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Country Talk Discussion Board |
Politics and country life...
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Posted by Diane on October 02, 2008 at 03:59:07 from (74.61.41.67):
I came to this board looking for a place to ask questions about homesteading, but after reading around I have another questions that I'm itching to ask. I hope this is the right place. My husband and I have been saving up for years to make the jump to living in the country and now, after years of studying and working terrible jobs, we are on the brink of making the jump at last, and think we can buy some land without a mortgage with enough left over to buy animals and build the dream cottage we have been building in our mind for a decade. We feel a flush of luck that real estate prices have been falling. My husband grew up on a farm and studied agriculture in college, and we have both worked as farm workers. Even in the city we have made every effort to grow our own food. Although we have a lot to learn, we are hard working. But there is a gnawing question. See, my husband is French, and we speak French between us out of habit. We lived in France together for years (Making us, in fact, MUCH more appreciative of America. My husband is very happy here). We have been living in Seattle long enough to get a pretty hefty dose of liberal culture. We don't attend church, eat Arugula, read French literature, and decorate our home with Indian batik blankets. Our best friends are Somali who live down the street, and I worked for years at the HIV/AIDS clinic. You get the picture. That said, we find the "left/ right" label constraining. We are very libertarian, if labels fits our political thinking at all, although I've almost always voted Democrat. Increasingly, I do so with my nose plugged, but the Repubs are equally revolting. I know you know what I mean. This "culture war" makes increasingly less sense, but plenty of people are caught up in it. The point I'm trying to make is: we are worry about moving to the countryside (here in Washington state) and being isolated. As it is, we have never fit in the city. Our hipster neighbors find us exotic because we save our money, sew our own clothes, and raise our own food, but when we move to a small community we are afraid of being outcast as well. My husband is particularly bothered by this. When we travel to small towns, which is often, he is often treated badly when people learn that he is French. This really happens. We are both painfully eager to be part of a community, and not isolated, but we have doubts. So I hope to open a discussion about left vs right, blue vs red, hippy vs redneck. What do you think? Especially with emotions running so high, are there deep rifts in your community? Or are we all getting along just fine, doing what my mother always said and not discussing politics or religion at the table? Thanks for reading
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