Liberal towns in Idaho

[martialcanine45]

I used to consider myself a moderate Republican, then moved to Europe and lived under socialism and became a conservative independent.....then I just became accustomed to referring to myself as right-wing.

Labels do have a purpose, whether for self-identification or to categorize others, and it will happen in some form or another no matter how hard we try to avoid it. Sandpoitian is right that the word liberal means something different in parts of Europe and Asia (not the UK...liberal means left), but frankly, the connotation in the U.S. is someone who is left on social and economic issues (a touchy, feel nice do-gooder who thinks the government should have it's hand in everything and the planet has 6 months to live and we should protect hundreds of animal species while killing millions of unborn kids).

Is that always a fair assessment of all liberals? By no means. But it is the practical reality.

Frankly, when you say 'liberal' towns, I immediately think of a city filled with the above stereotype where it isn't truly free or tolerant, only favorable to those who meet the stereotype.

In a world of stereotypes, I am ever-increasingly identifying with the Libertarian one. Though I disagree with their party on some issues, I'm not obsessed with how people live in their personal lives or whether they like art or good coffee or history, but I just want to be left alone in freedom.

I like guns, protection dogs, martial arts, the outdoors, good scotch, tobacco products, and so forth. I'm very right wing but live a liberal personal life in one respect. Just leave me alone.

Don't tell me how I can live, what I can build on my property, that I have to pay more than several percentage points of my total income in government fees and taxes, that I need to drive a 2 cylinder tin can on wheels to save mother earth, and that pristine roads (not good roads, pristine ones), public schools, and government health care are a necessity in life and my responsibility to pay for.

All those things are not necessarily bad, I just don't want government to force them on me. Let me and my community and our churches and social activists come together and make them happen on our own....the minute you get government involved, the plot is lost. I've witnessed it in Europe and don't want it here, and as I said, I came to Europe as a 'moderate'.

Have faith in people.....good people make Idaho strong. A strong government has never and will never make Idaho good.

If you're looking for liberal and you're considering Idaho, you probably mean more libertarian....live and let live. I can't help you with specific towns, but maybe that sets the context a little better.

[Sage of Sagle]

And with that....I wish to offer a gentle reminder that we can discuss the politics of certain areas of Idaho, but we need to not get into any political debates here in the state forum....just a reminder....

[Mtn. States Resident]

To be factual, to find the percentage of voters who voted in the last election and for which party they voted, one just needs to link to the voter info for the state or the particular county voter info.

I haven't read every post here, and as was stated earlier, this is digging up an old post and old information may not be current. That being said, one area I have not seen represented here is Teton County (Driggs/Victor). The county voted more left than any others in south or eastern ID. I'm not sure how it compares to Blaine County, where Sun Valley is.

Hollywood has discovered Teton County, ID. Also, since it is soooooo expensive to actually live in Jackson Hole, many live in Driggs and drive to work in Jackson.

It is an interesting discussion of what a Liberitarian in Idaho is vs. a liberal, moderator or conservative.

I, too, wish people weren't given labels.

Sage, I hope this isn't breaking the rules. I'd be interested to know martialcanine45 sees government healthcare working in the UK. Maybe that belongs in a different thread.

I use to post in a forum where a physician living in the UK stumbled upon that forum when researching a topic about the U.S. He posted he had never realized until he did additional research that the entire UK could fit into Idaho and still have hundreds of miles excess. This physician said what worked in England for universal healthcare (where he was) and the U.K. partially worked given how close people were together. He couldn't really comprehend how ID could span the Canadian border on the north, WA/OR on the west, NV/UT on the south, and WY/MT on the east and have anything work the same throughout the state.

That is just the opinion of one person in the UK. Martialcanine45, do you think that is a fair assessment- meaning that healthcare in the UK "works," partially given the demographics and how closely people live to hospitals/clinics etc.? I know you are in the USAF, so your reality is probably very different than the average UK citizen. However, you have to have seen a lot in your time in Europe.

If this subject is better moved to another thread, that is fine with me. I'd like to ask the opinion though, of martialcanine45, and others who have observed government funded healthcare elsewhere compared to what we presently have in the U.S. It was very enlightening to me that the UK is often offered as an example of a "working system," yet one of the physicians says the entire UK isn't as large as Idaho.

Thanks for any views that are shared.

MSR

[Sage of Sagle]

MSR,

I'd suggest opening a new thread on this topic in the appropriate forum (I would suggest either the P&OC section or the UK section more than "Health and Fitness"), and inviting people via DM to join the discussion, or just post here with the link to the new thread....

[Sandpointian]

MC45,
One thing to add to my previous post. Definitions are not time invariant. Ideological agenda change over time, sometimes with a trend.

Today's GOP party is indistinguishable from the Southern Dixiecrats of the 1960s. This movement of the GOP makes the administration of JFK look increasingly like the GOP of a generation ago.

Likewise, the liberal party of the UK was a couple of years ago indistinguishable from the Conservative Party, and exceedingly liberal in the classic sense. However, the old liberal party is no more and was broken up into two wings, one of which merged with the social democrats to form an American-style liberal party--perhaps the view you are seeing out there. Even the BBC & political pundits have begun the blur the terminology...using American phraseology such as "the liberal bias of the media."

Hence labels of today are muddled lots and serve the purpose of confusing rather than differentiating. I do agree that were labels time invariant then they could be convenient ways of self-description. But in my experience their use involves considerable ignorance and bias more resembling playground taunts than serious social discourse.

