Just Moved from Arizona

[AzNative]

Moved my family up from Az in March.  My employer wanted me to move to Metro PHX after managing to avoid it for a decade.  So I checked around and took emplyment up here for more money and a better position.  But that is only icing on the cake.  Moving my family up to here and away from the crime that was even beginning to infest the, what used to be nice rural areas, was probably the smartest thing I have done.  It's a shame, though, being a fourth generation born Arizonan, and all my children are fifth generation born Arizonans. 

[Paul Bonneau]

Welcome to our group AzNative. Things are getting rotten all over! I'm thinking if it's to be kept away anywhere, here is the place.

[MamaLiberty]

Welcome! I do understand what you got away from. I escaped from California in late '05. I wouldn't go back (to stay) for anything.

We can't take it for granted that Wyoming will always be so crime free. We all have to do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

I hope to get to know you and your family better. MamaLiberty

[ricwoz]

I'm not a sociologist or anything but I think there is a direct link between welfare and crime. 

For one thing there is a welfare class in the USA and they overlap with the criminal class.   So if you have generous welfare benefits you will attract the welfare class - which will include a larger number of criminals.   Welfare gives people enough to survive, but not enough to realize their dreams, whether buying a nice car or going to Hawaii or anything else.  But it also doesn't encourage work, which aside from being fulfilling in itself teaches habits that result in goal setting and acheivement. 

So, one of my suggestions for keeping Wyoming a low crime place is to drastically limit welfare.  And be particularly unwilling to create public housing (which takes lots of people with similar problems of not being productively engaged and liviing a parasitic lifestyle and congregates them.)

Just my 2c based on what I've seen in the many cities I've lived in up till now.

[John]

Absolutely: NO GOVERNMENT HOUSING.  A lot of that is on the federal level, but if all the contractors in the county simply refuse to do construction work for HUD, and no one will sell to or deal with them in any way....

Yeah, we could eliminate government housing projects.

[Mule]

Will be moving from Arizona soon myself.  I really love what this state used to be - I think the last straw was the recently passed statewide anti-smoking law.  Not that I smoke, but what was especially onerous about this one is that it was by referendum - not the poly-tick parasites that shoved it down our throats this time (you expect that kind of crap from them), but a majority of Arizonans now believe it is their right and duty to restrict the property rights of others just to save themselves the bother of having to go down the street to one of many establishments that restrict smoking voluntarily if they don't like smoke.  Well that and lots of other reasons, but this especially represents the shift in attitude that Arizona has been suffering lately.  Plus the wife misses snow in the winter.

The wife and I were touring the state by motorcycle the last two weeks of June narrowing down our list of where I'll start looking for work.  We meant to stop in at the Jam if we had time, but it was a "working" vacation and there was a lot to squeeze in, so it didn't quite work out - maybe next year.

[Paul Bonneau]

The smoking ban has gotten nowhere at the state level in Wyoming, but the polytick class has passed it in Evanston, Laramie and maybe Cheyenne too. And if you can believe the polls  Wyomingites generally like smoking bans. The good news is there is a large active group of people against them, such that the Laramie ban was almost overturned.

A statewide ban exists in Montana, allegedly a state that is more concerned with freedom than most. I bet that one gets flouted a lot though. And Wyomingites, who also believe people should mind their own business, probably will be learning to flout laws as well, in places like Laramie.

Everywhere in the country majorities don't seem to realize that He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself, as Thomas Paine put it.

[gabby]

Section 8 housing... don't get me started. 

After years of my wife homeschooling the kids, we put them in the new school that just opened up.  It just got to be too much for my wife to handle and we decided to go ahead and do it, but be very involved. 

Anyway, when we were registering the kids, I noticed a young lady's paperwork for residency that was open for anyone to see.  What I saw just irritated me.  I read that she pays 75 dollars a month rent and the gov picks up a little over 900 bucks for her.  I said to my neighbor "it doens't pay to work anymore." My mortgage payment is a tad over 1000 bux.

Aside from the section 8 crap, the kids are breezing through gov school.

[biathlon]

   Welcome Az Native. By all means do try to make our Jam'08. Our summers here are really quite pleasant though you may want to start out easy with winter. Do you and the Mrs. ski?

[gabby]

Welcome to WYO!

Funny that I moved to Tempe in '90 and left in '92.  The city drove me crazy, and yet a friend of mine says that I wouldn't recognize the valley now.  Says that all the Kalifornicators are moving in.

I enlisted in the AF in Phoenix planning on world travel, exciting career and I get an ICBM job.  Happy to be at home though in WYO again.

Gabby