I Moved to Colorado

[Compression-Ignition]

There's only 122 million more people in the country today then there was in 70's. Unfortunately if you're human you are "part of the problem" since we have always continued populate the world. There's going to be another ~85 million people in the country by 2060, so where should all the "Californians" (people) live in your opinion?

California?

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[Whaler27]

Wasn't implying you would....just responding to Denny's assertion. What really sucks are the people that think they have a right to dictate others behavior even when it doesn't infringe upon anyone else's natural, negative rights. But, as you alluded....that's society wide and arguably always has been.

Colorado, like Oregon, had a very libertarian population and government until we experienced a massive and completely overwhelming immigration. Oregon was transformed from “live and let live“ with minimal regulation and a healthy economy, to a government-dominant nanny state in less than forty years. (You can’t even divide your own farmland, so each of your kids has a place to build anymore.) Oregon’s transformation is just what Governor McCall warned of in my youth when his billboards thanked tourists for visiting the state, but implored them not to move here. But move here they did, by the barge load, and now Oregon bears no resemblance to its former self. We used to be financially solvent, but now we’re financially weak. Our fishing, hunting, and spear fishing used to be world-class, but it’s awful now. Our once beautiful roads and forests are falling into terrible condition because our state, which used to rely upon foresters, biologists, and engineers to inform policy on timber, wildlife and road management, is now steered by politics and special interest groups. It’s a darn shame.

I visit my brother in Colorado every summer, and it is still very, very beautiful, but now it’s also very crowded, and extremely expensive. The government meddling is nowhere near as bad as It is in Oregon, the welfare class isn’t half the population, and they state isn’t letting vandals destroy monuments and burn buildings, but it feels like Colorado is leaning away from the common sense of cowboys and ranchers and toward to the tie-dye abyss of the Oregon Twilight Zone.

The good news is there’s a fantastic offroad business in Glenwood Springs called “Lyft Offroad”. It’s owned by a husband and wife, they are very nice people, they know Jeeps inside out, and they do truly great work. I trust them completely. I wish I lived closer to their shop.

 

[RockyMtnHigh]

Colorado, like Oregon, had a very libertarian population and government until we experienced a massive and completely overwhelming immigration. Oregon was transformed from “live and let live“ with minimal regulation and a healthy economy, to a government-dominant nanny state in less than forty years. (You can’t even divide your own farmland, so each of your kids has a place to build anymore.) Oregon’s transformation is just what Governor McCall warned of in my youth when his billboards thanked tourists for visiting the state, but implored them not to move here. But move here they did, by the barge load, and now Oregon bears no resemblance to its former self. We used to be financially solvent, but now we’re financially weak. Our fishing, hunting, and spear fishing used to be world-class, but it’s awful now. Our once beautiful roads and forests are falling into terrible condition because our state, which used to rely upon foresters, biologists, and engineers to inform policy on timber, wildlife and road management, is now steered by politics and special interest groups. It’s a darn shame.

I visit my brother in Colorado every summer, and it is still very, very beautiful, but now it’s also very crowded, and extremely expensive. The government meddling is nowhere near as bad as It is in Oregon, the welfare class isn’t half the population, and they state isn’t letting vandals destroy monuments and burn buildings, but it feels like Colorado is leaning away from the common sense of cowboys and ranchers and toward to the tie-dye abyss of the Oregon Twilight Zone.

The good news is there’s a fantastic offroad business in Glenwood Springs called “Lyft Offroad”. It’s owned by a husband and wife, they are very nice people, they know Jeeps inside out, and they do truly great work. I trust them completely. I wish I lived closer to their shop.

Political changes aside, there's over 125 million more people in the US now then there was in the 70's (that's an over 60% increase). Where should they all have gone? Every state out there would say "any state but mine".

