I've noticed that with few exceptions, the places with the lowest taxes, the least regulation, the highest amount of abortion restrictions (Africa, Latin America, rural Dixieland) are shitholes. Conversely, the places with the highest taxes, the most amount of regulation, and the easiest abortion laws (Yankee America, EU, Canada) aren't shitholes. I wonder what the conservative response to this would be.
Conservative policies vs liberal policies
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Well noticed. You are finally getting a grip on reality, though comparing America to EU there is like comparing a grade B- student to an A at least or A+ at most depending which EU nation.
I'd say Yankee America is pretty close to the EU (at least compared to how close it is to Africa).
But this doesn't explain South Africa, which is a shithole despite having high taxes and legal abortion.
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@TheUnderdog
I've noticed that with few exceptions, the places with the lowest taxes, the least regulation, the highest amount of abortion restrictions (Africa, Latin America, rural Dixieland) are shitholes. Conversely, the places with the highest taxes, the most amount of regulation, and the easiest abortion laws (Yankee America, EU, Canada) aren't shitholes. I wonder what the conservative response to this would be.
As ever, I will remind you that you are using those word incorrectly and without understanding.
By definition, Liberals believe in minimizing state interference in the free market, including taxes. By definition, Liberals believe in less regulation including less government regulation of unpopular medical procedures like abortion.
By definition, Conservatives believe in preserving state and cultural institutions- property rights, organized religion, the preservation of constitutional, legal, and social principles.
Contrary to the teachings of FOX News, Liberalism and Conservatism are not diametrically opposed poles on some political spectrum. You can be Liberal and Conservative at the same time in any free and fair state. The majority of the American political center has always been Liberal and Conservative. Our current president is correctly labeled both Liberal and Conservative. Most Western parliamentary democracies have at least one Liberal Conservative party.
What you are describing when you look to politics in Africa, South America, Southern states in the US is Authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. The suppression of parliamentary process, multi-party exchanges of power, voting rights are not inherently conservative or liberal, they are inherently Authoritarian. When you see Southern states banning the teaching of civil rights in the classrooms, despising Journalistic critique, controlling the authority of medicine, making voting more difficult, enforcing laws unequally, etc you are seeing the preservation and/or emergence of authoritarianism in the US. The reason Authoritarian economies are always weaker than Democratic economies is that they restrict the free flow of accurate information and the dynamic power sharing that leads to correction, progress, adaptation. All authoritarianism is inherently stagnant because its only real agenda is self-promotion and self preservation. Look at Ukraine vs Russia- the strength of volunteers working together to preserve their community vs. an isolated dictator whose own generals weren't told they were going to war because they might contradict the assumptions of that dictator.
It is not Conservative vs. Liberal, that is FOX News divisiveness. The dynamic you are describing is the freer markets of democracy vs. the self-preserving controls of authoritarianism.
I guess this is the thread to make unfounded accusations about politics and geography.
Reasons people move away from California
High Cost of Living
Rising Tax Rates
Unemployment
Housing Crisis
Insecurity (due to crime)
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@CoolApe
The Weather with a capital “W”
First things first. California averages 300-plus days of sunshine per year. Think about that as you watch snowplows cruise by or while the long underwear does cartwheels in your dryer.
Second, it’s always spring (or summer) if you live near the state’s expansive coast line, where temperatures rarely drop below 40 degrees or soar above the upper 70s. Of course, it’s warmer in Southern California than Northern California, but the real changes manifest when you head inland. There, the Pacific Ocean’s moderating effects are reduced, or in some cases, eliminated.
Travel an hour or more east from the coasts and it won’t be uncommon to experience 80s and 90s during summer days but chillier winter nights in the 30s and 40s.
If colder climes are your thing, head for the hills. The state is home to mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades, where elevations can exceed 14,000 feet. California also is home to some of the hottest areas in North America, including Death Valley, which is quite possibly the hottest place on the planet. Several of the state’s deserts, including the Coachella Valley (home to Palm Springs), have four months of average high temperatures above 100 degrees. The trade-off is they also have six months of 70-to-80-degree weather. Just remember, it’s a dry heat.
Varied terrain means an abundance of outdoor activities
Moving from left to right, or from the Pacific to the East, you start with 840 miles of coastline, the third most of any state in the U.S. That means any water sport imaginable and beach activities galore. Miles of paths along the water offer opportunities for cycling, running, and inline skating. Several areas feature hills that are ideal for hiking. And did we mention beaches? The state is home to Surf City (Huntington Beach), equally “surfy” Santa Cruz and a host of other of notable beaches (Carmel, Coronado, Laguna, La Jolla, Newport, Pebble … it’s a long list).
California also is home to some of the nation’s best skiing. Mammoth Mountain has one of the longest ski seasons in North America. Heavenly and Squaw Valley in the Lake Tahoe region are highly regarded as well.
