At what point is America no longer a safe place for me to live?

[arewethereyet]

I've been thinking about this topic a bit more. I just turned 65. For the majority of my life the biggest threat was a potential car accident. I am not sure I am as attuned to other threats as I would be had I grown up with them. We just didn't think about it other than making sure that while at a concert or something you were protective of your purse/valuables.

Of course, I am a white woman who came of age in the 70s. I got some snarky remarks about being a hippie but being a petite white woman didn't really make me a target....unless Ted Bundy had shown up...had the long hair parted in the middle, the color he preferred.

I spent decades thinking I could just go where I wanted, when I wanted, and all would be fine.

Now I don't know if some wingnut is going to show up at Target and start shooting.

Always a loner...Amazon, Chewy, and being able to order groceries online means I seldom have to leave the house and deal with people. An occasional trip to the pharmacy or the post office is about the limit of my outings. I go once a week to the office to drop off and pick up paperwork...the only thing I have to worry about is James being in a mood.

I don't think I have the experience to be alert enough to be allowed out in public, especially at night.

[TaraJo]

 We're in the worst timeline, but we were very close to having a second President Clinton. She would have gotten the SC justice pick Obama should have gotten, and would have gotten to replace RBG, giving the court a slight liberal majority. 

No, I don't think she would have.  

And that was 6 years ago.  The republicans have gotten even more extreme since then.

[Brian37]

 We're in the worst timeline, but we were very close to having a second President Clinton. She would have gotten the SC justice pick Obama should have gotten, and would have gotten to replace RBG, giving the court a slight liberal majority. 

No, I don't think she would have.  

And that was 6 years ago.  The republicans have gotten even more extreme since then.

No shit Jo (I hope you don't mind me shortening that, I always loved Jo from Facts Of Life growing up slightly younger than the real actress, because she didn't put up with any bullies. I could have used her as a friend in grade school through HS)

As I said before it is not paranoia to equate the tactics of our far right to the actions of the Nazi party rise. They are acting in the same false victim, scapegoating, wrongful vilification, Goebbels "accuse the other of what you do yourself" and "repeat a lie long enough". Trump and the GOP not getting to Kristallnacht or "The Night Of Long Knives" yet, does not mean the stage has not started to end up at that point.

[Brian37]

I've been thinking about this topic a bit more.  I just turned 65.  For the majority of my life the biggest threat was a potential car accident.  I am not sure I am as attuned to other threats as I would be had I grown up with them.  We just didn't think about it other than making sure that while at a concert or something you were protective of your purse/valuables.

Of course, I am a white woman who came of age in the 70s.  I got some snarky remarks about being a hippie but being a petite white woman didn't really make me a target....unless Ted Bundy had shown up...had the long hair parted in the middle, the color he preferred.

I spent decades thinking I could just go where I wanted, when I wanted, and all would be fine.

Now I don't know if some wingnut is going to show up at Target and start shooting.

Always a loner...Amazon, Chewy, and being able to order groceries online means I seldom have to leave the house and deal with people.  An occasional trip to the pharmacy or the post office is about the limit of my outings.  I go once a week to the office to drop off and pick up paperwork...the only thing I have to worry about is James being in a mood.

I don't think I have the experience to be alert enough to be allowed out in public, especially at night.

No no no, don't stop with a civilian wingnut. We also have right win wingnuts in office, who have passed laws in a couple of states now, making it legal for civilians to sue anyone who helps a women even just try to get health care advice at a Planned Parenthood clinic, even if they are not going to have an abortion that visit. That fucking scares the shit out of me. So it isn't just civilian crazies you have to worry about. Representative Taliban Barbie Lauren Boebert said in a video just a while back, "The Church tells the government what to do, not the other way around." Holy Hitchens did that send chills up my spine. That stupid bitch shit on Susan B Anthony who got annoyed with people claiming they knew what God wanted them to do." And it shit on Jefferson and Paine and even Christopher Hitchens who wrote a book about how important Jefferson was to the path that lead to more and more freedom over the centuries.

Now, that isn't to argue Jefferson was a God to blindly be worshiped. Neither should Hitchens. Hitchens was alcoholic and I have to admit, I ignored fellow atheists when they told me that. But after a few times seeing him interviewed and seeing his glazed eyes and slight slurs, they were absolutely correct. Even in Hitchens decline, even he admitted he could have taken it easier on the booze and smokes. 

