7 ms·

speaking as someone who works in a small town in the midwest as an auto mechanic, the people that shot themselves in the foot with this idea were the very ones

speaking as someone who works in a small town in the midwest as an auto mechanic, the people that shot themselves in the foot with this idea were the very ones who proposed it. I got 5 months of free online Python classes from the local government. This was part of some larger state plan to 'revitalize' us as a 'web 2.0' something or other for the 'silicon valley' of the midwest. The whole thing read like snake oil but I learned some pretty good skills in python and a lot more about Linux than I knew before. Our state has these lofty goals but couldnt attract more than a mega-truck-stop diner in the past 8 years. The reason for this is that unless you have a winning complexion (are white and male) you arent going to have a lot of fun here. Want birth control? well thats a 2 week waiting period and a mandatory consultation. Did you run out? well you have to renew that script every month. Want it covered by your insurance? tough, legally, our state outlawed that. Need an abortion? book a flight, we require a trans-vaginal ultrasound and a waiting period. Are you LGBTQ? enjoy our bathroom law. adoption providers can also legally discriminate against you for even asking to adopt. theres also no protections in the workplace, so enjoy being fired for "gay." Are you a blue-collar minority? Unless you know exactly when and where to go to get a license, then voting is practically impossible. our bowling alleys and food courts/theaters also enforce a dress code thats loosely translated to "no blacks."

