There is an app called Nextdoor that has been unleashed on the oasis of tranquility of the holler.
 The Damn Yankees already invaded and devastated this area in the spring of '65, ....1865 that is.
Because of our close proximity to $$$Town, Blowing Rock NC. People who ain't from around here have been buying property close by. The first half mile of the holler belongs to members of the Bolick family, my neighbors and we're in the middle of them. I have only good feelings for the Bolicks, they are Hillbillies just like me and know how to act. What troubles me is that these foreigners bring with them Yankee busybodiness and this "community"/ advertising/ activism app gives them the ability to transform the area with their damnable ways. At least, in 1865 they wrecked the place and left. I have been reading their whiny assed posts like "why can't they (which always means the damn gubment) invest in the infrastructure to bring fiber optic here". "UPS has lost 4 of my packages, why...." more "they" BS. "I'm having to use Vianet. What are you using? [implying something that's better]". My response was "Two cans and a string". What has always pissed me off about these people is their assumption that what they bring is innately better to the preexisting culture and that they are bringing Civilization to hayseeds. It's a high handed, dismissive, patronizing character disaster that borders on a genetic mutation that propels them to interfere with things. I'm gonna organize the neighbors for the defense of our culture. We moved here specifically to get out of a town controlled by these parasitic liberty vampires.
Pray to keep the holler a sanctuary of Hillbillyness. 
I shoot firearms for fun, on my own property and I'm not alone, lots of us do. The last thing we need is an organized bunch of firearm illiterate virtue signalers trying to stop our fun based on BULLSHIT!!! They will get no where with our officially 2nd Amendment sanctuary county commissioners. It's the civil lawsuit harassment that concerns me. I know that this is the tactic of the sjw. 
Nothing is happening yet but, even a dolt like me can read the tea leaves.
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So the Philistines have tried to colonize, bringing their idolatrous ways? It's a righteous prayer to keep your small territory under tribal control. How He might be persuaded to drive out the Philistines is the only question.

A similar thing happened in my general area, and very near me. Some outside companies bought buildings at a very low cost in the downtown area (not downtown Pittsburgh) where I live. They're not doing anything with it for a number of probable reasons: whatever they put in these buildings won't do well because of the area, they're basically squatting the property in the hopes of that the value will rise and they can sell it, and they have no personal interest in the area. It's a combo of all of these three reasons, I think, but the middle one, the speculation part, is what really motivates real estate devs that have a lot of cash to speculate. Think about it: you can buy a bunch of cheap property, spend nothing else on it, with the potential of high profit margins when the market turns around in the area. It could take a decade or longer, but it's low risk for them.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but that's the motivation, and the corporatist legislative climate makes it easier and lower-risk for companies to do this. It reality, I think it's wrong in most contexts, because of the ideas Ed hinted at above.

Well, I don't even know what to say.  BUT, I can SO relate.  As my neighbors die off from old age (most of us are near or past 70 years of age), who knows who will move in?  LOTS of northerners selling their homes for insane dollars come down here and find way more house and land for 1/3 or 1/2 the price.  The contractors buy up land, build five houses on an acre, fill it with folks who DO NOT want a yard and then they start deciding what's "best" for us?

I got the "nextdoor" letter too.  Seriously?  We all keep track of each other and let each other know if something is going on our own selves, our own way.....  we talk to each other! We don't "need an app" to keep in touch.  I can't believe this social media/don't talk or touch anyone/way of life. 

The sad thing is, as Iain is finding out, you can't even live out in the boonies but what they don't/can't find you and plop down right next door.

Sigh. 

Maybe I need to buy a huge chunk of land in the middle of some woods and we can all just build some cabins and talk about anything other than "I got an app for that" ???????

Sorry, this kind of stuff just gets to me.  I know what's really going on, but I DO have to rant once in a while.......  

(02-12-2020, 12:31 PM)forrealone Wrote: Maybe I need to buy a huge chunk of land in the middle of some woods and we can all just build some cabins and talk about anything other than "I got an app for that" ???????

There's an idea, but you'd have to accept some techy talk between Ed and I.

(02-12-2020, 08:11 PM)jaybreak Wrote:

(02-12-2020, 12:31 PM)forrealone Wrote: Maybe I need to buy a huge chunk of land in the middle of some woods and we can all just build some cabins and talk about anything other than "I got an app for that" ???????

