Montana on pace to surpass 1 million residents by 2012 (rentals, credit card)

[Walter Greenspan]

Originally Posted by Broz

I am not against change, in fact I feel change is needed and I would really like to see things change BACK to the way they use to be. :ok:

The Crow Nation, not to mention the Cherokee Nation, would heartedly agree with you.

[Timberwolf232]

Originally Posted by Gman2007

Not necessarily... I would contend that people dress a certain way because they ARE wanting people to judge them or look at them a certain way. Flannel has its uses but a side worn baseball cap is good for what? I suppose keeping the rain off one side of your head or baggy pants could be good for movement during a skateboard maneuver but totally useless walking down the street when one hand always is used to hold up your pants! It's a lifestyle they are trying to portray. Whether or not they actually are living that lifestyle would not be known without getting to know the person, like you said, but with the dress they are giving a message to all who see them.

I agree.. and I was one of those kids who's friends parents worried about who their kids were hanging around! We had the same types when I was growing up too, they mostly went off to college and we (most of my friends and I) went into the Army or Marine Corps. They took classes like "interpersonal relationships" and home economics, and we took welding, wood shop and auto shop. They played football, (no offense, I like football) we played rugby. (coached by our shop teacher btw..)
They had fancy clothes and rich parents that bought them BMW's and newer cars of the day, and we wore jeans and t-shirts and rode old dirt bikes and drove old Jeeps and 4X4's that we fixed up ourselves. It's kind of interesting to see Montana these days, as it seems like my High School area 20 years ago.. (Rich kids and local kids.)

When I went to grade school in MT I was a much better behaved kid than when my folks moves to Colorado.. (Colorado during the 80's) but back then in Montana we didn't really have a difference in lifestyle other than a couple kids who's parents ran a profitable business or something, and in MT the kids didn't seem to treat the others as different based on money... Even the kids who were better off treated everyone the same, we just beat each other up because we didn't like each other regardless of how good your family was doing.

Now it's more like CO was, in that there is lots of out of state money moving in, and the kids attach themselves to the others that they identify with. Makes for a much more hostile school environment than it used to be.

Sorry to sway off topic...

[tindo80]

Originally Posted by Walter Greenspan

The Crow Nation, not to mention the Cherokee Nation, would heartedly agree with you.

I was mentioning something along these lines earlier.

Originally Posted by timberwolf

I agree.. and I was one of those kids who's friends parents worried about who their kids were hanging around! We had the same types when I was growing up too, they mostly went off to college and we (most of my friends and I) went into the Army or Marine Corps. They took classes like "interpersonal relationships" and home economics, and we took welding, wood shop and auto shop. They played football, (no offense, I like football) we played rugby. (coached by our shop teacher btw..)
They had fancy clothes and rich parents that bought them BMW's and newer cars of the day, and we wore jeans and t-shirts and rode old dirt bikes and drove old Jeeps and 4X4's that we fixed up ourselves. It's kind of interesting to see Montana these days, as it seems like my High School area 20 years ago.. (Rich kids and local kids.)

When I went to grade school in MT I was a much better behaved kid than when my folks moves to Colorado.. (Colorado during the 80's) but back then in Montana we didn't really have a difference in lifestyle other than a couple kids who's parents ran a profitable business or something, and in MT the kids didn't seem to treat the others as different based on money... Even the kids who were better off treated everyone the same, we just beat each other up because we didn't like each other regardless of how good your family was doing.

Now it's more like CO was, in that there is lots of out of state money moving in, and the kids attach themselves to the others that they identify with. Makes for a much more hostile school environment than it used to be.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like you may be qualifying people on the basis of their life choices. Choosing not to go to college is no more worthy of social demeritation than choosing to go to college. Granted, this is coming from a college guy

Just saying, it wasnt non-college grads who invented the atom bomb, or the modern economic system, or engineered the dams that power the northwest, etc.

This country really needs to move beyond this 'being less educated/intelligent but more aggressive = a good thing' mentality. Especially while other countries that we were once leaps and bounds ahead of move ahead of us economically, socially, and technologically.

[Broz]

Originally Posted by tindo80

This country really needs to move beyond this 'being less educated/intelligent but more aggressive = a good thing' mentality. Especially while other countries that we were once leaps and bounds ahead of move ahead of us economically, socially, and technologically.

Not sure I agree with this. Maybe this mindset is better for some, but what about the people that are content to live with what they have and just want to enjoy it. Is it such a terrible thought to slow down and use the technology we have. Seems there could be some serious savings and maybe we could do the right thing and pay for what we owe instead of just increasing the deficit. So maybe what some people want is not really what we all want.

just my opinion.. I dress funny too...

