I just got back from North Dakota. I had to take care of some family business. Other than driving on roads made greasier than Kamala Harris’s ethics by a spring snowstorm, it was a lot of fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mostly observing the differences between government in a free state, and Minnesota. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is no mask mandate. Some businesses will suggest a mask; in those, about half the people comply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One enduring memory of growing up there: I was 16 before I met a black person. The ethnic mix has changed considerably – at the Walmart in Minot, I ran into pretty much the same assortment of people one runs into in any Twin Cities suburb. But “more ethnic minorities” doesn’t seem to have translated into “crappier politics”, because unlike Twin Cities suburbs, the place seems to have gotten more conservative over time, judging by Presidential<\/a> and Gubernatorial<\/a> results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet the place is prosperous – “Help Wanted” signs were all over the place even though the oil boom is long past and I wasn’t in “oil country” anyway. There are some Democrats in Fargo who try to wave the class and race grievance flags, but generally “new” residents seem to be fitting in – including, in one highly unexpected case, a fairly prominent transgendered person who’s moved to a very <\/em>unlikely place – which I bring up not to post PC points (about which I don’t care) but to point out that this move, along with most of the above, which would be called unthinkable by your CNN clacque, has gone over without any noticable social muss and fuss in this most utterly conservative place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Why, it’s almost as if conservatism breeds tolerance, and a focus on what matters in life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n