 

[Blu bi Kong]

Political changes aside, there's over 125 million more people in the US now then there was in the 70's (that's an over 60% increase). Where should they all have gone? Every state out there would say "any state but mine".
[/QUOT

Political changes aside, there's over 125 million more people in the US now then there was in the 70's (that's an over 60% increase). Where should they all have gone? Every state out there would say "any state but mine".

We're moving to Co Springs Jan 1 from California after 58 years. Thank God for 'welcomes'!
There have also been the ones that say it's to crowded here. Interestingly they moved there several years ago and have forgotten that fact!

 

[Krondor]

We're moving to Co Springs Jan 1 from California after 58 years. Thank God for 'welcomes'!
There have also been the ones that say it's to crowded here. Interestingly they moved there several years ago and have forgotten that fact!

 

[Whaler27]

Unfortunately if you're human you are "part of the problem" since we have always continued populate the world. There's going to be another ~85 million people in the country by 2060, so where should all the "Californians" (people) live in your opinion?

Well, some of us are only having one or two kids — basically replacing ourselves. Seems like that might be an option.

Political changes aside, there's over 125 million more people in the US now then there was in the 70's (that's an over 60% increase). Where should they all have gone? Every state out there would say "any state but mine".

Somebody made that point earlier In the thread, and I get it. Part of the solution, I suppose, would be to slow population growth, particularly the population growth everybody but those responsible for it has to pay for. We have lots of that kind of growth in Oregon — the kind where those of us who work pay until it hurts to provide “services” for those who don’t want to work. That’s not an Oregon tradition.

Sadly, the more we pay and provide, the faster the need replicates, until we can’t walk through downtown without stepping on somebody’s “campsite“ or their waste. I don’t know what the solution is, but what we’re doing now is more expensive than what we used to do, by a lot, and the problems are getting much, much worse. Normally a failure of this magnitude would produce reevaluation, but not here.

I believe we have a moral responsibility to help those who, through no fault of their own, are disabled or otherwise incapable of caring for themselves. I consistently support such efforts, but I feel no such responsibility for able-bodied twenty and thirty-somethings who just don’t feel like working. We’ve got crowds of such people collecting benefits and “services“ while rioting in Portland,. Many of them Inexplicably feel entitled to the lifestyle others have worked a lifetime to secure.

Meanwhile, the money Oregon hemorrhages on “social services“ that never used to exist, isn’t available for road maintenance or any of the other basic government services that the people who actually pay the taxes value. In short, my relative tax burden has grown for forty years, but I receive significantly less benefit for me and my family every year. Now the public education sucks and we can’t even travel the highways or move through the cities safely, because education essentials (as distinct from social engineering), highways, and public safety are too far down Oregon’s social priority list.

Oregon’s Department of Human Services has grown at a multiple of the rate of our population growth. Like the Department of Education, the budget grows at an alarming rate, but the quality of the desirable impact continues to decline.

What many Oregonians, Coloradans, Washingtonians, and others. complain about is the hoards who flee what they claim to hate, and then immediately set about replicating it in their new home state. Like the Californians who moved in downwind of my buddy’s third-generation cattle ranch, and then sued for a zoning change because of the “manure stink“ in the summer. They moved to ranch country, but wanted California suburbia, and they were willing to litigate to force it. This isn’t an isolated event. Friends with a vineyard were also sued by recent transplants who were disturbed by the “gun sounds” used to scare the birds away from the grapes.

More to the point, Oregon was financially solvent until a massive California migration coincided with a political shift that produced the above changes while accelerating the departure of Fortune 500 companies, the demise of the timber industry, the decline in the state economy, and changing our zoning, land use laws, hunting regulations, and a hundred other Oregon norms. Maybe these things are just coincidence, but I doubt it. I think there’s a causal relationship between the mass migration of urbanites and our developing all the problems they left behind.

Wherever my wife and I move, we’ll be prepared to “do as the Romans do”. We won’t be forcing our views and habits on anybody else.

 

[RockyMtnHigh]

Well, some of us are only having one or two kids — basically replacing ourselves. Seems like that might be an option.