[Timberwolf232]

Originally Posted by tindo80

I hate to say it, but it sounds like you may be qualifying people on the basis of their life choices. Choosing not to go to college is no more worthy of social demeritation than choosing to go to college. Granted, this is coming from a college guy

Just saying, it wasnt non-college grads who invented the atom bomb, or the modern economic system, or engineered the dams that power the northwest, etc.

This country really needs to move beyond this 'being less educated/intelligent but more aggressive = a good thing' mentality. Especially while other countries that we were once leaps and bounds ahead of move ahead of us economically, socially, and technologically.

Wasn't trying to qualify people, I'm just saying that there is merit in non-college type work also. (I went to college after I got out of the service too.. ) There are more benefits to education than not, and some people do better hands on and others do better with paper. I don't think either type of skill is above the other. (Although I do think we'd be better off without the modern economic mess and the atomic bomb ) Working smarter might be better than working harder, but if a person is working both smart and hard, there's no stoppin' em!

[Fodderman]

Originally Posted by tindo80

This country really needs to move beyond this 'being less educated/intelligent but more aggressive = a good thing' mentality. Especially while other countries that we were once leaps and bounds ahead of move ahead of us economically, socially, and technologically.

A good start would be to stop linking "intelligence" with "education". I've known many people with a PhD who were dumber than a hammer. The two really have nothing to do with one another.

Leading to...

I'd say most uneducated people out there know instinctively that your expenditures cannot continue to outpace your income, yet that is exactly what some of the so-called best edumacated people in the country are trying to sell us. Yes, these same people are certainly very slick and can work their way through a pile of legalize to manipulate the system to get what they want done done. But are they intelligent? Are they doing the insane things they're doing because they genuinely think they're correct things to do (which would make them unintelligent, by default)? Or do are they really super-intelligent and know that what they're doing will have the opposite effect that they say (which would make them liars, thieves, ... )?

Leading to...

I think a lot of people go back to "less educated = good" in some form or another because they've been screwed so many many many times by all the educated people of the world.

[Fodderman]

Originally Posted by tindo80

Are you going to argue because you havent seen it it doesnt exist? Unless you are a member of a group that would be on the negative end of that, saying you dont see it is like a senior citizen saying "theres no child molesters in my neighborhood because no ones tried to molest me". Unless you are a victim, you probably wont see the crime.

All of the things I mentioned I have seen in montana. Not to the amount that your state is stereotyped as having, but definitely in existence. YOu dont have to go too far outside of bozeman or missoula to see it either.

However, because cities function socially, people are more reliant on others, and more exposed to different types. As a person who lived in Eastern WA and N. ID (briefly), and has been to MT numerous times, let me tell you, Montanans have VERY VERY VERY little exposure to different types. Most judgement of others who are different starts via second hand, stereotype or from television...all bad ways to learn of different folks.

Sorry to go back a bit and pull this out, but I've been gone a while and wanted to clarify a point.

I'm wasn't saying, "I haven't seen it so it doesn't exist", but merely countering those others who seem to continually harp on Montana without giving any specifics. I've have dealings with a decent number of people in Montana. I'm not a Montana native. My wife is a citizen, but not a native of the U.S. We stand out. Surely we should have run into at least one of the ignorant native backwater jerks? Maybe we've been lucky? Maybe the Montana-haters were unlucky? Maybe the Montana-haters are just seeing something that's not really there? Who knows?

In any case, Montana is set to surpass 1 million residents. I would wager that if you took a random sampling of 1 million people anywhere else in the country, you would get a set of people with just as many biases and bad personality traits as are heaped on the citizens of Montana. And, I would wager a LOT that if you took that sample from the more liberal areas of the country (SoCal, I'm talking to you), you would get a FAR more biased set of people than anywhere in Montana.

But that's just my experience. Your mileage may vary.

[Fodderman]

Grrrrr....can't figure out how to edit out those typos. I R really not that stoooopid. Well.....

[Walter Greenspan]

Originally Posted by Fodderman

Grrrrr....can't figure out how to edit out those typos. I R really not that stoooopid. Well.....

Fodderman, for a limited amount of time, I think it's 2 hours, you can edit your comment by clicking "Edit" at the bottom of your already published comment.

[Fodderman]

Originally Posted by Walter Greenspan

Fodderman, for a limited amount of time, I think it's 2 hours, you can edit your comment by clicking "Edit" at the bottom of your already published comment.

Thanks Walter! It must have been after 2 hours. I've edited a post for typos before and knew it could be done, but couldn't find the dang button this time.