So while you are right to fear some civilian wingnut blowing your head off because they didn't like you supporting a liberal or progressive friend or politician, remember politicians can have those same bat shit nuts hyper nationalist bullshit that a civilian could in evil manor, light you up in public. So right now, we are a skunk's butthair from civilian bullshittery getting others harmed or killed, to the state itself not giving a flying fuck about human rights or political pluralism and eventually making cops and judges and juries independent of any oversight if they don't like you for what you believe or whom you love or the party you vote for.

[TheJefe817]

Representative Taliban Barbie Lauren Boebert said in a video just a while back, "The Church tells the government what to do, not the other way around." Holy Hitchens did that send chills up my spine. 

In that same video, she confidently declared that separation of church and state was not in the constitution.  That was far more chilling to me.  I mean, we have to take a test to get a drivers' license, so to be a member of Congress....

[Fireball]

[TheJefe817]

I watched that whole movie (Religulous, for anyone who didn't know) with my daughter last weekend - I always laugh out loud many times over, sadly.  We also watched the obligatory "Letting Go Of God" from Julia Sweeney.  She's (my daughter, not Sweeney) one of the few people I'm "out" to (and her to me as well), and these helped me explain a lot of my reasons why.

[GUBU]

I watched that whole movie (Religulous, for anyone who didn't know) with my daughter last weekend - I always laugh out loud many times over, sadly.  We also watched the obligatory "Letting Go Of God" from Julia Sweeney.  She's (my daughter, not Sweeney) one of the few people I'm "out" to (and her to me as well), and these helped me explain a lot of my reasons why.

That's one thing I (thankfully) don't get. Over here, I can be out as irreligious to pretty much anybody and the worst I'll get is a shoulder shrug and a meh. When I was out of work during the crash, I volunteered with an English language school for asylum seekers founded by a group of nuns, and even there I had no issues at all being an out and out non-believer. Literally nobody batted an eye at me, whether they were in holy orders or lay people.

One thing that I'll stress about the organisation that ran the school, they were strictly non-religious in all their dealings.

[TheJefe817]

That's one thing I (thankfully) don't get.  Over here, I can be out as irreligious to pretty much anybody and the worst I'll get is a shoulder shrug and a meh.  When I was out of work during the crash, I volunteered with an English language school for asylum seekers founded by a group of nuns, and even there I had no issues at all being an out and out non-believer.  Literally nobody batted an eye at me, whether they were in holy orders or lay people.

One thing that I'll stress about the organisation that ran the school, they were strictly non-religious in all their dealings.

Well, considering the lack of irreligious politicians (at least publicly) here, that's a clue as to what it's like in general.  There are some areas/states/regions where it is worse than others.  Specific to the community I am in, it's pretty stark.  People from elsewhere, especially internationally, think I'm joking that it is very often within the first 5 questions here when meeting someone for the first time that you get "where do you go to church?"  Not if, but which one.  People, including co-workers of mine, think nothing of making rather blatant religious statements or asking questions along those lines even in a work setting - it honestly does not even occur to them that someone they know and like *could* be irreligious.

[arewethereyet]

That's one thing I (thankfully) don't get.  Over here, I can be out as irreligious to pretty much anybody and the worst I'll get is a shoulder shrug and a meh.  When I was out of work during the crash, I volunteered with an English language school for asylum seekers founded by a group of nuns, and even there I had no issues at all being an out and out non-believer.  Literally nobody batted an eye at me, whether they were in holy orders or lay people.

One thing that I'll stress about the organisation that ran the school, they were strictly non-religious in all their dealings.

Well, considering the lack of irreligious politicians (at least publicly) here, that's a clue as to what it's like in general.  There are some areas/states/regions where it is worse than others.  Specific to the community I am in, it's pretty stark.  People from elsewhere, especially internationally, think I'm joking that it is very often within the first 5 questions here when meeting someone for the first time that you get "where do you go to church?"  Not if, but which one.  People, including co-workers of mine, think nothing of making rather blatant religious statements or asking questions along those lines even in a work setting - it honestly does not even occur to them that someone they know and like *could* be irreligious.

When I lived in SC and my son played ball I was often introduced to new people and it went like this:
AWTY - This is Mr. and Mrs. Soandso.  Their son is whatshisname.
Mr. and Mr's Soandso this is AWTY, her son is suchandsuch.
Me - Hello, nice to meet you.
Mr. and Mrs. Soandso - Who is your church family?
Me - in my head - which is worse admitting you don't have a church family or revealing that you were raised Catholic?

Every damn time.  Didn't even make it to the 5th question.