weberc2 8y ago
What state is this? How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? Apologies if these questions are naive, I'm not particularly familiar with midwest politics.
- aurailious 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure the comment didn't say that.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    To be clear, I was responding to this: > Are you a blue-collar minority? Unless you know exactly when and where to go to get a license, then voting is practically impossible. How else can you interpret this? Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites? Or perhaps the "minority" bit is a red-herring altogether and the salient criterion is "blue-collar"?
    - apcragg 8y ago
      Or groups of people live in certain geographic areas and are not served by public transit or near government offices like a DMV. That can have the effect of making it generally harder one one group despite equal competence.
      - weberc2 8y ago
        This would be interesting and I’m curious about the extent to which this happens, but this hypothesis doesn’t support the claim that “absent information about getting an ID, it is nearly impossible for blue-collar minorities (but not their white counterparts) to vote”. Also, if you lack access to public transit, I would expect you’re more likely to have an ID, not less so.
        cannonedhamster 8y ago
        Literally there are states where they closed voting locations and DMV locations in predominantly minority areas. They created a requirement for a license and then claimed it would only impact 16 year olds and they would "drive to people's houses" at the same time that they claimed they were "out of money". Nevermind that the whole state has an issue with not enough polling stations. https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-licen... https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgia-county-abandons-plan-to-close-polling-stations-in-rural-areas/ https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgia-county-abandons-pl... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elections-closed-voting-sites-impact-minority-voter-turnout/1774221002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elect...
    - aurailious 8y ago
      > Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites? But your comment wasn't suggesting this. You were suggesting that the law was explicitly discriminatory to require minorities alone to need ID and whites could vote without ID.
      - 8y ago
- neuronexmachina 8y ago
  I don't know about the specific state the commenter is referring to, but this article from a couple years ago discusses some of the laws passed that (intentionally or unintentionally) make it more difficult for certain demographics to get an ID: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ashleyn 8y ago
  I'm also pretty sure no state managed to successfully pass and keep a "bathroom law", especially after the enormous outrage against North Carolina.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  > How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? By only asking minorities to prove they are carrying ID. "The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books. Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.
  - cinquemb 8y ago
    >"The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books. >Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too. "Organized Democracy" by Melanin 9: `youtube-dl -f mp4 'QPls-Gi_4Ig'` speaks to this very much.
woolvalley 8y ago
It's like the 'non-racist capitalists will out compete racist capitalists due to the discriminated group being "cheaper"' principle applied to the entire government.
cgoecknerwald 8y ago
I absolutely agree with your call-out. If a company has to have a "good culture" to attract talent, then so does a county, city, or state. Since I no longer have to live in a state that fights against my rights, I may very well choose to live (and therefore work) in other states for the rest of my life. However, I do wonder if we are over-conflating "rural" with "conservative." Certainly, they are correlated, but I can imagine it's a lot different to live a rural life in California versus Mississippi.
- Benjammer 8y ago
  I think you would probably be surprised how similar rural area culture can be on opposite sides of the country.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    But there is one key difference: in a rural area in a blue state, you at least have the protection of state law. If you get discriminated against for being gay, you can sue. You don't have to jump through hoops for birth control or abortion. You don't need an ID to vote. Yeah, sure, your neighbors might be hostile to you, but having the state government behind your back helps immensely.
  - JeremyNT 8y ago
    Sure, but at least you won't find statues of traitorous, racist war criminals lording over you when you go to file paperwork at your local county seat, or Confederate flags proudly displayed at your local state parks. There's something different about it when it's government sanctioned.
- nimbius 8y ago
  I agree. And its not like im here to bash conservatives, its just looking at all these super tech companies like google and apple, its hard to imagine Tim Cook seriously considering locating his business in a state where his ER surgeon could refuse service to him because he is gay. most of our effort to get into the fast lane of "silicon valley" has been a thinly-veiled attempt at doing something, anything, to reduce crime, Fentanyl overdose, and systemic unemployment thats plagued our region since 2008. The people who are pushing silicon valley just want the money. They dont understand that its more than money and training.
ip26 8y ago
The skills are probably still worth teaching. Many professions could really benefit from some Swiss army computer skills (and it's not always obvious which pairings are good). Biology, for example, really could use some solid database skills. I have seen million-line barely manageable Excel documents that were born to be an SQL database. Makes me cry.
ourmandave 8y ago
Need an abortion? book a flight, we require a trans-vaginal ultrasound and a waiting period. There's a coalition in my state that believes all life is sacred and abortion should be illegal even in cases of incest and rape. God's will and so forth...
- war1025 8y ago
  It's a shame how much abortion gets pushed as a wedge issue. It's great at riling people up and getting them to cluster into their particular camps, but at that point people who would otherwise be able to agree on other issues and actually make progress decide to just not talk to each other.
  - ep103 8y ago
    abortion and gun control. We can limit the amount of abortion that occurs, without banning abortion (sex education, birth control, health insurance, family planning, adoption center funding, etc). And we can limit the negative impacts of gun ownership on society, without gun bans (NICB, mental health funding, red flag laws, standardized licensing, increased funding for already existing laws, significantly increased police accountability, etc) . But no one wants to talk about these things. Instead, we keep talking about them as wedge issues. Ban Abortion / Abortion is a right. Ban X,Y,Z Guns / Gun Ownership is a right. If you want a jolly good time, find someone who is adamant on one of those issues, have them give an explanation for a while, then see how far you can get in the other issue before they realize they're using all the same arguments but from the opposite viewpoint.
    - addicted 8y ago
      I’m sorry, but the left has not only talked about all these things, but they’ve actually pushed legislation for this. The idea that the US left does not even want to talk about sex Ed, birth control, health insurance...mental health funding, funding research on the effects of guns, licensing, etc... is so out of whack from reality. You are basically taking what every one on the US left (almost no one in any sort of governmental power on the US left has proposed a gun ban) is pushing for and complaining that no one wants to talk about it. It’s remarkable how entrenched the idea that the only problem is that both sides are equally wrong is in the US.
pjc50 8y ago
It sounds like they're committed to the values that are important to them, regardless of the huge disadvantages. What's the way to change this?
- war1025 8y ago
  That's true of most people. Emotions universally trump facts.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  The last time it came to that, the US had a civil war. I am not advocating it in this case, but ultimately you can only have so divergent ideas about life and rights before it comes down to who has the biggest (or the most) effective guns.
mikestew 8y ago
Without really needing to know, I'm guessing either Indiana (my home state) or North Carolina (lived there three years). I say that only because we'd never go back to NC because of differences in opinion and politics, and never, ever go back to IN because it appears to have gone even more (ahem) divergent from my opinions since we moved out twenty years ago. The things I heard come out of the mouths of clients when I had a consultancy in IN would send a native West Coaster to the fainting couch. So, yeah, I used to live there and I'll never go back, let alone attract anyone who tans a little too well.
- jacob019 8y ago
  Most hoosiers are good people. Indianapolis is blue. We don't have these draconian rules.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    Twenty years ago, right before we moved out, Marion County (i. e., Indianapolis) prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith decide multiple black young men in a car was probable cause for a stop. It stands out in my mind because I remember thinking, “boy, am I glad to be getting the hell out of here.” Perhaps my information is a bit outdated, but it was within the lifetime of most reading this. I lived in that state for 35 years. You’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that Elwood (as one example) welcomes their new dark-skinned neighbors (should they dare move there) with open arms in less than a generation since I last did business there. Which is one of many reasons I have no desire to bring my high-tech skills back home.
  - wahern 8y ago
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing People in rural and conservative communities aren't bad people. And IME people in urban and liberal communities aren't even any less racist. The biggest difference is that those with power in urban and liberal communities (i.e. middle-class and whites) are more likely to acquiesce when confronted with claims of prejudice or inequality. This propensity to acquiesce is considered radical by conservative communities, who view themselves as being principled.
tomjen3 8y ago
Jesus. What state is that? waiting periods for birth control? No blacks? WTF, is this 1920?
someguydave 8y ago
Non-costal people are bad and should be collectively punished.
village-idiot 8y ago
Even for those of us who are male, white, and straight, your state sounds unpleasant. Convincing someone like me to move there is going to be very expensive.
rukittenme 8y ago
I have lived in three states: Washington, North Carolina, and Tennessee. I have no idea what state you are in to have all of these restrictions. The only thing I can think of is you are conflating many laws from many states across a large time period. Birth control? An annual (3 years in Washington) cancer screening and check up for your birth control prescription. Possibly covered by insurance but not REQUIRED. Which is different from OUTLAWED. Not that it matters, my wife's birth control costs $85 every three months and we can pay for it with our HSA. That's hardly emptying anyone's bank account especially when you compare it to the ACA which requires every citizen spend >$100/mo on insurance that does mostly nothing! Bathroom laws? Oh yeah? Which one! There are none currently in existence. There were certainly more than a few that were considered but only one passed and it was repealed! LGBTQ restrictions on adoption? Adoption by same-sex couples is legal in all 50 states! LGBTQ workplace protections? There are certainly protections at the federal level. But yes, you're right. Places like North Carolina do not have any laws on the books which expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. But ask yourself, what is the practical effect on LGBTQ people? I would argue there is no effect. You might as well be in California. I have worked at many companies with many LGBTQ people and all of them were safer in their employment than I was! No company wants the backlash that comes from being perceived as anti-LGBTQ. Society has adequately regulated the protection of LGBTQ people where governments have not. As for the apparent racism of rural areas. Having grown up with a great many black friends I've: * Never met a black person who could not get a driver's license. * Never been exposed to a dress code that prohibited black people. --- Look I have my own gripes about rural living (the South specifically). But I won't lie or live in some bizarre universe where the South is hell on earth.
lkrubner 8y ago
You say that well. I associate this idea with Richard Florida, who has written about the Creative Class and the Tolerance Index: "The map above shows how metros across the U.S. score on the Tolerance Index, as updated for The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. The chart below shows the top 20 metros. Developed by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, it ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups." https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/07/geography-tolerance/2241/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/07/geography-tolerance/2...

