Ohio, pulled in two directions (Cleveland, Dayton: houses, universities, living)

[EarthBound?]

Originally Posted by austiNati

Ewwww. Found the person who's voting against folks rights. If the integrity of this nation comes down to your pickup truck and what food you like, I can't wait for the full shift left.
Ohio is being pulled in two directions alright. Between those who want to build a sustainable nation for the future, and those who want to take it back to a time that's been mythologized and never really existed (the so called great mid-20th century).

Thanks to capitalism I'm doing well, GOD,, GUNS AND GUTS.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by SlideRules99

...I find CLE to be a good cultural fit. Certainly left-leaning, but with more counterbalance (locally, regionally, and state-wide) which keeps things in check.

I happen to like a variety of people and viewpoints. Echo chambers, to me, do nothing except reinforce one’s own personal biases. That would put me in a permanent rut. ...

Fair points, but I’ll interject with once again emphasizing culture over politics. What we think of the “wedge issues” and the news of the day (immigration policy, trade, taxes, what’s taught in public school, Supreme Court decisions, taunts and tweets) can have profound impact on our lives, but ultimately it’s politics. Not only can reasonable people disagree, but to your point, there’s strength in variety.

“Culture” is harder to mix. The son of a US diplomat and a French heiress, who attended boarding school in Switzerland, who got an engineering degree from ETH Zurich and a law degree from Harvard, who now practices patent-law and charges $500/hour, who lives alone and indulges in a string of casual intimate relations, will struggle to find common-ground with the Baptist family next door, with 3 kids home-schooled, where the dad worked at GM but now limps along as a handyman, and the mom is a homemaker. It is entirely possible, that perhaps for different reasons, our hero, and this working-class couple, voted for the same candidates for political office. But what, beyond superficial cordiality, do they have in common as neighbors?

Originally Posted by EarthBound?

Thanks to capitalism I'm doing well, GOD,, GUNS AND GUTS.

The "guns" portion is more flexible than perhaps you perceive. Not sure what's meant by "guts". But as for "god", yes, that is exactly the sort of cultural disagreement that renders it difficult to form genuine bonds of affection, with one's neighbors and fellow townspeople.

[EarthBound?]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

Fair points, but I’ll interject with once again emphasizing culture over politics. What we think of the “wedge issues” and the news of the day (immigration policy, trade, taxes, what’s taught in public school, Supreme Court decisions, taunts and tweets) can have profound impact on our lives, but ultimately it’s politics. Not only can reasonable people disagree, but to your point, there’s strength in variety.

“Culture” is harder to mix. The son of a US diplomat and a French heiress, who attended boarding school in Switzerland, who got an engineering degree from ETH Zurich and a law degree from Harvard, who now practices patent-law and charges $500/hour, who lives alone and indulges in a string of casual intimate relations, will struggle to find common-ground with the Baptist family next door, with 3 kids home-schooled, where the dad worked at GM but now limps along as a handyman, and the mom is a homemaker. It is entirely possible, that perhaps for different reasons, our hero, and this working-class couple, voted for the same candidates for political office. But what, beyond superficial cordiality, do they have in common as neighbors?



The "guns" portion is more flexible than perhaps you perceive. Not sure what's meant by "guts". But as for "god", yes, that is exactly the sort of cultural disagreement that renders it difficult to form genuine bonds of affection, with one's neighbors and fellow townspeople.

God, Guns and Guts is the term used by Patriots/Military meaning that that's what our Great and Beloved country was built on. Having more than one political party helps to keep a good and healthy balance to make her strong. We don't need a Hitler like president that claims that the other side is a threat. If they make that kind of statement, then they are the Hitler and need to be replaced.

[Cleverfield]

Originally Posted by EarthBound?

God, Guns and Guts is the term used by Patriots/Military meaning that that's what our Great and Beloved country was built on. Having more than one political party helps to keep a good and healthy balance to make her strong. We don't need a Hitler like president that claims that the other side is a threat. If they make that kind of statement, then they are the Hitler and need to be replaced.

Comparing a soft-spoken, somewhat bumbling Biden to the methed out megalomaniac cult leader that was Hitler is actually hilarious. By the way, are you really that blind to how much Trump and the other MAGA republicans try to demonize democrats and make them out as a threat to our country? Trump literally says that democrats are trying to destroy the country all the time.

[sheena12]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

Culturally, the midsection of every nation, away from the principal cities, will be more conservative and more religious.

Ohio led innovation in technology, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cleveland and Dayton, just to give two examples, were hives of invention, in the tech of the time. For whatever reason, that spirit of innovation waned after WW2. It migrated to the Coasts. Then, just as the South came to develop more, becoming more affluent and worldly, the Midwest faded, so that now there’s little cultural distinction in the swath between Minnesota and Alabama, and that includes Ohio… with the patch around Cleveland, for now, perhaps as vestigial outlier.