In between, the state has more than 430 lakes, and fishing on them and on the ocean is a popular pastime as well.
Healthy state of being
The combination of great weather and numerous activity options are two factors that lend themselves well to healthy lifestyle.
US News has ranked California the nation’s healthiest state. Its rating takes a variety of health indicators into account, including obesity, smoking and mortality rates, among other things. The state’s healthcare system is rated as the nation’s fifth best, according to the same rankings.
Need more evidence? Since 1924, California has produced twice as many Olympic gold medalists (122) than any other state.
Booming economy
According to the state’s research, California had a $3.1 trillion economy in 2019, which would make it the world’s fifth largest. Its labor force includes 19 million workers and nearly 764,000 employer firms. More than 99 percent of those have 500 or fewer employees, which is the federal government’s definition of a small business. And applications for new businesses rose 22.6 for the year ending June 2021, again according to the state’s calculations.
California also is the top state for global trade, according to Bloomberg Business News. It exported $156.1 billion in goods in 2020, which represented 11.2 percent of all U.S. exports.
In fact, every single industry except logging and mining saw job increases in 2021, according to state figures, and US News rated California’s economy as the 10th best in 2021.
Employment opportunities galore
It makes sense that any economy on the scale of California’s will have enormous upside and diversity of opportunities. As a result, the state’s median household income is the sixth-highest in America ($80,440 annually compared with the U.S. median of $65,712).
The top-paying industries are technology and entertainment, neither of which should come as much of a surprise.
The state is home to an estimated 2,000 tech companies, including industry leaders such as Apple, Oracle, eBay, Yahoo, PayPal, Facebook, and Google. Software, social media, robotics, fiber optics, and medical instruments are tech fields that have a massive presence in California.
Entertainment is driven by film and television production, much of it centered in greater Los Angeles area.
Travel and tourism contributed almost $115 billion to the economy in 2019, and that industry employs more than 1.2 million Californians.
Another biggie is the service sector, which includes professional, business, education and health services, plus financial and leisure activities. Where possible, hybrid work models quickly were embraced by California firms.
A darkhorse contributor to the economy is agriculture, which contributed $47.1 billion to the state’s economy in 2020, according to California.com. Milk, almonds and produce such as asparagus, grapes, lettuce, oranges, and tomatoes are the biggest parts to that.
Elite education
The state is particularly well known for its array of well-respected higher education institutions, including Stanford, University of Southern California, California Institute of Technology, and University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles.
These are big businesses for the state. The University of California system, which includes 10 universities and several more research centers, contributes a GDP of $120 billion annually, and the Cal State University system adds $17 billion of annual economic activity.
There are many secondary education options between public, private, and a growing number of charter schools that now numbers 1,300.
We’ll drink to that
California accounts for a staggering 87 percent of the wine produced in the United States. If it were an independent nation, California would produce the fourth most wine in the world, trailing only Italy, Spain and France. The most well-known area is on the North Coast, home to Mendocino, Sonoma, and the Napa Valley. Other vibrant vino-producing areas include the Sierra foothills, the Inland or Central Valley, the Central Coast (from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara), and pockets within Southern California, particularly inland near Temecula.
At the forefront of renewable energy
California accounts for 36 percent of the $900 billion renewable energy sector in the United States, per Bloomberg. The state derives 21 percent of its electricity from solar power, far outpacing any other state. It has been at the forefront of promoting hybrid and electrical vehicles.
Endless entertainment options
We can’t have all work and no play, now can we? Of course not. California has you covered there, too.
The state is, of course, home to Disneyland and California Adventure in Anaheim, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita, Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, Legoland California and SeaWorld in north San Diego County, Gilroy Gardens and Castle Park near San Francisco, the Monterey Aquarium, Hearst Castle, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Fisherman’s Wharf.
There’s also the world-famous San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, Redwoods National Park, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
So you like sports? This state is home to five Major League Baseball teams and three franchises each in the NFL, NBA, and NHL, plus high-end college programs in every sport.
And you can rest assured that every major music and theater act will play somewhere in the state, quite likely several somewhere, during their tour.
Plenty of culture
The outdoors is great, but if art and museums bring sunshine to your day, there is plenty to choose from in that realm, too. The state is home to numerous world-renown museums and art galleries. These include the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Norton-Simon Museum in Pasadena, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino near Pasadena and the Irvine Museum.
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@RationalMadman
Plenty of good conservative places to live. Liberal places don't have a monopoly on the best places to live because of high taxes and regulation.
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@TheUnderdog
Thunderdog.
Just out of interest:
When did you last visit the EU or Africa?
And in your mind, what actually constitutes a "shithole".
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@CoolApe
But US conservative places are less right wing, economically especially, than a lot of the place Underdog was referringnto as a comparison.
Compared to Mexico or Nigeria, even Tennessee and Texas are closer to the Left Wing.