weberc2 8y ago

What state is this? How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? Apologies if these questions are naive, I'm not particularly familiar with midwest politics.

aurailious 8y ago
I'm pretty sure the comment didn't say that.
- weberc2 8y ago
  To be clear, I was responding to this: > Are you a blue-collar minority? Unless you know exactly when and where to go to get a license, then voting is practically impossible. How else can you interpret this? Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites? Or perhaps the "minority" bit is a red-herring altogether and the salient criterion is "blue-collar"?
  - apcragg 8y ago
    Or groups of people live in certain geographic areas and are not served by public transit or near government offices like a DMV. That can have the effect of making it generally harder one one group despite equal competence.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      This would be interesting and I’m curious about the extent to which this happens, but this hypothesis doesn’t support the claim that “absent information about getting an ID, it is nearly impossible for blue-collar minorities (but not their white counterparts) to vote”. Also, if you lack access to public transit, I would expect you’re more likely to have an ID, not less so.
      - cannonedhamster 8y ago
        Literally there are states where they closed voting locations and DMV locations in predominantly minority areas. They created a requirement for a license and then claimed it would only impact 16 year olds and they would "drive to people's houses" at the same time that they claimed they were "out of money". Nevermind that the whole state has an issue with not enough polling stations. https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-licen... https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgia-county-abandons-plan-to-close-polling-stations-in-rural-areas/ https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgia-county-abandons-pl... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elections-closed-voting-sites-impact-minority-voter-turnout/1774221002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elect...
  - aurailious 8y ago
    > Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites? But your comment wasn't suggesting this. You were suggesting that the law was explicitly discriminatory to require minorities alone to need ID and whites could vote without ID.
    - 8y ago
neuronexmachina 8y ago
I don't know about the specific state the commenter is referring to, but this article from a couple years ago discusses some of the laws passed that (intentionally or unintentionally) make it more difficult for certain demographics to get an ID: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ashleyn 8y ago
I'm also pretty sure no state managed to successfully pass and keep a "bathroom law", especially after the enormous outrage against North Carolina.
snowwrestler 8y ago
> How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? By only asking minorities to prove they are carrying ID. "The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books. Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.
- cinquemb 8y ago
  >"The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books. >Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too. "Organized Democracy" by Melanin 9: `youtube-dl -f mp4 'QPls-Gi_4Ig'` speaks to this very much.

