion. Storming into a place because you think you know more than its inhabitants about how things should be is ignorant and dangerous. If you want to make a difference in the way this country is run, start with where you are. Start by seeing that the income inequality of San Francisco, New York, and Chicago is as bad a cultural issue as the perceived homophobia and misguided voting patterns of the red states, and you’ll start to see how you have just as much opportunity to effect change where you are.

And besides, the red states are not empty and red state culture — yes, it exists — is not devoid of value. I shudder to think of the Brooklyn expat-culture homogenization coming here, in the way that it has ruined entire neighborhoods in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Austin.

I like, and always have liked, gas-station coffee and rodeos and state fairs where some preteen girl presents the pig she has been raising since she was just a wee thing and the hunters who share their venison at the bar and the potluck feeds held at the local church and country music on the jukebox and waitresses who call me sweetie. My wife and I like trapshooting on weekends, and hunting in season. I like the fact I’m unlikely to be mugged or carjacked because the would-be bad guys know they might be met with armed resistance rather than pathetic crying. I also know that my well-armed wife can go where she wants without fear of assault or rape. If those are red states problems, that’s where I want to be and why we are moving to Tennessee and hoping you don't follow.

 

[jmorris]

Apparently, if this bill passes the Illinois State Police are going to start searching social media (including forums like this one) ....

Any chance they will subcontract individuals? Could be a 2nd income for law abiding individuals like all of us..,

 

[armoredman]

As Chicago has become a nightmare of taxes and regulations and unfunded local government debt, it has been forcing the rest of the state of Illinois down the same drain by its ironclad grip on the Illinois statehouse and all of the statewide offices. For many of the anguished downstaters, moving to another state seems to be the only answer to the problem of Chicago liberal run state, especially since the last election.

For the non-liberal, Illinois now, has little to offer. Our votes no longer count for much except at the local level, the unfunded liabilities promise even higher taxes, and our conservative values of the Bill of Rights are under constant attack by Chicago area liberal Senators and Representatives. As a consequence, many downstaters are fleeing Illinois for different states.

It only makes sense for those of us who want to retain our rights and who are tired of having our resources stolen by those determined to buy votes by giving our money to those who want to live off of other people’s sweat. It makes even more sense given that our votes no longer count and that we have no control over outcomes.

That moving is hard for many of us should not need to be even stated. In my case, my family came to Illinois early enough to have to fight Indians to remain safe. Generation after generation of hard-working family were born and died in Illinois. We’ve had farms and businesses, employed hundreds if not thousands over the years. We have graduated from the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Augustana, Bradley, Mac Murray, and Illinois Wesleyan. Our roots are here. But the Chicago area liberals are destroying our way of life and we are so outnumbered that moving is the only real choice.

Unfortunately, liberal publications are suggesting that liberals need to move also. They are telling them that they will be rescuing the nation, by using their influence to swing the right-wing states to the left.

I have a message to liberals thinking of starting a new life in the red states, I beg of you: Please do not move to the red states. You all broke Illinois, California and most of the East Coast. Your job is, and should be, to stay there and fix it. Some of you, mostly Californians, have already moved to Oregon, Washington, and Colorado and we have seen the results. Stay put and fix the messes you created with your liberal views and politics.

Americans make gentrification and displacement possible by seeing any place that doesn't have what we like or want as being somehow “empty,” dismissing and erasing whole peoples, stories, and landscapes. It's also what allows us to ignore what might be best about all of the other planets in the universe — that we ****ty humans are not on them — and think, “You know what would be great out there? People like us.”

This is, of course, what ruined California, Illinois and most urban centers as well. It's easy to blame greedy developers and tyrannical mayors for the fall of San Francisco, but that is an abdication of responsibility. A certain type of person was attracted to the city starting in the ‘80s and ‘90s and used the greedy developers and tyrannical mayors to help create the city they wanted to live in: a city that was so expensive it would drive out the poor, a city of racially and economically homogeneous neighborhoods, a city with services that could be navigated with apps rather than direct human contact, and a city that protected its well-educated, financially secure citizenry at the expense of all others.

