Well said, livius!
I was born & raised in NY (Queens), and your description of the City is quite accurate, especially the remark about the politically powerless conservatives here. I no longer live within the bounds of NYC, but I do live too close for comfort.
As I have said many times on these boards, someday, I shall escape and be slightly more free. As it stands now, I am surrounded by nannyist weenies here, who CLEARLY think that Government should be my Mommy. I can barely stand it anymore. I do have a good hunk of family still here, and I love my church, and my oldest kid is in (Catholic) high school. When he graduates, though...we’ll probably leave ASAP.
We’re thinking Virginia (Shenendoah Valley). There’s a great Catholic college there, and big, pretty, old houses just like I like ‘em. I may have been born and bred in the Big City, but I’m a country gal at heart.
Regards,
I’ve adapted to living in a small and somewhat strange tourist town in Florida, so it can be done!
One of the things that I liked about NYC when I was a kid back in the 1950s-60s was that it still had room for a lot of weird, disorderly people (the type the nanny state doesn’t like at all), but at the same time Catholic life was very strong in New York City and there was a certain underlying ethic and understanding of the world. It’s still a lot more Catholic than many places, once you get away from the East Village or Park Avenue, but not the way it used to be.
The worst thing about New York now is the nanny state that has always been lurking in the background with the progressives, but which Bloomberg seems to have taken to new idiotic heights. I guess this is partly because the nanny state is blossoming at the federal level, too, so he feels he has a lot of support. I always hoped real New Yorkers would be too independent to put up with the nanny state, but I guess not, alas.