woolvalley 8y ago

It's like the 'non-racist capitalists will out compete racist capitalists due to the discriminated group being "cheaper"' principle applied to the entire government.

cgoecknerwald 8y ago

I absolutely agree with your call-out. If a company has to have a "good culture" to attract talent, then so does a county, city, or state. Since I no longer have to live in a state that fights against my rights, I may very well choose to live (and therefore work) in other states for the rest of my life. However, I do wonder if we are over-conflating "rural" with "conservative." Certainly, they are correlated, but I can imagine it's a lot different to live a rural life in California versus Mississippi.

Benjammer 8y ago
I think you would probably be surprised how similar rural area culture can be on opposite sides of the country.
- amyjess 8y ago
  But there is one key difference: in a rural area in a blue state, you at least have the protection of state law. If you get discriminated against for being gay, you can sue. You don't have to jump through hoops for birth control or abortion. You don't need an ID to vote. Yeah, sure, your neighbors might be hostile to you, but having the state government behind your back helps immensely.
- JeremyNT 8y ago
  Sure, but at least you won't find statues of traitorous, racist war criminals lording over you when you go to file paperwork at your local county seat, or Confederate flags proudly displayed at your local state parks. There's something different about it when it's government sanctioned.
nimbius 8y ago
I agree. And its not like im here to bash conservatives, its just looking at all these super tech companies like google and apple, its hard to imagine Tim Cook seriously considering locating his business in a state where his ER surgeon could refuse service to him because he is gay. most of our effort to get into the fast lane of "silicon valley" has been a thinly-veiled attempt at doing something, anything, to reduce crime, Fentanyl overdose, and systemic unemployment thats plagued our region since 2008. The people who are pushing silicon valley just want the money. They dont understand that its more than money and training.

ip26 8y ago

The skills are probably still worth teaching. Many professions could really benefit from some Swiss army computer skills (and it's not always obvious which pairings are good). Biology, for example, really could use some solid database skills. I have seen million-line barely manageable Excel documents that were born to be an SQL database. Makes me cry.

ourmandave 8y ago

Need an abortion? book a flight, we require a trans-vaginal ultrasound and a waiting period. There's a coalition in my state that believes all life is sacred and abortion should be illegal even in cases of incest and rape. God's will and so forth...

war1025 8y ago
It's a shame how much abortion gets pushed as a wedge issue. It's great at riling people up and getting them to cluster into their particular camps, but at that point people who would otherwise be able to agree on other issues and actually make progress decide to just not talk to each other.
- ep103 8y ago
  abortion and gun control. We can limit the amount of abortion that occurs, without banning abortion (sex education, birth control, health insurance, family planning, adoption center funding, etc). And we can limit the negative impacts of gun ownership on society, without gun bans (NICB, mental health funding, red flag laws, standardized licensing, increased funding for already existing laws, significantly increased police accountability, etc) . But no one wants to talk about these things. Instead, we keep talking about them as wedge issues. Ban Abortion / Abortion is a right. Ban X,Y,Z Guns / Gun Ownership is a right. If you want a jolly good time, find someone who is adamant on one of those issues, have them give an explanation for a while, then see how far you can get in the other issue before they realize they're using all the same arguments but from the opposite viewpoint.
  - addicted 8y ago
    I’m sorry, but the left has not only talked about all these things, but they’ve actually pushed legislation for this. The idea that the US left does not even want to talk about sex Ed, birth control, health insurance...mental health funding, funding research on the effects of guns, licensing, etc... is so out of whack from reality. You are basically taking what every one on the US left (almost no one in any sort of governmental power on the US left has proposed a gun ban) is pushing for and complaining that no one wants to talk about it. It’s remarkable how entrenched the idea that the only problem is that both sides are equally wrong is in the US.

