Personally, I am also convinced there's unlikely to be a flip of Indiana from red to blue (unless something changes), so I have to consider which red I want, or dislike the least.

I haven't researched the new likely front runner yet. I've only seen comments here, which likely won't favor him, but I might not either after I consider his record and stances, IDK.

Rock and a hard place?

Thanks for the insight.

It's a shame we still can all just get along. That saying is lame, but it's ultimately the goal.

One of my ideas, that isn't terribly realistic or shouldn't have to be resorted to, is to locate our selves in regions that are more welcoming.

There was a person at my work who was lesbian, which I suspected, but they weren't open. One day at a social event, they brought their wife and brother (for support) and made public. I was stupid and didn't put all that together until then.

They moved to Washington State and both have great jobs now. I felt like part of that move was related to moving to a region known to support their life style more welcomingly, at least compared to Indiana.

You shouldn't have to do that, but if I could stack enough chips to afford doing that and needed to, I would.

I said above that you shouldn't have to do that ever. No one should be treated like shit by whole groups of people, political, religious or other wise.

I like the idea of states competing for talent and opportunity. Washington also tried decriminalization of all drugs. Lots of people nay sayed. I thought it was great. They tried an experiment instead of just listening to a bunch of wind bags. That didn't work as it was implemented, but we all got real world data, and identified other failures of legislation that went beyond just drugs (treatment, transportation issues, logistics, funding,.etc). I might be all talk though, I would not want to conduct that here.

Weed is the same way. All the states doing it are eventually going to have eliminated all excuses for now allowing it. Some states still might never. That's ok. People can shuffle around based on what's important to them.

You shouldn't ever have to be subjected to mistreatment just for who you are though, anywhere in America.

I hate both our parties, most of all politicians, and a large majority of our policies in their current form. There's no one for me to vote for, and no national pride in what they do or represent.

I enjoyed the weird feeling when all the traffic was very scarce, and even though stores and shops were open, everything seemed to stop for 30 minutes as everyone stood outside.

It was like capitalism took a 20 minute break, and I wish we could do that more often. Not a ton, just a little

Are all Republicans the 'same' I your opinion?

I often want to think that people can be conservative and like some Republican ideas, but without the stereotypical bigotry stuff.

Personally now, I think that's less and less possible, but part of why I'm asking.

I feel like I'm running into less barely Republican people, and more very Republican people. I guess by that, I mean people whom are more accepting or believing that their policies are right (being very opposed to immigration, accepting LGBTQ, pro corporate, etc).

I like the Midwest, and dislike the East Coast look and feel. I haven't been on the West Coast enough to form a meaningful opinion.

I also don't qualify for discrimination targeting. Most of the corruption I'm surrounded by seems to relate more to socioeconomics and greedy politicians than people who care about someone's color/etc, but again, maybe naive...

OMG, a video:

https://youtu.be/aZDAxcLU-oQ?si=AzFScngwEn9RBr8o

one of the marginalized groups

You're a double or triple then...:)

the people who elect these bigots know exactly what they stand for, and they support it. South Dakota has a really problematic history But anyone who supports Republicans here knows exactly what they’re getting

Do you think that is a majority, or just a powerful/extreme small group?

I don't know anything about SD, so I'll have to google what you're talking about.

I can’t legitimize their worldview by having anything to do with them beyond what my work requires

I can relate to this in a small way. I'm probably way more conservative then most average/stereotype lemmy users, but I find that the view points of people I work with are far more extreme/right than mine. I'm maybe barely right, or right in some things, and left in others? Who cares. I just cannot for the life of me see how they can only view things/people from one side. When they rant about left/D things, I point out the same things about right/R things, it's like they lose their minds. It's all fake news and brainwashing, but they don't see the hypocrisy in anyway. I have no idea how.

I am still hoping the whole region isn't as bad as I'm led to believe. That's the reason some of your view points are helpful.

I tend to agree with the nice and kind part of Midwest, with exception that it seems like we're becoming more hard-line against things people call woke or alternate life styles.

I'm using a universal 'we' since, and I think you're right - there's a difference between urban city thinking and rural community thinking.

I have a whole theory about the city thinking and rural thinking having to due with ownership or property, but that's a whole other thing...

Makes sense. Thanks. I have heard of R7. Had not heard of Qualys.

So it's your belief or feeling that the major motivator and shift in politics related to religion and acceptance was over a pivotal issue of abortion? In this SDs case, the abortion issue opened the door for trading values from one party to the devotion to another?

Would you say that shift was in spite of not everyone being fully committed to the rest of the GOP/R's values? You suggested they overlook all the things they don't generally agree with, or as much with, just to support the abortion ban?

These people don’t think people like Noem and Trump go far enough. It’s actually important to understand that even the “nice church people” types believe this. They support much more extreme policies than what we’re seeing.

Holy shit, what do they want, a culling?

There's some mega churches around me, but they are very modern, kid glove, and do the whole 'come as you are'. That's not the same thing as accepting people in the letter community, they still think those people are living wrong, but they are generally more compassionate about it.

Edit, I think some of those churches would love to have letter community people attend, but that's because they'd hope to love on them enough to have them change their life. I honestly believe they'd be doing it out of genuine concern or 'love', regardless of whether that's misguided or not. How misguided and crazy that sounds to people usually depends on how they feel about these people's lives and if you accept them for who they are or not.

