Tell me about living in the US

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about living in the US

reagan: Apr 29, 2008; by Lowtax

I'm from North Dakota, but I've traveled enough to realize that with the exception of a few cities, the country is the same type of poo poo with some slightly different accents. People who get so hopped up on red state/blue state hysteria make my eyes roll so far that they just about fall out of their sockets.

My state is empty, and as I've grown older I've appreciate that more and more. It's somewhat insulated from the problems affecting the country and the world. People from other parts of the country, the coasts in particular, have a weird sense of elitism and always like to joke about how the state doesn't exist, no one has ever heard of it, etc. To them, the entire middle part of the country is the "flyover states." You get that kind of sentiment with city vs. countryside in every country, though.

Yes, people carry guns. Usually not open, but concealed carry. People are fat and getting fatter, mostly because people eat out constantly and drink tremendous amounts of soda.

There's a protest about a pipeline that you may have heard of. People here don't really care. They don't have love for the oil companies, but they don't have love for Native Americans either. Part of it is because they view many of the protesters as tourists from the coasts who are just here to have one big party and pretend like they give a poo poo about these poor bastards living on the Res. It's the flavor of the month for these people.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 08:34

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 05:24

reagan: Apr 29, 2008; by Lowtax

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

jesus christ

for non-americans, this is about an oil pipeline that was deliberately re-routed away from a predominantly white community (because they were afraid of spills) and through native american land instead

so this is a good illustration of how someone can see their government do some horrendous racist poo poo and then feel smugly superior to... the people protesting it

You missed my point. Just lol if you don't think that these pathetic liberals will abandon this cause as soon as the next trendy one pops up.

As for concerns about re-routing the pipeline, going to the south is going to impact more than just native Americans downstream in the Missouri river, but I suppose it's always easier to reduce things to RACISM rather than think about them in a critical manner.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 03:11

reagan: Apr 29, 2008; by Lowtax

LogisticEarth posted:

RE: DAPL pipeline outrage. I'm inclined to side with the folks who think it's only a national issue because it's trendy and has a good narrative around it. What makes this particular pipeline construction notable is largely because there was a very organized protest by the local native population, and the police response.

There are pipelines going in all over the country, every day. The reason I think that the DAPL is just flavor-of-the-week is because, for example, there's a large natural gas pipeline going right through my county in PA, and I have friends talking about flying to North Dakota to join the protest, when they barely do anything about the one right in their backyard. Shady stuff going on with the FERC environmental assessments, cutting through prime watersheds, etc.

It was the same deal with fracking in PA. Everyone in Philly and NYC was screaming their heads off about how evil fracking was without really understanding the real situation. Meanwhile the towns up in Bradford county with a median income of $18,000 were enjoying actually poking their heads out of grinding poverty for a while.

I've worked in the environmental consulting world for nearly a decade, and am now in watershed protection with county government. What we need are watchdogs and engaged citizen scientists, not protestors. I need volunteer water testers, people to map and monitor environmentally sensitive areas. We need people to advocate for rational water protection regulations, not waste breath on shutting down one singular controversial project. poo poo, even folks to come to our local watershed association meetings and serve as a board member or help them update the website. Instead, people spend their time ranting on Facebook and sending pre-printed postcards to their senator about a project half a country away.

This is not a problem unique to my area. The "national outrage" model we seem to have has gutted a lot of local organizations that do the most good on the ground.

Yes, thank you. You see poo poo like this with everything, not just environmentalism. National outrage - I like it.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 02:01

reagan: Apr 29, 2008; by Lowtax

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

No, I got your point. You're trying to defend "we don't care, because we don't care about native americans", which is pretty hard given how obviously wrong it is! So the only option you have is to pretend that actually no-one cares, and they're just pretending to be care so people will think they're cool or w/e

I'm not trying to defend people's attitude re: native americans, I am just stating a fact. People in this state do not care about them.

As for the snopes link: I lived in Bismarck last year - I can assure you I never heard of any meetings where us whites told them to move the pipeline south specifically to gently caress over natives. Give me a loving break, dude.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 02:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about living in the US