• Kellee Speakman, a conservative elementary school teacher, moved from California to Texas in 2022 but returned after four and a half months due to Texas’s political obsession and unexpected living costs.
  • Speakman found Texas to be not much cheaper than California, with high property taxes, expensive services, and lower wages, which contributed to her dissatisfaction.
  • She returned to California, appreciating its lifestyle, public lands, and better teacher benefits, realizing that her idea of freedom involved peace and everyday adventures rather than political rhetoric.
    • stankmut
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      4718 days ago

      The last gasp of the ‘mind your own business’ conservatives in Texas was either the 2016 election or the one after that. There was a period of time where you had the Lt Governor trying to pass culture war bills (like anti-trans bathroom bills) in the senate and then they would die in the house when the speaker wouldn’t put them up for a vote due to it being bad for attracting businesses. Once the MAGA Republicans got voted in, it’s been full steam ahead for them.

      It’s not like things were great before then, but it wasn’t this race to the bottom like it is now.

      • @reddig33
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        18 days ago

        It really got rolling when Bush Jr got elected governor. It had been festering for a while.

        The southern strategy merged with big oil money, and utilized the conservative Baptist churches to try to shame people into getting on board.

        • @TexasDrunk
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          18 days ago

          That’s when it started, but for a long time everyone was still in that “fuck off, I’ll live my life and you live yours” after that. I remember being taught if you don’t like what someone is doing and it doesn’t affect anyone except the person who is doing it, you don’t have to watch them do it. I think the exact phrase was more succinct. That was in the 80s and 90s.

          Even when I left the state and came back in the mid to late 00s it was a lot of “mind your own fucking business” as individuals. No one really started saying shit out loud until the mid 2010s that I remember, but suddenly it was everywhere.

          Now we still have shit turnout but a lot of really loud morons who were telling everyone to mind their own fucking business 2 decades ago now yelling about trans women and abortion.

            • @TexasDrunk
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              618 days ago

              I guess it depends on exactly what part. I remember Longview being run by their kind of culty church, but I grew up not far from there and was taught just not to fuck with others for how they live their life.

              On the other hand, looking back I realize I also knew a bunch of proto-SovCits and absolute nutjobs growing up so I might have missed shit and gotten lucky with the people who were actually the ones teaching me. Not just my parents, but grandparents and friend’s parents as well. They all wanted to be left alone and to leave others alone. The nutjobs just happened to be nearby and I was just told not to listen to their nonsense.

              Anecdotally, there was this old guy named Wizard who used to be into all the crystal clutching bullshit and had somehow reconciled it with his Jesus bullshit. I remember my grandfather telling me that he was insane but not hurting anyone so just leave him be.

    • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)
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      2818 days ago

      Sometime around 2015~2016. Mighta been a few years earlier. I think everyone really started losing their shit after Obergefell vs Hodges. It seemed like people had a “you do you” mindset, but after that case everyone lost their minds and went rabid.

    • @[email protected]
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      1318 days ago

      Some people older than me probably have saw it sooner but I’d say definitely when Rick Perry took over in 2000, but it probably started with GWB in 1995. Don’t forget Texas ised to have a democratic governor in the early 90s

    • @[email protected]
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      -1218 days ago

      About when the left started going after kids, or at least the perception of that.

      Quickest way to make someone hostile is to threaten their kids

      • @WhatYouNeed
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        517 days ago

        Yeah, giving kids free lunches in schools is just awful.

        And what’s all this resistance to dropping the age restrictions on kids working? If little Johnny wants to work a 14hr shift down in the salt mine, we shouldn’t stand in their way.

        Why does the left do these things?

        • @[email protected]
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          -217 days ago

          Not exactly a lot of conservatives for that shit. There’s a lot of public outcry for puberty blockers however.

          And remember, it’s all about perception

          • @WhatYouNeed
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            216 days ago

            You seem to have a weird fascination with kids genitals.