Example, I think most of the common mega church people around here would follow the Bible's parable about the adulteress and 'let the person without sin cast the first stone' approach. God in that example shows he cares about her more than the bad thing she did first, then calls out people for a lack of compassion and thinking what they were doing wrong was more OK than her, but lastly said 'go and sin no more' which was basically 'try to stop doing this'. My post isnt about religion, I'm just using this as an example to illustrate that I think there's varying degrees of people/religion/bigotry and I am not sure if regions are all the same.

What you're describing sounds far more extreme to me than people around me in Indiana, but again, I might be missing things.

Edit: I forgot to say this, but this is only responding to the contents of your post. Your link takes me to the kbin login page.

crap, I'll fix it, hold on. It was supposed to be someone speaking of their oppression. Edit, I think I got the link right. It opened in a different browser for me this time.

@LinkOpensChest_wav@midwest.social @Pandantic@midwest.social How is the general population?

In the midwest, we are called the Bible belt. We are also accused of being the biggest bigots, with terms like neo Christianity or religio-fascists. I like to think/pretend that law makers are a little more extreme or loud than the general population, but they still pander to a base that elects them, so that negates my idea to some extent. Maybe the process of legislating looses nuance and empathy because it's difficult to do that in law? I'm not sure. Maybe I have an unrealistically rosy view of the region. I'm not in a group that would feel oppression or hatred for who I am unless I go to places with people who do, then I get labeled or target by those because I look like their oppressors (which is ironic, but understandable).

Indiana had the religious freedom act, which was a huge black eye. I could write a huge rant on cake lady. The short version is my refusal to accept her ideas as Christian/religion based, not mine anyway. IMO, Jesus never treated anyone like shit other than the Pharisees, whom he constantly schooled for 'missing the point'. I think she was just a plain old fashion bigot, and I wish she would have just said "I don't like gay people". I wouldn't have to agree, but at least she'd be honest and take the proper heat for it.

Unfortunately, I know there's plenty of criticism for the Midwest, conservative region that probably has some roots in religion, but I'm not sure if it's just because of religion or the negative manipulation of it. Example: Islam is inherently bad and violent, or it was corrupted to manipulate people to violence and hate?

I haven't often heard Hogsett and the FOP be on the same side of an argument.

What are people's views on judges having the (usually) sole power in certain circumstances like sentences?

Should they all be elected or appointed, or a mix?

I often have contempt for judges because they have so much power in their special room.

Was this a miscarriage of justice?

I haven't looked at sentencing for similar crimes, but wonder if this was typical for the situation. I know I wouldn't be happy if my wife was killed. No sentence would probably due.

That's some spicy 🔥 chicken!

I dislike Facebook / meta so much, I can't think objectively about the implications here.

I wonder how many people will just consent?

Why is this not an acceptable option?

It annoys me that we've given so much power to a single social media company by thinking the thing is so important that we have to have it.

Why can't we just stop using it? That's the only way to take back power.

Further than ad blockers, if the page doesn't work with reader mode or simple view, I don't read it, just swipe back.

Between insane ad intrusiveness, the ridiculous notifications about cookies, and the general terrible usability and lack of concern for a clean, user focused design of most sites now, I can't use most of the Internet these days.

We need a new model. Free isn't free anymore, it's more taxing than fees

I part of why I posted this was awareness, and partly because it frustrates me.

I don't know how you feel about traffic enforcement, but this is one of my least favorite ways law enforcement 'serves us'. At the same time, I also recognize that there's probably enough stories that justify it. If you or your family member were almost killed by some clown driving crazy on the interstate, you might be all for drivers getting stopped for 25 over speed limit.

So, most of me supports law and order, but I am also super irritated that the speed limit of 465 is so low. I feel like they want everyone to speed and get tickets. This isn't a very mature attitude, but I cannot find any proper documentation to justify the super low speeds. Did you see the speed stats Copilot cited from one of those sources? Literally everyone goes faster on the beltway, and my opinion is that's because 55 is too slow. I know the sayings 'speed kills' and stuff about faster moving cars don't alleviate congestion, I still don't think 55 is right.

There's some pretty terrible design flaws of the beltway, like the transition from the Northside to the Northwest side (865 split) which constrains traffic and is backed up for a mile+ most days.

Am I the only one who's frustrated about a lack of mobility, on top of the majority of the central population not being served by public transportation? It's not like you can park at a metro stop in one of the suburbs and take a train into anything inside the beltway. Even if you took the bus, it would be an hour+ right?

I guess since this is based on a state law, the population would have to press their legislative reps to change the law. I can't imagine there's any realistic fix for all the suburban commuter traffic that still has to drive in/out of the beltway area and downtown. Good thing all the corps are continuing to push RTO to keep that boot on our necks...

I spent Wednesday tracking down what was transferring too much data. It was domain controllers. The team didn't figure out why though. I'm waiting in anticipation. I also can't call people names without knowing/JK

Ha, youi right about people going too fast in then. I see a soccer mom van going under the speed limit until they get into a roundabout, then it's Tokyo drift time. I'm usually unlucky and following them out just to return to painfully under the speed limit again. I'm the opposite. Faster on straight where no pedestrian and slow in circles. Slower in circles means people can merge in better and with more confidence like you mentioned.

I think the land scraping serves two purposes, stop a run through, and it visually blocks traffic since you've only supposed to be concerned about traffic to the immediate left I think.

Interestingly, but not surprising, there's a shopping mall called Clay Terrace in Carmel that is basically walkable strip mall.

It has a lot of cross walks and two circles. I find there's people who yield readily because they know the area is intended for pedestrians, and some treat it like regular roads. They put up flashing crossing lights when people pass sensors. That helped a lot.