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Oklahoma City is more family oriented, religious, and conservative than virtually any city its size in the nation
I have trouble nowadays just accepting things on face value. Sure, Oklahoma City talks a good talk of being more family oriented and religious, but is it really? In what ways does it promote the nuclear family? There's another thread on City-Data that shows the city ranks near dead last in city parks and activities. How about daycare services? Most jobs in OKC are near minimum wage retail sales jobs. Even with the low cost of living, it's hard to live well on one income. And then there is crime in OKC, which is one of the highest for cities of its size. This is a fact. I don't really care how much OKC pays lip service to being family oriented, but the reality is that it has more petty and violent crime per capita than that cesspool of NYC. There are huge swaths of Oklahoma City that is in decay and that I would not have my kids walk down the street at any time of the day. Is that family oriented? How about meth and black tar heroin use rates?
And in what way is it really that conservative? The city has pretty high taxes. Overall tax burden is actually higher than where I live now in New Hampshire. Even your food is taxed.
BTW, are you including the suburbs like Edmond in your analysis of OKC? Many metro areas across the country have suburbs that are just as family oriented as Edmond. If we look at only OKC, the public schools in the city also leave a lot to be desired; again how is that family oriented?
I'm a pretty conservative person and have mostly voted Republican my entire life, but it's come to a point where I'm tired of the partisan BS. I care about results and outcomes more, and those results show Oklahoma City is really just great at propaganda and making people think they live in this family oriented and conservative town. It's not much different than any similarly sized Midwestern towns like Indy.
lol. "Critical thinking". The silly liberal buzzword. I laugh every time I see or hear it. Parrots.
As I always have to preface when I comment on such posts, I wouldn't classify myself as a liberal, nor would anyone who knows me.
However, the above is a little hyperbolic, and evidentiary of more hypocritical partisan hack nonsense and garbage.
"Critical thinking" isn't something to be derided. It isn't an issue of political ideology; it is a major part of what makes us thinking, growing human beings. There's no shame in it.
To characterize critical thinking as something to be scoffed at is ludicrous, and if one chooses to lampoon it as a matter of some "evil librul boogeyman" it can only legitimatey be viewed as such because it is so often the specific, direct target of modern day neoconservatives.
The GOP regularly attacks the actual ability to think, to think critically, to become educated about other cultures, to question authority, etc. It is a vile and bass-ackwards approach.
Consider this from the Texas Republican Party:
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Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
They are literally scared witless that they may enable students to think for themselves and question rote "knowledge." They see the ability to think critically and with nuance (in anything other than myopic, simplistic black and white or binary terms) as subversive. Ridiculous.
Here's more:
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It opposes, among other things, early childhood education, sex education, and multicultural education, but supports “school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded.”
And, of course, anyone fostering the questioning of such doctrines or promoting critical thinking is seen as an enemy.
These buffoons talk about small government. They are the worst kind of liars, and transparent at that. They specifically, based on their own platforms, what the biggest, most invasive, Big Brother/Big Government nanny state where the private lives and personal choices of consenting, adult citizens are regimented and controlled, and where tightly codified, regulated information is to be imparted without question.
to be truthful I don't even think he lives in Oklahoma. Just saying...
The Oklahoma City that johnspecial is promoting is caricature of the stereotype. Even the most extreme people I've met since I've lived here are less extreme than him. If he thinks he's Christian, he should perhaps read the Bible that he loves bashing others over the head with.
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Originally Posted by Guineas
I have trouble nowadays just accepting things on face value. Sure, Oklahoma City talks a good talk of being more family oriented and religious, but is it really? In what ways does it promote the nuclear family? There's another thread on City-Data that shows the city ranks near dead last in city parks and activities. How about daycare services? Most jobs in OKC are near minimum wage retail sales jobs. Even with the low cost of living, it's hard to live well on one income. And then there is crime in OKC, which is one of the highest for cities of its size. This is a fact. I don't really care how much OKC pays lip service to being family oriented, but the reality is that it has more petty and violent crime per capita than that cesspool of NYC. There are huge swaths of Oklahoma City that is in decay and that I would not have my kids walk down the street at any time of the day. Is that family oriented? How about meth and black tar heroin use rates?
And in what way is it really that conservative? The city has pretty high taxes. Overall tax burden is actually higher than where I live now in New Hampshire. Even your food is taxed.
BTW, are you including the suburbs like Edmond in your analysis of OKC? Many metro areas across the country have suburbs that are just as family oriented as Edmond. If we look at only OKC, the public schools in the city also leave a lot to be desired; again how is that family oriented?
I'm a pretty conservative person and have mostly voted Republican my entire life, but it's come to a point where I'm tired of the partisan BS. I care about results and outcomes more, and those results show Oklahoma City is really just great at propaganda and making people think they live in this family oriented and conservative town. It's not much different than any similarly sized Midwestern towns like Indy.
For the purposes of this thread, pro-family simply means WASP and anti-gay. Johnspecial and his minions here would be disgusted to learn there is actually diversity in Oklahoma City south of 63rd St.
