Huh? WTH?
I grew up in the Bay Area. Ya, people there tend to be pretty liberal, but they're really not that scary.
I consider myself right of center but I've found that hanging out with people different from yourself can really open your eyes. Just because someone is liberal, non-Military, non-Christian, etc, doesn't mean they are any less patriotic than you. One of the great things about America is that we don't all think/act the same!
I too am FROM the SF Bay Area -- born & bred. I lived in the East Bay Rancho Country -- it was nice, normal, middle-America back then (remember when Reagan & Deukmejian were Governors?). Even back then, SF and Berzerkeley were crazy-places, but they were relatively isolated. My sister's horse used to live around the corner from our house -- he often broke through his fence and we would find him in the front-yard happily munching on the lawn and waiting for carrots/apples -- a cool place.
What finally made my decision to move-away final was when the old couple a few houses down the street died. Their dirtbag son inherited their house. He fancied himself a meth-cook, but had trouble with HAZMAT control and his flam-locker. He blew-out all the house's windows a couple of times but (unfortunately) did not kill himself. :icon_rage
The meth-cook had a busted-down car sitting in the middle of his front-yard. He would sit in his front yard, with head under the hood and the crack of his fat ass showing to the whole wide world. Later, from talking to cop-buddies, we found that this was his was of saying "Open for Business".
My wife would always drive-by in her minivan taking the kids home from school, would slow waaaay down and squint at the meth-cook. I dunno what good she thought it might do, but mebbe it made her feel better.
One afternoon, not 15 minutes since my wife's last drive-by, she heard a "pop-pop-pop". When I came home a few minutes later, the cops were everywhere and meth-cook was under a tarp in his driveway -- turns-out that a dissatisfied customer was registering a complaint via 9mm JHPs.
Since I've moved away, we also had a psycho kid choke-out and cut-up his little brother, just up the street (he had stored the "parts" in a trash can in the basement). Also, a family whose kids I went to HS with took a couple hookers home and killed 'em rather than paying the bill. A kid who used to play with my oldest daughter shot a dude in a gang-initiation and is in Q for life.
One of the great things about America is that we don't all think/act the same!
-- Really? I contend that this is definitely NOT a universal truth.
"Not that scary?" -- au contraire -- it's become crazy-town nowadays!
Now, every time I go back to visit Mom, Sis, or on TDY to NORIS/Miramar or Pt Mugu, I just gotta shake my head in dismay. Each time, the place has deteriorated further. More and more productive citizens are moving outta the state (being driven out?). The infrastructure is getting creakier and creakier. And the sleaze-bag politicians are imposing more-and-more taxes to maintain their Potemkin's Village for as long as they can. It's becoming a third-world society - with serious adverse impacts threats posed for the rest of the country.
There are, of course, many notable exceptions. San Diego proper, La Jolla, Marin County, the Wine Country, Alpine, the small-towns of the eastern/northern parts of the state. But they have small voting power and serve only as captive bill-payers for the rest of the place -- to eventually be submerged in the rising-tide of deterioration.
Just a lil bit bitter & grumpy -- me? You bet!
