4 ms·

For reference, this is about 100K people of 4.2M in Oregon (1). The rural counties of Southern Oregon and Northern California have been proposing the state of J

For reference, this is about 100K people of 4.2M in Oregon (1). The rural counties of Southern Oregon and Northern California have been proposing the state of Jefferson for a while now (2). From my experience living there for a few years, it's the most libertarian place I've ever seen. It's like Texas without the Christianity. People there generally support gay marriage, abortion, and cannabis legalization but also low taxes, no gun restrictions and limited government. (1) https://www.oregon-demographics.com/counties_by_population https://www.oregon-demographics.com/counties_by_population (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_st...

UncleOxidant 5y ago
It varies a lot. I spent some growing up years in Southern Oregon and there definitely was a strong evangelical, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion etc. contingent in the town where I was. Lots of Birchers & KKK types as well. This was in the 70s and while the whole QAnon thing now is epistemlogically shocking, it seems like we had a lot of similar kinds of conspiracies running rampant in small southern Oregon towns back then as well. My dad was a science teacher so we felt pretty much like an island of progressivism in a sea of very right wing folk. More than once I recall him shaking his head and muttering something like "These people are nuts!" after an exchange with a local that went off the rails into conspiracy land.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  >while the whole QAnon thing now is epistemlogically shocking only if you have forgotten, as you say, the great satanic panic(s) of the 70s and 80s. And, every few decades, going back to about Carthage... https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997559036/americas-satanic-panic-returns-this-time-through-qanon https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997559036/americas-satanic-pa...
- dumbfoundded 5y ago
  I recently moved from Eagle Point so probably not too far away from where you were. It's certainly a strange and diverse set of people. Everything from weed growers to hippies to evangelicals to conspiracy nuts and everything in between. Most of the people I met there generally distrusted the government and couldn't care less about what you did on your own land.
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    It really is kind of a weird place. I recall that soon after we moved there one of my dad's colleagues explained the situation something like this: "You know about Appalachia, right? Well, it's like there was a part of the Oregon trail that went directly from Appalachia to Southern Oregon - this is Appalachia West." The KKK was really active in that area for a long time which seems weird for a place on the West Coast - but then again, Oregon was founded on excluding Black people. But then we also had The Rainbow People which were a large hippie group that traveled around the PNW and often came into our area for big camp outs. Talk about a cultural divide.
    - Frondo 5y ago
      Oregon has a long history of encoding racism into law, from the Black Exclusion laws from its early history to sundown laws that lasted into the 20th century. Idaho, too -- the Aryan Nations had their headquarters in the Hayden Lake area for a long time, until the early 2000s if I remember. It's only in the big cities that you get a lot of a liberal/progressive presence, outside that you get anywhere from libertarians to evangelicals to the outright racists/alt-right types.
      - sonotathrowaway 5y ago
        Neo-nazis and other racial separatists explicitly advocate for the pacific north west to be their home, as they consider it to be the furthest from Atlanta, which they consider to be majority black. The PNW is also home to Christian nationalist terrorists like Matt Shae, who advocate forced conversion and murder of non-Christian minorities. Fun fact: Oregon arrests and prosecutes minorities more aggressively than every other state in the nation.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        The University of Washington in Seattle was super progressive and accepted black students. Cool, right? Nah, the campus was north of the Montlake Cut, so black students weren't allowed on campus past sundown -- a little past 4 PM in the winter -- until the late 60s. This wasn't somehow special to Seattle, either, but I grew up south of the cut and always wondered why the north end was so white until I learned my history[1]. In public schooling, the framing of the civil rights movement in history classes made me think that it was somehow a problem that the South had. Turns out, every major city I've looked into was segregated, until that became illegal. And even so, real estate agents subtly perpetuate the intent of those old laws to this day [2]. [1] http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/ http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorities-appraisals-discrimination.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorit...
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  I mean Oregon was founded as a white only state it's right in there constitution. > No free negro or mulatto not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbor them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws So it's not surprising so much of the state is like this. People give the south crap but the Pacific Northwest was literally founded on these ideals and it still very much persists to this day.
  - cafard 5y ago
    There were exclusion laws in a fair bit of the Midwest back in the day. I don't know that those states are any more or any less racist than the rest of the US.
  - dumbfoundded 5y ago
    The current racism in Oregon is certainly not something I want to understate but it's unfair to compare Oregon now to the deep South now. The whole of the United States was founded on slavery but a lot has changed. Not nearly as much as has changed in the South. For example, President Obama lost the national white vote 43% to 55% in 2008 (1). In 2008, more than 89% of the voters in Oregon were white and voted for Obama by 59% to 41% (2). I think it's fair to say at least recently, the white people in Oregon think very differently than the white people in the South. Of course, issues around race continue to exist in significant and meaningful ways in Oregon. But saying it's all the same is deceitfully misleading. (1) https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2008 https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2008 (2) https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/states/exitpolls/oregon.html https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/states/exitpo...
    - smaryjerry 5y ago
      This assumes all votes were based on race and that voting for a white person makes you racist and voting for a black person makes you not racist. There is just so much wrong with that.
- deleted 5y ago
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jdhn 5y ago
The counties that make up Jefferson could also be absorbed into Western Nevada, but that's not as sexy as becoming your own state.

