Posted on 07/20/2004 1:14:36 PM PDT by bolobaby
Lived in NC all my life. Can't help ya though - I'm too far to the right - over near the coast.
Thank y'all kindly for the input - it's been extremely helpful.
It's still not exactly decided where we'll be moving to yet, but it's nice to know that wherever my wife and I go, we'll still have THIS community (FR) to count on! :-)
We have the highest tax rates in the Southeast.
If you decide on Charlotte, choose an outlying town because Charlotte taxes are also HIGH.
Vinegar-based or Tomato-based...
I live in Morganton, so you can freepmail me if you like with questions. It is not too hard to get a concealed carry permit and NC has the death penalty. You can get by without too much interference from social services provided you put your foot down if they come snooping (they probably won't). I'm happy with the political situation locally. BTW Burke county has two new high schools planned and there is a big new development at the lake in the works if those are considerations for you.
This is a good link to the development at the lake. Be more specific about what kind of job you are looking for and I might be able to tell you where to start looking.
Big government is getting more prevalent every day. I'll let others answer the gun question. My shotgun sits pretty quietly most of the time, only occasionally going for some sporting clays or to rid the garden of a particularly pesky varmint. The General Assembly has passed a number of laws in the last ten years giving social services pretty egregious access to your personal business. Comparatively speaking, we are less liberal than Maine or New York, but also far less libertarian than either Virginia or South Carolina.
Values - as South Park put it, "tolerant" means you put up with something, not embrace it wholeheartedly. I'm looking for a place that values nuclear families, Christian values, neighborly attitudes, and personal responsibility. Being tolerant of other lifestyles shouldn't mean a gay pride festival every two weeks.
That basically comes down to whether you live in a city or a rural area. We are still part of the bible belt, but Charlotte, Durham, and Raleigh all have seen gay pride parades. I think Durham has several every year. In rural areas, you will be disaffected pretty quickly if you have a tendency to drink a lot, work on Sunday, or engage in loose sexual habits. Quite a dichotomy.
Economy - I'm a tech guy: do you think I will be able to find computer work out that way? Does the place feel abandoned or like it is growing?
I'm a thirty-year IT veteran myself. Tech is thriving in NC. Unfortunately it happens to be doing so around the most liberal areas of the state. IBM, Sun, AT&T, and Lucent all have major presence in NC. And of course, NC is the home of Red Hat Linux. You may have to be willing to commute long distances to live a conservative life-style but still enjoy the fruits of a tech salary. I drive 50 miles one way every day.
Kids - How are the schools? Recreation? (Readers Digest names Morganton as one of the second best places to raise a kid - still think this is true?)
The public schools are atrocious and getting worse all the time. Do not even consider putting your children in NC public schools. They are nothing more than socialist indoctrination centers and they graduate crops of functional illiterates every year. On the other hand, NC is very friendly to school choice. There are a lot of church-based private schools as well as many of a secular nature. And NC has a strong Home-Schooling community.
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