pjc50 8y ago

It sounds like they're committed to the values that are important to them, regardless of the huge disadvantages. What's the way to change this?

war1025 8y ago
That's true of most people. Emotions universally trump facts.
tomjen3 8y ago
The last time it came to that, the US had a civil war. I am not advocating it in this case, but ultimately you can only have so divergent ideas about life and rights before it comes down to who has the biggest (or the most) effective guns.

mikestew 8y ago

Without really needing to know, I'm guessing either Indiana (my home state) or North Carolina (lived there three years). I say that only because we'd never go back to NC because of differences in opinion and politics, and never, ever go back to IN because it appears to have gone even more (ahem) divergent from my opinions since we moved out twenty years ago. The things I heard come out of the mouths of clients when I had a consultancy in IN would send a native West Coaster to the fainting couch. So, yeah, I used to live there and I'll never go back, let alone attract anyone who tans a little too well.

jacob019 8y ago
Most hoosiers are good people. Indianapolis is blue. We don't have these draconian rules.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Twenty years ago, right before we moved out, Marion County (i. e., Indianapolis) prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith decide multiple black young men in a car was probable cause for a stop. It stands out in my mind because I remember thinking, “boy, am I glad to be getting the hell out of here.” Perhaps my information is a bit outdated, but it was within the lifetime of most reading this. I lived in that state for 35 years. You’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that Elwood (as one example) welcomes their new dark-skinned neighbors (should they dare move there) with open arms in less than a generation since I last did business there. Which is one of many reasons I have no desire to bring my high-tech skills back home.
- wahern 8y ago
  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing People in rural and conservative communities aren't bad people. And IME people in urban and liberal communities aren't even any less racist. The biggest difference is that those with power in urban and liberal communities (i.e. middle-class and whites) are more likely to acquiesce when confronted with claims of prejudice or inequality. This propensity to acquiesce is considered radical by conservative communities, who view themselves as being principled.

tomjen3 8y ago

Jesus. What state is that? waiting periods for birth control? No blacks? WTF, is this 1920?

someguydave 8y ago

Non-costal people are bad and should be collectively punished.

village-idiot 8y ago

Even for those of us who are male, white, and straight, your state sounds unpleasant. Convincing someone like me to move there is going to be very expensive.

rukittenme 8y ago

I have lived in three states: Washington, North Carolina, and Tennessee. I have no idea what state you are in to have all of these restrictions. The only thing I can think of is you are conflating many laws from many states across a large time period. Birth control? An annual (3 years in Washington) cancer screening and check up for your birth control prescription. Possibly covered by insurance but not REQUIRED. Which is different from OUTLAWED. Not that it matters, my wife's birth control costs $85 every three months and we can pay for it with our HSA. That's hardly emptying anyone's bank account especially when you compare it to the ACA which requires every citizen spend >$100/mo on insurance that does mostly nothing! Bathroom laws? Oh yeah? Which one! There are none currently in existence. There were certainly more than a few that were considered but only one passed and it was repealed! LGBTQ restrictions on adoption? Adoption by same-sex couples is legal in all 50 states! LGBTQ workplace protections? There are certainly protections at the federal level. But yes, you're right. Places like North Carolina do not have any laws on the books which expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. But ask yourself, what is the practical effect on LGBTQ people? I would argue there is no effect. You might as well be in California. I have worked at many companies with many LGBTQ people and all of them were safer in their employment than I was! No company wants the backlash that comes from being perceived as anti-LGBTQ. Society has adequately regulated the protection of LGBTQ people where governments have not. As for the apparent racism of rural areas. Having grown up with a great many black friends I've: * Never met a black person who could not get a driver's license. * Never been exposed to a dress code that prohibited black people. --- Look I have my own gripes about rural living (the South specifically). But I won't lie or live in some bizarre universe where the South is hell on earth.

lkrubner 8y ago

You say that well. I associate this idea with Richard Florida, who has written about the Creative Class and the Tolerance Index: "The map above shows how metros across the U.S. score on the Tolerance Index, as updated for The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. The chart below shows the top 20 metros. Developed by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, it ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups." https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/07/geography-tolerance/2241/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/07/geography-tolerance/2...