ATW, maybe you explained before but I'm curious why you moved to Florida. I'm sure there are "fine people" there but it is a hotbed of political dysfunction (like Texas). You are not a dummy but you're on the wrong side of this woke thing, especially as regards your children. JMO
Our business (a tech scale-up) is mainly in the US at this stage, and while I cannot move hundreds of people here and not easily move the legal headquarter, it often makes a difference in tech companies (in terms of perception, business opportunities, exit opportunities) where the founders are based (I'm the founder and CEO). West Coast difficult with most of the team in Europe, 8-9 hours time difference makes it difficult to work together. So it had to be East Coast. And I wanted to be somewhere warm. Miami becoming a bit of a tech hub/investment hub. We have two small children, so we started researching schools. In terms of great schools, weather, quality of life, the place we settled on ticks all the boxes. Those are in reality the main reasons. During Covid times, I also started comparing the policy responses in different states. In my opinion, Florida handled it best, by far. I don't want my children to be forced to wear masks all day. I'm also big on freedom. I know that there are different interpretations of what "freedom" means. In my perception, the EU, Germany, especially Berlin, are becoming more and more bureaucratic and restrictive with regard to personal freedoms. Maybe I would look at it differently if I were in my early 20s and mostly about partying, then Berlin is great, I guess. But if you are trying to run a business, it's a nightmare. And with regards to restrictions on civil liberties during Covid times, I felt that Florida had a lot more freedom than places like California and New York. I do understand that others are concerned about different things and think being allowed to mandate using 1512351356123 pronouns and introducing lots of transgender ideology means freedom. I am not one of these people. But that wasn't a deciding factor when it came to moving here. I only discuss this stuff here, and am careful about political discussion in real life. I was at a playdate at one of South Florida's beautiful parks yesterday, with my 1st grade daughter and many children from her school, and their parents. I spoke to some of the parents. Many of them just recently moved here, from places like New York and Montreal and California. Every single one of them cited illiberal restrictions and high taxes in the places they moved from as one of the reasons they moved.
I’m glad to hear you are less a political crusader IRL, I’m probably more cantankerous in person, lol. Anywho, I love the quote “freedom is just chaos with better lighting.” We’ll just have to settle for the fact that you and I have different tastes in lamps…
My thought is that he grew up in Germany, the global hotbed of ridiculously horrible p*rnography [outside of Japan], now he's jaded and wants to keep his family away from the same level of smut that corrupted him as a youth. So he chose Florida. Which makes no sense whatsoever though, might as well have moved to the Valley in Cali.
Sure I think “woke” people go to far at times especially with stunts like gluing yourself to the floor of the Target center. The problem with this law though is that it is vague and was rushed through. If the fear is that teachers are going to sexually groom their students there already are laws and policies on the books. Teachers are people and there will be teachers who act inappropriately or do things that parents wont agree with. Prior to this law parents could express that to the principals and through local school boards. In other words through local control. This law takes it out of principal and school boards. Instead it goes to a state board that also doesn’t have any clear standards. A parent could very well accuse an LGBT teacher of “grooming” just because they said they had a same sex partner. It then goes to the state to decide how to react. A state board that probably knows little about the teacher, the school district and the parent. Now the state could either just take the parents’ word for it and punish the teacher or just as likely not do anything because state bureaucrats can be apathetic and unmotivated. That would leave the parents more upset and the relationship between parent, teacher snd principal poisoned. Again this ends up being at best a solution in search of a problem or at worst a way for over zealous parents to ruin otherwise good teachers.
Even though Republicans have won a lot it has not been on landslides if I remember Desantis barely won from Gillam, they just need a Democrat that can energize Democrats. I think Demmings has a real chance.
Yes, if you want to escape LGBTQ stuff being seen by your kids you totally move to South Beach, turn into an antivax wacko like RFK junior, and start telling a bunch of strangers how great Hungarian diktator Viktor Orban is. - this is all very standard stuff that everyone ages into -
So... other than the scale, what is the difference between this and forgiving $10,000 (or $20,000) in student loan debt? In each case, taxpayers are directly or indirectly footing the bill. On housing, DeSantis announced a Hometown Heroes program with a $100 million budget to provide workers in more than 100 eligible professions assistance with down payments and closing costs to help purchase a primary residence in the communities where they work.
Yes I don’t think it will be a landslide for DeSantis. I think he has too many advantages and Crist isn’t strong enough to overcome those. Crist being so aggressive is a surprise for me and maybe he will be able to rally enough Democrats and moderates. The Demmings Rubio race is surprising as I felt Rubio had a big advantage.
Rubio's new campaign mantra... "I paid off my student debt. After I became Senator I wrote a book and paid it off"
Of course, I didn't move to South Beach. Everything in that post was BS, as usual, but I gave it a like anyway. By the way, I will be attending a gay wedding soon, looking forward to it. We moved to something more similar to where @bobrek lives, except on the Atlantic side rather than the Gulf side, not with a dock/direct access to the sea, and possibly geared more toward families with young children.
Wow, you are so accepting and tolerant. This proves we've all been wrong about you all the time. Not only do you have gay friends, you're looking forward to the wedding. How very open-minded of you.
LOL, I can guess who that was to. Must be that guy who supports the man who is ANTI-GAY, calls teachers groomers and will make it illegal to counsel a gay child, but.......I have a gay friend.