There's an idea, but you'd have to accept some techy talk between Ed and I.

Uh, well, i can talk the talk anytime; worked geek world for 30 years, designing and programming operating and user computer software systems.  Ha ha  Now, i like simple stuff and leave geek stuff to others.  

I found out that most of the Philistines (thanks for that, Ed.) chatter is on the Watauga county end of the main (ha ha) road. I don't care if they mess that end up. Simply by being in Caldwell county which, is deep dark red, is pretty good protection. Watauga county is like the northern Virginia of the mountains, they got the University and all the crap that goes with that. There is a lot of animosity between the town of Boone radical freaks and the free inhabitants of the unincorporated parts of the county who have a thin majority on the county commission, meaning they have a Democrat on it. It's really upside down, it used to be that the Democrats were the conservatives and Republicans really didn't exist. I used to know some Democrats but, they died off. Those of us with a historical perspective are unaffiliated because we remember what Republicans started 150 years ago and can explain things like States rights, the electoral college and why the 14th and 17th amendments are abominations. All the talkers of county secession and 2a sanctuaries don't have a clue. I get irritated by the Hillsdale College graduate youtubers and the Hannity, Beck Limbaugh clones. I agree with them partially but their version of American history is wrong and it creates problems. The defrocked Socialist Baptist preacher who came up with the pledge of allegiance has a lot to answer for. Crap! I'm crossing my fb activity with RF activity. On fb I push my fellow Southerners to abandon the false teachings of 1 nation under God, shining city on a hill, American exceptionalism that they are heavily invested in to their detriment. I don't think God has ever had any use for the USA  or that He ever will. A few individual Americans sure but not the Union or it's Imperial foreign policy. On the other hand, I am fully convicted that He wants me to push religious liberty, decentralization and smaller self governing Independent units as the future for America??? I don't get it but, when I walk up the mountain to pray that's where we wind up. Every single time. Why? I don't really care nor do I need to know, I am just a simple preserver of tradition mixed with the new old approach of what we do here soooooo....there must be a link. Many Christians want to believe that God has a big thing planned for them but, I think preserving what I have received and passing it on for some future generation to use is more important than scanning for signs of the second coming. It's certainly more practical. And speaking of practical,at some point, in the next few weeks I will be buying a new 1911 pistol in .45 acp. If you've ever fired one, you'll know that they are LOUD. My current one is an antique and I want one I can shoot. Most of the time, I'm a 22lr man because they are quiet and cheap and I don't want to bother people 5 miles away. I want to see how the Philistines react on that stupid app. I've been present when the county law come out on a complaint of excessive and I stress excessive gunfire twice. The first time was over concern about a bunch of drunks trying to shoot down a tree, blush, and once because we were bump firing an AR 15 a fun waste of ammo that banning bump stocks has 0 effect on because bump firing is a technique and easily done without a bump stock. The 1st "hey, guys y'all can't be drinking and shooting your making old Miss Magillicuddy nervous"...we quit. The second time was similar old person thought we had a machine gun, we quit no consequences. Most of the little old ladies I've known toted a pistol, in fact one time I had forgot my key and knocked on the front door of the boarding house, 90 year old Miss Yates poked a 38 special through the blinds at me "It's okay miss Yates it's Iain"..." I'm sorry, come on in" A pistol pointing a pistol. I liked her, she walked around in a house coat permanently weighed down on one side by her late husband's trusty S&W. She was half blind but, could strip that thing in 5 seconds. "My Daddy taught us girls to shoot, I can still drive a nail with this thing" I believed her.

The right path is the one God points out for you. Stay on it, Iain.

(02-15-2020, 06:28 AM)Ed Hurst Wrote: The right path is the one God points out for you. Stay on it, Iain.

I like my spot up the mountain where there are no distractions. It takes solitude to hear the voice of God and time. It can take a fair bit before I'm able to hear and other times I don't get nothing. That doesn't bother me, it means keep a going or like in those old British war movies " steadyyyyy...." or "as you were, carry on". Pip pip, jolly good egg, what oh Spiffy. There are gobs of them streaming for free, I get tickled. All right then...I'm afraid I must take leave of your company and go tinker with my motorsickle and see if I can coax a few more miles out of that carburetor that reeeeally needs a rebuild. Just waiting for Uncle Sam.