UncleOxidant 5y ago

It varies a lot. I spent some growing up years in Southern Oregon and there definitely was a strong evangelical, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion etc. contingent in the town where I was. Lots of Birchers & KKK types as well. This was in the 70s and while the whole QAnon thing now is epistemlogically shocking, it seems like we had a lot of similar kinds of conspiracies running rampant in small southern Oregon towns back then as well. My dad was a science teacher so we felt pretty much like an island of progressivism in a sea of very right wing folk. More than once I recall him shaking his head and muttering something like "These people are nuts!" after an exchange with a local that went off the rails into conspiracy land.

hprotagonist 5y ago
>while the whole QAnon thing now is epistemlogically shocking only if you have forgotten, as you say, the great satanic panic(s) of the 70s and 80s. And, every few decades, going back to about Carthage... https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997559036/americas-satanic-panic-returns-this-time-through-qanon https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997559036/americas-satanic-pa...
dumbfoundded 5y ago
I recently moved from Eagle Point so probably not too far away from where you were. It's certainly a strange and diverse set of people. Everything from weed growers to hippies to evangelicals to conspiracy nuts and everything in between. Most of the people I met there generally distrusted the government and couldn't care less about what you did on your own land.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  It really is kind of a weird place. I recall that soon after we moved there one of my dad's colleagues explained the situation something like this: "You know about Appalachia, right? Well, it's like there was a part of the Oregon trail that went directly from Appalachia to Southern Oregon - this is Appalachia West." The KKK was really active in that area for a long time which seems weird for a place on the West Coast - but then again, Oregon was founded on excluding Black people. But then we also had The Rainbow People which were a large hippie group that traveled around the PNW and often came into our area for big camp outs. Talk about a cultural divide.
  - Frondo 5y ago
    Oregon has a long history of encoding racism into law, from the Black Exclusion laws from its early history to sundown laws that lasted into the 20th century. Idaho, too -- the Aryan Nations had their headquarters in the Hayden Lake area for a long time, until the early 2000s if I remember. It's only in the big cities that you get a lot of a liberal/progressive presence, outside that you get anywhere from libertarians to evangelicals to the outright racists/alt-right types.
    - sonotathrowaway 5y ago
      Neo-nazis and other racial separatists explicitly advocate for the pacific north west to be their home, as they consider it to be the furthest from Atlanta, which they consider to be majority black. The PNW is also home to Christian nationalist terrorists like Matt Shae, who advocate forced conversion and murder of non-Christian minorities. Fun fact: Oregon arrests and prosecutes minorities more aggressively than every other state in the nation.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      The University of Washington in Seattle was super progressive and accepted black students. Cool, right? Nah, the campus was north of the Montlake Cut, so black students weren't allowed on campus past sundown -- a little past 4 PM in the winter -- until the late 60s. This wasn't somehow special to Seattle, either, but I grew up south of the cut and always wondered why the north end was so white until I learned my history[1]. In public schooling, the framing of the civil rights movement in history classes made me think that it was somehow a problem that the South had. Turns out, every major city I've looked into was segregated, until that became illegal. And even so, real estate agents subtly perpetuate the intent of those old laws to this day [2]. [1] http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/ http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorities-appraisals-discrimination.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorit...
tick_tock_tick 5y ago
I mean Oregon was founded as a white only state it's right in there constitution. > No free negro or mulatto not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbor them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws So it's not surprising so much of the state is like this. People give the south crap but the Pacific Northwest was literally founded on these ideals and it still very much persists to this day.
- cafard 5y ago
  There were exclusion laws in a fair bit of the Midwest back in the day. I don't know that those states are any more or any less racist than the rest of the US.
- dumbfoundded 5y ago
  The current racism in Oregon is certainly not something I want to understate but it's unfair to compare Oregon now to the deep South now. The whole of the United States was founded on slavery but a lot has changed. Not nearly as much as has changed in the South. For example, President Obama lost the national white vote 43% to 55% in 2008 (1). In 2008, more than 89% of the voters in Oregon were white and voted for Obama by 59% to 41% (2). I think it's fair to say at least recently, the white people in Oregon think very differently than the white people in the South. Of course, issues around race continue to exist in significant and meaningful ways in Oregon. But saying it's all the same is deceitfully misleading. (1) https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2008 https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2008 (2) https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/states/exitpolls/oregon.html https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/states/exitpo...
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    This assumes all votes were based on race and that voting for a white person makes you racist and voting for a black person makes you not racist. There is just so much wrong with that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jdhn 5y ago

The counties that make up Jefferson could also be absorbed into Western Nevada, but that's not as sexy as becoming your own state.