The historian Sarah Schulman tracked the population influx of suburbanites — the children of the white-flight generation — back into New York City in her 2013 book Gentrification of the Mind. But rather than embracing the diversity and urban adventures their parents had fled, they arrived with suburban values and expectations intact. She wrote, “This new crew, the professionalized children of the suburbs, were different. They came not to blend in or to learn and evolve, but to homogenize. They brought the values of the gated community and a willingness to trade freedom for security.”

Please do not move to the red states. You liberals broke the areas you are thinking of leaving. Your job is to stay there and fix it.

When I hear liberals taking about moving, I think back to years ago to some of the big city kids at Boy Scout camps. Rather than cleaning up the messes they made and the far too shallow latrines they dug, they just wanted to move their camp site. Even some of their Scoutmasters felt the same way.

Rarely, when someone is asked why they are moving somewhere, does one reply with a bald-faced “to gentrify the **** out of it,” but that is basically what we have here when liberal move into a stable red state. Frustrated by being priced out of the cities they created through excessive regulation, liberals look to do the same to other people in a place they did not belong.

The red states are often portrayed as disposable areas, or the origin point of all racism and bigotry and misogyny in this country.

Of course, it's not just a sense of blindness that allows someone to build over what's already there — contempt works, too. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in late August, causing more than $150 billion in damage and killing at least 80 people, liberals — who typically boast that they have more empathy and compassion than judgmental, austere conservatives — cheered on the destruction of the evil red state Texas, calling it justified retribution (in the way some social conservatives used to blame gays and feminists for natural disasters) and arguing against rescue and rehabilitation funds. Everyone from probable Russian trolls to blue-check verified commentators to celebrities like Bette Midler joined in this cynical chorus. A common argument against this grim refrain was that Houston itself voted for Hillary Clinton in the election, therefore the city's voting habits made the citizens worth saving. Being vulnerable human beings was not enough.

The red states are often portrayed as disposable areas, or the origin point of all racism and bigotry and misogyny in this country. In the movie Bushwick, which came out recently, a Texas militia invades the Brooklyn borough for reasons that remain unclear, and their mindless violence and vague aims turn them into any other Hollywood-style terrorists. Meanwhile, the good-girl protagonist, played by Brittany Snow, is a pretty white thing and her manly savior is also white, while all of the looters, rapists, and murderers are men of color. And while critics rightly called the plot thin and the characters flat, few took the time to point out the dehumanization of the red staters on display.

Again, there is precedent for this, like Britain's argument for not intervening in the 1940s famine in Bengal, part of the British Empire at the time. Indians, Churchill argued, brought this on themselves, as they “breed like rabbits and must pay the price of their own improvidence.” Or the way native tribes in South America were discussed by Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th century, who also had a financial interest in the rubber found on the natives' land. They were of course backwards, savage, violent, illiterate heathens, and there was nothing of value in their culture or their lives. So much the easier, then, to take what was theirs.

Problems are never solved by invasion. Storming into a place because you think you know more than its inhabitants about how things should be is ignorant and dangerous. If you want to make a difference in the way this country is run, start with where you are. Start by seeing that the income inequality of San Francisco, New York, and Chicago is as bad a cultural issue as the perceived homophobia and misguided voting patterns of the red states, and you’ll start to see how you have just as much opportunity to effect change where you are.

And besides, the red states are not empty and red state culture — yes, it exists — is not devoid of value. I shudder to think of the Brooklyn expat-culture homogenization coming here, in the way that it has ruined entire neighborhoods in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Austin.

I like, and always have liked, gas-station coffee and rodeos and state fairs where some preteen girl presents the pig she has been raising since she was just a wee thing and the hunters who share their venison at the bar and the potluck feeds held at the local church and country music on the jukebox and waitresses who call me sweetie. My wife and I like trapshooting on weekends, and hunting in season. I like the fact I’m unlikely to be mugged or carjacked because the would-be bad guys know they might be met with armed resistance rather than pathetic crying. I also know that my well-armed wife can go where she wants without fear of assault or rape. If those are red states problems, that’s where I want to be and why we are moving to Tennessee and hoping you don't follow.

Amen, sir, amen.