Shrugging to Florida
Posted by Bethesda-gal 6 years, 11 months ago to Ask the Gulch
We've had it with the leftist area we live in and are working towards relocating to Florida panhandle in the near future. Any suggestions / insights ?
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I was surprised when Dobrien's father told me there are bears about.
Bears? Though I lived in Dothan, AL, I practically grew up at Compass Lake summer after summer and was pretty good at water skiing way back when.
Little dino often explored Compass Lake woods that looked like an old Tarzan movie all alone with a short-eared mixed breed Cocker Spaniel.
Bears? Maybe they weren't there during the 50s and 60s, but I swam with alligators around. Even went speargun fishing with a face mask and a snorkel..
Old dino now living beside a very large woods near Birmingham, these days I have this to think about~
http://yellowhammernews.com/faithandc...
There were no coyotes or armadillos that I knew of in Florida and Alabama when I was a kid. Now they are all over the place, having crossed the Mississippi.
During the 80s, I was quite surprised at Compass Lake when a brother's attacking dog caused an armadillo to jump five feet high. That's when I learned armadillo armor is nothing like a turtle's.
A few years ago in the dirt road boonies of Alabama, I once saw a road kill armadillo with its legs up in the and a small beer bottle stuck in its mouth.
I wonder what shape the car driver's was in.
Just came back to tell the Gulch that I've seen some glorious sunsets at Compass Lake. Of course, that depends on the weather and there's other lake photos here too~
https://www.google.com/search?q=compa...
No damage from hurricanes in that time.
The gulches own Allosaur spent many years on that same lake in the 50s and 60's and his brother
Still does. The land is cheap. The beech is nearby.
Cost of living very reasonable.
We have almost no poisonous creatures except our liberal polititions. I can't say that about Florida.
https://compasslake.org/ Check it out.
I'm from FL, and can not believe the buildup in the last 30 years. Just amazing. I like it there, except for the traffic and humidity.
As for estate taxes you have to leave it to someone (hopefully not the state). A nonprofit (like ARI) you want to support could avoid the loss to those taxes.
Let us know what you find.
Additionally, New Hampshire and Tennessee tax only interest and dividend income—you can keep your earned income tax free.
But yes, that is a possibility.
I live in South Georgia but we have an ocean front Home in Navarre, Florida, which is on the panhandle, about 30 miles east of Pensacola, Florida. We are there right now! We love it here, and I would love to retire here.
As a lady born and raised in the Deep South, I love the small town and deeply southern atmosphere of Navarre. It might be worth it for you to give it a look.
And you’re right- the panhandle is totally different from the rest of Florida!
OK, seriously, one thing I will say against Florida: Humidity.
OK, two things: Hurricanes.
Instead, I highly recommend Free State West.
Free State West is, for now, Cochise County, the southeastern corner of Arizona.
Like the other 57 states, Arizona has rotten politicians, miserably mis-educated voters, but it also has a heritage of freedom missing from most other states.
This county also has some gorgeous scenery, the nicest people I have met anywhere in these United States, and a really intriguing history, including being the home of the 10th Cavalry.
And weather.
Yes, we do have weather.
It's been rather chilly, even downright cold, these last few days, but, after living in, visiting, or working in more than three-dozen states, I love this area most.
And, even more important, if we can get even just a few dozen serious lovers of liberty to join us, we could effect some changes here, could make our area a home for advocates of freedom and an example to, first, the rest of Arizona, then to the rest of the Southwest, then perhaps to each of these United States.
Please look at www.freestatewest.com and/or our Facebook page, facebook.com/freestatewest1
And feel free to ask me any questions, too. Thank you.
More rural and very friendly folks.. Even so, Clearwater beach is ranked in the top 10 every year. Good Luck!
Conservatives advocate more government, just as do so-called liberals, just differently oriented more government.
What Florida needs, and what every state needs, is libertarians: supporters of freedom, advocates of rational approaches to government.
Isn't Trump considered a conservative victory?
Trump has his own statist and collectivist premises, but not as consistently as the progressive left; he is more like the "liberals" of the 1960s, though less intellectual. They, like the progressives of today, also sought and seek to "serve the people" -- the question is how and for what, by what standards.
Trump is living proof of why being "anti" is not enough. His collectivist-statist premises can be expected to lead to more damage despite whatever else good he does in superficially holding back some of the worst of the recent decline under Obama and Congress.
He has already reneged on his campaign promises to reverse the Obama National Monument decrees hurting people in rural areas, has significantly and deliberately raised taxes on many individuals with his "tax cuts", has failed to repeal Obamacare as he openly supports more government spending and intervention in medical care, and is threatening spending increases on "infrastructure" as a euphemism for massive government spending and intervention in the economy in general on top of the exploding spending and borrowing.
He has no understanding of American political individualism. His "populist" emotional ideas are so quirky and unpredictable that nothing he does would be surprising. What little he has done to oppose the far left in the courts and a small part of the regulations will not last and will more quickly come to a halt if he can't control his loutish big mouth and the Democrats take over Congress.
He is not Hillary, but whatever he does that happens to slow the statism is nothing but buying time against an inevitably more statist and collectivist future if the trend is not reversed by rejection of the collectivist premises that have been spreading across the country.
Trump and his "populist" support are a blip on the radar screen as a minority of the country desperately thrashes in a temporary backlash within a continuing downward trend caused by acceptance of an anti-American philosophy originally spread from Europe. They don't know what direction to go in, only "not the current swamp", with no idea how and why it became what it is.