The prevalence of good economic prospects, tends to mask cultural disagreement. If most of us are doing reliably well, we have little cause to bicker over the political wedge-issues. Cocktail parties can be filled with work-related anecdotes or jokes about some anodyne topic. But if economic vitality declines, people withdraw into their cultural and political tribes. Differences flare. Animosity rises. Persons of unpopular or unusual views, come to feel particularly unwelcome.



Doctrinaire political adherences can be privately harbored by people who are nevertheless polite and cheerily open. But most memorable to us, are interactions with those who aren’t so polite. With that disclaimer, in my experience, it’s colorful representatives of the “MAGA types”, who themselves tell me to my face, that I’m “not worthy to be [their] neighbor”. The gist of the remarks, omitting the more vitriolic ones, is that “elitists like you, are selling our country out. You just don’t get it, and never will!”

My solution was to leave.

I never asked for a solution. We REALLY like Cleveland and we do not think that Ohio is unsalvagable.

The stigma of entrenched racism, Jim Crow, and moronic religious groups rules out the south for more people than you know.

No. I will not "get" the nonsense that you are attempting to peddle. Nor will I see to do so.

My views are not unpopular or elitist. Do you know what's unpopular? Hatred of LGBTQIA folks. Devotion to the fetus. Racism. "Crisis Pregnancy Centers", Being forced to have a baby when you were raped. Speaking in tongues and falling on the floor at church? That is beyond bizarre.

These thoughts are just plain weird.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by sheena12

...The stigma of entrenched racism, Jim Crow, and moronic religious groups rules out the south for more people than you know. ...

A couple of years ago, during a cross-country drive then still in its Midwestern stage, I decided to punctuate the monotony by calling the 800-number or 855-number or whatever it was, on one of those cheery Christian highway billboards. Unexpectedly, the result was an hour+ theological debate with the fellow manning the phones. He was as expected a Protestant, but the main topic was whether the Calvinist doctrine of predestination is, or is not, the same as the more mainstream Christian (and especially Catholic) doctrine of original sin. I kept trying to steer the conversation (while steering the car) towards the writings of Augustine, while the guy on the phone really wanted to focus on the Pauline letters in the New Testament. If memory serves, we found common ground after we realized that Augustine was a neo-Platonist, and that Plato's ideas on "innate knowledge" can be (if one likes) interpreted as a divine imprint onto the human soul, of universal ideas of morality and human iniquity.

Didn't really reach a definitive conclusion, but it made the drive pass faster. And no, I didn't send-in a donation.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by Cleverfield

Trump literally says that democrats are trying to destroy the country all the time.

The Democrats destroyed the city of Detroit. You cannot argue that.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

A couple of years ago, during a cross-country drive then still in its Midwestern stage, I decided to punctuate the monotony by calling the 800-number or 855-number or whatever it was, on one of those cheery Christian highway billboards. Unexpectedly, the result was an hour+ theological debate with the fellow manning the phones. He was as expected a Protestant, but the main topic was whether the Calvinist doctrine of predestination is, or is not, the same as the more mainstream Christian (and especially Catholic) doctrine of original sin. I kept trying to steer the conversation (while steering the car) towards the writings of Augustine, while the guy on the phone really wanted to focus on the Pauline letters in the New Testament. If memory serves, we found common ground after we realized that Augustine was a neo-Platonist, and that Plato's ideas on "innate knowledge" can be (if one likes) interpreted as a divine imprint onto the human soul, of universal ideas of morality and human iniquity.

Didn't really reach a definitive conclusion, but it made the drive pass faster. And no, I didn't send-in a donation.

This sounds actually awesome.

[EarthBound?]

Originally Posted by Cleverfield

Comparing a soft-spoken, somewhat bumbling Biden to the methed out megalomaniac cult leader that was Hitler is actually hilarious. By the way, are you really that blind to how much Trump and the other MAGA republicans try to demonize democrats and make them out as a threat to our country? Trump literally says that democrats are trying to destroy the country all the time.

Well.....they're ( dumbocrats) completing the task right now of destroying our great nation. So I guess he must of knew something was coming. But not all of them are bad, there are a handful good ones I must admit.

[Cleverfield]

Originally Posted by EarthBound?

Well.....they're ( dumbocrats) completing the task right now of destroying our great nation. So I guess he must of knew something was coming. But not all of them are bad, there are a handful good ones I must admit.

So what you’re saying is “if my guy says the other side is a threat he’s right, but if the other guy says that we’re a threat he’s Hitler”. That doesn’t seem hypocritical at all to you?