I find Johnspecial and his likes probably do not like OKC being represented as something it is not in the hopes of trapping people that think the same way as many of the argumentative left leaning posters here do to move in only to be very shocked. The city is not progressive in the least bit and if you happen to think that way you will probably be ostracized on a daily basis.
Oh, well, life is how you make it in Oklahoma. If you make it bad for yourself, don't expect the state to help you, unless it can give you a prison term. But some things are hard to head off, like a mental illness. But the state wants to cut funding for helping people with that unfortunate problem. I reckon a number of people who don't get help will end up in prison, which suits the state just fine as well as the private prison companies.
I find Johnspecial and his likes probably do not like OKC being represented as something it is not in the hopes of trapping people that think the same way as many of the argumentative left leaning posters here do to move in only to be very shocked. The city is not progressive in the least bit and if you happen to think that way you will probably be ostracized on a daily basis.
Also OKC is a pretty dull place, most of it sits on the great plains, OKC is so flat you can see the back of your head. When I lived there everyone kept telling me OKC was not flat but it sat in a valley, funny I always thought a valley had sides. Maybe they meant the flat area between the Rockies and the Ozarks.
In the winter it feels colder than most places because the wind is always blowing. It is one of the windiest metro areas in the US. In the summer the red clay gets baked under the unrelentless Oklahoma heat and sun then it turns into a dusty asphalt like surface, everything that is not watered looks dead.
WPDAWG11 and Johnspecial are right, if you are not a bible thumping closed minded hayseed, then you well not be welcomed in OKC.
...if you are not a bible thumping closed minded hayseed, then you well not be welcomed in OKC.
I really disagree with this. It feeds the stereotype of the closed-minded, Bible-thumping Okie hayseed. I feel it is a mischaracterization of the state and its people.
Now, I definitely agree that OKC, nor any other place in the state, is ever going to be San Francisco, or the Soho district, or Boston. (And that, to me, is a good thing--as much as there are things I like about NYC, Boston and San Francisco...)
So yes, someone coming from Beverly Hills and expecting OKC or some other part of the state to be anything like Beverly Hills is going to be sorely disappointed.
But I don't think many people, whether personally familiar with the state or not, expect that kind of thing in Oklahoma.
I've lived in Oklahoma off and on my whole life, and I've lived in Tulsa and OKC as well as small towns and rural areas.
I have always known lots of people who don't fit that stereotype mentioned above.
Let me say, I don't think there is anything wrong with people who find wisdom and guidance in The Bible. I don't have a problem with people who don't agree with everything I believe in.
And yes--Oklahoma is clearly predominantly (neo)conservative and Baptist.
But there have always been large communities here of people who don't fit that mold. There was a huge underground/punk music scene here in the 70s through the 90s and still many alternative bands and clubs. There is a huge gay community here. There are really large atheist organizations (although I never saw the point in atheists organizing...I mean, what the heck?)
It just takes finding the right people to mesh with. And who even wants to do THAT all the time? I am GLAD that we Oklahomans aren't some homogeneous group who all look and think and act alike. What fun would that be?
I've never been a Bible-thumper, and I'm very supportive of things like reproductive rights and same sex marriage (while at the same time I'm also pro-gun and fiscally conservative) but while I have never had problems finding a wide circle of friends who were quite different from the "norm" of Oklahoma, I have also always had good dealings with the people of Oklahoma who maybe do fit the stereotype to a degree.
I often say, I'd much rather--any day of the week--hang out and talk with a "redneck bumpkin" than some rich stockbroker or some "hipster" worried about how cool they are.
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When I lived there everyone kept telling me OKC was not flat but it sat in a valley, funny I always thought a valley had sides. Maybe they meant the flat area between the Rockies and the Ozarks.
basically what I got out of reading this entire thread is that OKC is no more "pro family" than any US city- it's simply very religious. And as we can surmize from evidence put forth in this thread is that a more religious community and culture does not make it any more pro-family in any way. Personally I think education is probably the answer for more "pro family" spots seeing how the least amount of divorces happen in highly educated areas. Religion might actually hurt a lot of "families" because kids aren't educated about birth control and so forth- they end up having kids out of wedlock then get married, or they have kids before finishing their education. However many years later they realize they don't get along and they have no education to support a family so they end up getting divorced.
I don't know much of anything ruling Republicans want to do about Oklahoma's problems, other than cut state income tax, promote gun carrying, and trying to keep the state from having to issue a couple of the same sex a marriage license. State funding for education will likely drop again this year, so that important area still isn't given priority. Republicans also stress the importance of exercising personal responsibility to solve and prevent problems in life without expecting help from the state. If only more people would do that.
I find Johnspecial and his likes probably do not like OKC being represented as something it is not in the hopes of trapping people that think the same way as many of the argumentative left leaning posters here do to move in only to be very shocked. The city is not progressive in the least bit and if you happen to think that way you will probably be ostracized on a daily basis.
For the most part, I think that is what he is getting at. While I may not do it his way, he's just trying to paint a clearer and possibly more accurate picture of OK City for visitors and transplants.
I've met some people who have moved here and they are eatin' up by the culture shock. This forum is littered with 'em.
Last edited by Bass&Catfish2008; 01-28-2014 at 09:24 AM..
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