On a personal level, I prefer to tackle things issue by issue. And even then I find that the most sensible people hold amazingly balanced and complex political beliefs. When making public policy decisions there are always more than two sides to a story; always winners and losers; always competing visions to implement. I find the most valuable people in such a process are the policymakers/ policy participants who are good listeners and who do the best job of compromise and who can implement based on a vision of tomorrow that makes sense for the good of the local people.

To bring this thread back to Idaho. I welcome political forums in Idaho that bring out different opinions. This would not be America is we all think the same way. For this reason, I feel that we in NID are classically liberal. When criticizing Thomas Jefferson over the Bill of Rights, Alexander Hamilton asked why a bill separate from the Constitution should be written since the underlying assumption with the Constitution was that apart from the laws written, Americans/States would be free to make their own laws or rules for living. I think we have that spirit in NID. The government and the local citizens back off quite a bit and allow for what I think is a pretty diverse groups of people. Some may laugh at the use of the word "diverse," but I mean that in its most important manifestations: thought and beliefs, rather than race.

But here is the challenge we face. As Idaho attracts more population that sense of the sacred, space and privacy, will be challenged by folks from all across the political spectrum. If we each had 20 acres, it is easy not to care what you are doing and tolerate the eccentric. But in neighborhoods of .05 acre plots and multi-family units, setting up rules of engagement is an entirely different matter.

We are different in NID in part because our low population density gives us breathing room. When that breathing room is developed away, it will be difficult to see (at least for me) how we will be able retain that sense of quietude and space that is literally priceless. So as we grow, the move to more rules and making tax dollars cover the scaling of urbanizing lifestyles is bound to increase. Therefore, as Idaho and NID in particular grow, that is moves away from classic liberalism to something that places more restrictions on unfettered liberty is something that one probably should expect, regardless of the political stripes of folks moving into town.

I think we see this in NID and Boise. Our form of liberalism/libertarianism is decidedly Western and non-Dixiecrat, shaped by the frontier experience, by our lack of density, and thank goodness, with our limited exposure to the legacy of slavery. As such, we have been gifted considerable space and freedoms to be.

On the lack of slavery's legacy, this point is HUGE and one of the luckiest rolls of the dice we benefit from. Minorities that live in Idaho are given wide berth and respond with the same kind of quiet, freedom-loving lifestyles we like here. The worry I have is from newcomers who either (a) want to turn Idaho into some kind of White paradise (a desire driven by God-knows-what-kind-of experiences from whence they came) and from (b) urbanites who wish to bring in huge government programs and perspectives born of fractured social discourse in cities that have been ruined by race-based politics. For both types, please stay away from Idaho. Fight your battles elsewhere. We don't want Aryan Nations Redux (started by two embattled Californians) nor cries of racial discrimination over God-awful uber-development (the Chateau de Loire project from Ms. Kirk-Hughes of Las Vegas).

Going forward, we will have to step up to our "A" game to maintain this sense of liberalism. Our challenges will come for the American left and the Dixiecrat right, both of whom tend to get into others' faces as to the way one should live. And many of us will have to curtail certain activities as density increases, but better by self-initiated social responsibility than by legal mandates... It is no wonder then that many locals enjoy the periodic snows and freezes if only to curtail the incessant pressures to give in to increasing population.

Keeping small is like taking a conservationist approach to the environment. It is the best solution and one that believes in the heart that small changes, less impact, and less density are better.

S

[mortgageboss]

I lived in Pocatello for 6 yrs, and it seemed to have a liberal undercurrent. There's a lot of retired union pacific and university types there. There's enough conservatives to keep the liberals from enacting a bunch of socialist, "feel good" type of laws. The Mayor's a Democrat, if that's important to you.

[martialcanine45]

The UK health system is a failure in my opinion, and in the opinion of many of my friends and colleagues. It may 'work' for some people but is hardly 'effective' for the masses, particularly at the massive, out-of-control cost of the National Health Service (NHS) budget. If you would like to pay a 50% of your income to taxes in less than a decade, nationalized health care is for you.

Nationalized health care also opens the door to the government dictating what it considers to be healthcare and what type of treatment you will receive, leaving out many people who would prefer to avoid the poison pill, hack and saw mentality of conventional medicine. Inevitably, the government will not cover or treat you at all should you engage in certain dietary or lifestyle habits it does not deem acceptable.

So, you would think national health care would solve a nation's health problems? Not even close. Rationing, poor facility conditions, and underpaid medical staff have all contributed to a massive private health insurance industry in the UK. It is the option people pay for when they want real health care.

These are based on my firsthand observations, conversations with hundreds of Brits, and news/documentary programs. A person paid by the industry may love it, but it's a train wreck. Why nationalize one of the biggest industries in the U.S. when the government can't even manage VA hospitals, Social Security or Medicare properly?

I don't want to get this thread moved, so what it means to me and this thread is that we do have a modern, U.S. definition of liberal which serves a majority of people, whether you like labels or not.

We can get specific by asking people about their beliefs on key political, social or lifestyle issues, what people want out of life, what they consider liberal/conservative/libertarian, and then give them suggestions from there.

[DesertZone]

I am a liberal, but maybe not for long. As I get older I can see the dangerous path we are leaning torwards. I think a nationalized health care would be a disaster.

I don't want to see us take away our freedoms for goverment control. For every law impossed a freedom is taken away.

[norcalmom101]

Originally Posted by bigbob25

[MOD CUT] I hate idaho and evry thing it stands for its a cold dump in the winters its a glooomy ugly old hag most the time and her economy's the worse ive ever seen

Sometimes our posts tell each other more about ourselves than about the place in question!!