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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24741 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Mendacity and social fictions are not unique to Californians. Perhaps I've just been exceedingly unlucky in my acquaintances, and I'm suffering a Chinese Robber effect. But this pattern has repeated with enough frequency that I’ll tentatively call it a cultural difference.

Actually, when I moved to a midsize southern Californian port city in 2018, it was explained to me that the punishment for mendacity and social friction would be a one-way ticket to ... well, let's just say that the VHS tape I was given was of a once-great local news anchor named after a wine explaining that Californians accused of things like financial crimes, harassment, or petty theft might well be offered plea deals that include "a one-way ticket to Cajun country in lieu of jail time."

They're like the younger sons of European nobility who colonized the New World.

Don't forget the workers they brought with them: criminals who chose to labor as their farmhands over the noose; and others, in harder-to-fill positions, filled only after the "no thanks, I'll hang," phase of the recruitment flow was removed.

Also don't forget the religious whackjobs who just refused to let the King tell them who to burn at the stake.

Oh, and don't forget the squatters who broke into William Penn's summer estate.

Who would have ever thought that those three groups had enough in common to actually team up against their Monarch--let alone that they'd get help from Manhattan. You'd think people would be grateful to be liberated from being Dutch!

Oh, and Maine. Have I forgotten why the people in Maine joined the other twelve colonies--or did they keep their reasons to themselves?

Maine was not one the original thirteen colonies as it was part of Massachussetts at the time.

Oh, goodness, I was so busy trying to being clever I forgot to be smart.

I am honestly embarrassed about this. Mea Maxima Culpa.

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