China tried that. It didn't work so well.

A lot of what you described is disheartening. In 2019, Oregon was #3 on the list for Domestic Migration. But what I hear when people complain about transplants "taking over their state" is "I enjoy my state and I don't want anyone else to."

Wherever my wife and I move, we’ll be prepared to “do as the Romans do”. We won’t be forcing our views and habits on anybody else.

Good on you, we need more of that mindset in an ever connected country. But surely, wherever you move, it will be somewhere desirable. Why not move to Kansas? They'll pay you. But no, Kansas is #44 for domestic migration. When we eventually decide to pack up and move, it'll be to the new hot spot. But as of 2015, the average American only lived 18 Miles from where their parents lived. Meaning that the domestic migrants are mostly retired and wealthy.

What would a rant about over-crowding and the destruction of our beautiful landscapes be without mentioning the Native Americans? They were here long before your friends third generation cattle ranch was in it's first generation. No one is entitled to live anywhere in this country. The best we can do is share it peacefully.

 

[Whaler27]

China tried that. It didn't work so well.

A lot of what you described is disheartening. In 2019, Oregon was #3 on the list for Domestic Migration. But what I hear when people complain about transplants "taking over their state" is "I enjoy my state and I don't want anyone else to."

I can‘t speak to what others mean when they complain, but my bitch translates to, “I love my state, so I don’t want anybody else to ruin it.” Hundreds of thousands of us echoed Governor McCall’s billboard encouraging folks to enjoy their visit and then return home. (That’s what we always did.) Perhaps that bought us a few more years of good fishing and traffic-free highways, but that’s all gone now.

It feels a little like a neighbor who takes terrible care of his property, pollutes the hell out of it until it’s damaged beyond recovery, and then demands to move onto your property where he immediately resumes his polluting behavior.

What would a rant about over-crowding and the destruction of our beautiful landscapes be without mentioning the Native Americans? They were here long before your friends third generation cattle ranch was in it's first generation. No one is entitled to live anywhere in this country. The best we can do is share it peacefully.

Yes, our (European transplants) ancestors displaced the American Indians.

As you undoubtedly know, before Europeans got here various North American Indian tribes warred among each other, stole from each other, and enslaved each other. If our ancestors had just taken the land by force it arguably would have been consistent with the rules by which the Indians lived, but we didn’t. We weaseled, lied, and cheated. There’s no denying the shameful deceit and welching in which our government repeatedly engaged. Ironically, the Indians may ultimately have the last laugh. The casinos In Oregon and elsewhere are making big money, the tribes are effective in Washington DC and the state courts, and they manage their land and other assets with the same professionally informed and prudent approach the federal government used to use in managing its forest land. Now Oregon’s federal forest is managed via special-interest driven litigation at enormous expense, and much of the forest is a mess and, increasingly, on fire. The joke is on is.

 

[Jason Oliver]

Wow - this thread sure went off the rails!

To the OP - congrats on the move!

 

[Whaler27]

Wow - this thread sure went off the rails!

To the OP - congrats on the move!

Sheesh. You’re absolutely right.

Ditto on the congrats to the OP — and apologies to all for the rant. The loss of our home state and the prospect of a move are sources of sadness and anxiety for us, but that’s no excuse for coming unhinged.

 

[jmcdtucson]

85% of U.S. population growth is due to immigration from other countries.

 

[Whaler27]

85% of U.S. population growth is due to immigration from other countries.

According to Pew, it’s closer to 55%, which is still an amazing Number..

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispani...act-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/

 

[jmcdtucson]

According to Pew, it’s closer to 55%, which is still an amazing Number..

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispani...act-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/

It is indeed. I was referencing projected future growth given current policies:

"Pew Research Center projections also show that the nation is projected to grow to 441 million in 2065 and that 88% of the increase is linked to future immigrants and their descendants. "

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