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@TheUnderdog
Conservatives have played the "just because it worked in other places doesn't mean it will work in America" card for hundreds of years longer than I've been alive. It also works in America 95% of the time anyways.
Society slides to the left as its GDP per capita and quality of life increases. The right has always been the ones pushing against progress (e.g. monarchists, anti-abolitionists, corporatists, the list goes on). Throughout history, major moves to the left like the abolition of slavery or the Magna Carta are considered milestones of progress that were incredibly good for society. If the right hypothetically got their way, I think we'd all think that'd suck.
Conservatives have fought against progress and fought for upholding current injustices for millennia. Even if I had no other reason to be a socialist, why should I expect it's any different now?
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@TheUnderdog
California: Am I a joke to you?
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@TheUnderdog
For the most part, areas lag today that lagged 100 or even 50 years ago. That's not to say they "haven't gotten better", as short of the Sentinel Islands it's pretty much impossible to find somewhere on earth that's as poor today as it was 100 years ago. But they lag behind the old wealthy cores, which have ways of quietly reinforcing their advantages from one generation to the next.
I've noticed that with few exceptions, the places with the lowest taxes, the least regulation,
You mean like China, which attracted so much foreign investment through its status as a beacon of unbridled capitalism that it lifted a billion people out of abject poverty in less than 50 years?
the highest amount of abortion restrictions
Let's have this conversation again in 40 years, when three generations of abortion-induced sub-replacement birth rates will have rendered much of the West chronically short of skilled workers.
(Pro tip: Maybe killing off your next generation in the womb isn't good for your country's long-term economy.)
rural Dixieland) are shitholes
Come again? Have you visited the South any time since the year 1980?
We lag behind the richest parts of the U.S., sure. But we are still solidly first world. And from accounts I've heard, the South was much poorer as recently as 1970, whereas some "rust belt" areas up north were arguably better off in 1970 than today.
Yankee America, EU, Canada
So the places that were wealthy 100 years ago, long before they had abortion-on-demand or gay marriages, are still wealthy today? Who woulda thunk?
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@RationalMadman
-->@TheUnderdog
Bad argument comparing politics of places like Mexico and Nigeria to the United States.
The meaning of terms of Left and Right only make sense in reference to the positions of political parties in your own country. Yes there are some religious and political similarities, but in no means is a conservative in America identical to a conservative in Mexico or Nigeria. I will not argue about the political parties of countries which I don't understand and I know nobody else knows about.
The terms Liberal and conservative have very little meaning to me. A liberal is someone who wants change and a conservative is someone who wants to keep more traditional ways of doing things. However, I would say even traditionally-minded conservatives often do want change for their societies but don't want to cast the baby out of the bath water. Therefore, I will use terms like republican and democrat to eliminate the false dichotomy between these two parties.
Republicans tend to believe in laissez-faire economics and whenever possible the individual should be able make sovereign choices. I argue society is free and productive because of our economic freedoms and sovereign choice. We see this as fact when compare ourselves to societies with very little economic freedom and sovereignty (e.g. Russia, China, Mexico). The fact that the solutions of the democrats lead to higher taxes and regulation means less economic freedom and sovereignty for people not more.
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@zedvictor4
And in your mind, what actually constitutes a "shithole".
A place with a high poverty rate.
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@TheUnderdog
So you're a materialist, who only sees value in money and possessions?
From a progressive evolutionists perspective, I suppose that is a reasonable proposition.
Though humanists might see value in other aspects of society.
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@zedvictor4
So you're a materialist, who only sees value in money and possessions?
I don't see myself as this. A materialist is someone that spends whatever money they have. I invest and I'm proudly addicted to investing.
Though humanists might see value in other aspects of society.
If all the humanists adopted a homeless person and sponsored a child in poverty, child poverty and homelessness would be gone.
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@TheUnderdog
So are you a humanist?
Or just a hermit that lives in a shack, who only ever invests..... And spends only the bare minimum in order to survive?
So what is the long term goal?......Given the brief amount of time we have on this planet.
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@zedvictor4
So are you a humanist?
No.
Or just a hermit that lives in a shack, who only ever invests..... And spends only the bare minimum in order to survive?
I don't live in a shack, but I'm closer to this than a humanist.
So what is the long term goal?......Given the brief amount of time we have on this planet.
Get rich, get powerful. If your religious (I'm not), try to do things that will help you go to heaven (note if this means giving to the poor, you need to keep it a secret). If your not religious, enjoy life on this planet. For me, that means getting rich just in case I need the money. I also want to doomsday prep just in case we have nuclear war. Either that, or I would kill myself if there was nuclear war because I don't want to be eaten alive.
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@TheUnderdog
What about next week?.....As there's no guarantee that you will even make it beyond that.
So many people save for the future, but fail to make it there.
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@zedvictor4
What about next week?.....As there's no guarantee that you will even make it beyond that.
I can say with reasonable certainty that I will be alive next week.