A swaggering man who doesn't know the difference between truth and falsehood in his life of the non-stop sales pitch and "deals" for anything is not the kind of leadership that is required to save this country. No one else makes him do that and no one else made him support a government "replacement" for Obamacare, punitive tax increases against his perceived enemies, an anti-private property rights and Federal lands policy, or his other attacks on individualism and freedom. He is not "perfect for the times".
Whatever time Trump buys in some realms because he is not a radical left ideological progressive, he is not reversing the decline of this country, nor as a range of the moment Pragmatist with statist premises himself does he know the right direction. It is not enough to be against something, you must know what you are for and work to achieve it intellectually. People are lashing out against the results of collectivism around the globe, only to pursue another variant of it.
You can try to find a better area of the country to live in with less emphasis on high taxes and controls because there are still differences across the nation, but they are temporary differences within a uniform downward trend exploited and pushed by Washington politics, but not caused by it. Leftist policies are expanding everywhere because of the spread and increasing acceptance of leftist ideas and their widely accepted false philosophic premises.
We ( the nation, the world) is at such a brink that there is no time for any high minded ideals to try to win the day with arguments. We are far beyond that. Someone like Trump must pull us back from the brink with his actions and then he can turn over the reigns to the next guy (or gal like Nikki Haley) who can put forth all the arguments they like to win over peoples’ minds.
The necessity of defending reason and individualism is not a "high minded ideal" for which there "is no time", it is all that will turn the contrary around. There are no shortcuts.
We have no time or personality cults and no time to not to engage in spreading the proper ideas required.
Think Patton in WWII. That's kinda how I look at Trump and his actions. No PC, what ya see is what ya get. Idolatry not involved, just waiting for the next step in thwarting the leftist/establishment agenda. The swamp was not filled in a day, and it will take a long time to be drained. Trump is getting the denizens to show their true colors, little by little. Luvin' it.
Regarding the Florida panhandle, I don't know much beyond the usual tourist destinations (Destin, Pensacola, Ft. Walton Beach). Look into Santa Rosa Beach perhaps? Pace is a great place to be a chemical engineer in that part of Florida.
I had property in Tampa in the 80s and JB is correct, the property taxes are far too high unless you have had a homestead exemption for years.
However, if I was looking to live in Florida and cost of housing wasn't a big issue, I'd choose the eastern seaboard, not the Gulf Coast. Mossies and sand flies and humidity are less of a problem with Atlantic Ocean breezes than the lower speeds off the Gulf in many parts of the panhandle. The Gulf is ugly compared to the Atlantic, too, imo. Maybe you should look at the area near St Augustine, too?
It is similar to the gulf at Merida, Mexico.
Unfortunately, it has a large component of military and retired military. imo, there would be lots of resistance to the basic elements (that the Gulch brings) of the free market and individual self reliance by that federal bureaucracy and those dependent on it.
Frankly, there is no place in the US where the Gulch would be tolerated since no one in the Gulch would be paying taxes for services not requested or delivered.
Like any philosophy, unless you are a constituency of 1, there will always be some measure of compromise. It is just a matter of finding a place that operates within ones comfort zone before reaching the tipping (or shrugging) point.
100 miles rt to Whole Foods?
That's why I was glad to have a couple farms and a dairy about 30 miles away in Alabama;^)
Pensacola is not my cup of joe.
Our area does get hurricanes, but doesn't ever seem to get a direct hit. In 2004, a couple of hurricanes hit an hour south of us. Last year, Matthew stayed just off shore. This year Irma was kind of scary, but only hit us with 105 mph winds. About 10 years ago, Tropical Storm Fay dumped 27 inches of rain in 2 days, and the water drained as quickly as it fell. I live just far enough inland (~5 miles) to not get any serious flooding or wind damage. My wife and I are getting hurricane shutters installed in a couple of weeks, after 20 years living here; prior to now, I have used styrofoam mounted with Tapcon screws and double sided foam tape; the styrofoam is unconventional, but works adequately. This area was picked by NASA as the southeasternmost place to launch from with minimal hurricane risk. We get sideswiped a fair amount, but never any serious damage. Usually the hurricane prep (a couple hundred dollars a year) and the post-hurricane repairs cost about the same. The cost of living through hurricane season is about the same as living through the snow and ice season up north.
Taxes are low, and life is affordable in this part of Florida.
There is no state or local income tax in Florida. Sales tax is 6%, with most counties (including mine) having a 0.5% sales tax add-on.
Are you in the small city or outside it with a decent amount of land around the house and in the surroundings?
Why is that area better than the panhandle?
What kind of hurricane shutters are you getting? We have been using heavy plywood on frames locked to steel posts for storm/security window covers, but it is too much to deal with.
I live in a small suburb of Melbourne called Suntree/Viera. Most homes here are around 2000-2500 sq. ft. with lots that take around 35 minutes to cut with a push mower (maybe 0.3 acre).
The panhandle gets colder than most people realize. At times like this, the panhandle will have nights that get down into the 20's pretty regularly. When one gets halfway down the Florida peninsula, you might get a freeze 0 to 3 mornings per year, but the high temperatures will not reach 60oF but one day per year. The Melbourne area is the coolest in the summer in Florida (90-93 pretty consistently for 4 months, but almost never 95), but somewhat warmer in the winter because of its ocean proximity. Today, for instance, people are talking about it being cold, but the temp is around 65. It feels good to me!
Can I ask you - what would make you want to relocate from Cape Coral to Lakeland ??
California: 13.3 percent (no surprise)
Oregon: 9.9 percent
Minnesota: 9.85 percent
Iowa: 8.98 percent
New Jersey: 8.97 percent
Vermont: 8.95 percent
District of Columbia: 8.95 percent
New York: 8.82 percent
Hawaii: 8.25 percent
Wisconsin: 7.65 percent