It's wild, because when I was a kid, there was this huge conservative talking point about how trading freedom for security was bad.

But what if they didn't go through a funky money stage. What if they went through a funky starfish phase?

They're out to demoralize the opposition by parroting the conservative propaganda that everybody ackshually loves trump and nobody voted against him ever.

The 'S' in DSL stands for socialism, right?

I was raised by conservatives in a red state, so I think there's actually multiple factions of "conservative" (per your definition) that get lumped into the same category. I find some of them are more understandable than others.

First off, there's the assholes that are in power and want to retain their power. They don't want improvement, because why would we make things better for others if it reduces the benefit you get, right?

There's the people who don't want improvement as a response to the trauma of growing up in a bad situation. They were often told they didn't deserve aid, and as a trauma response, they've built a mental fortress around being strong enough to not need aid. In their minds, they believe their fortitude means didn't deserve the aid after all, but it leaves them unable to comprehend that the system actually failed them. They see "improvement and evolution" and think "yeah, for everybody but me, no thanks". This is the group "hard times make hard hearts" is referring to. This is often comorbid with the third group...

The conservatives that aren't in power, but still get indirect benefit from the system as it is. Sure, the system isn't great, maybe they live paycheck to paycheck, but there's a roof over their head, so they don't want to upset the house of cards. These are the people who understand "new and improved" on a can of soup means that it's gotten worse, and have seen the nonsense that politicians are calling progress, but that's about as far as their understanding goes. It's easy to say that education is freely available, but learning about actual progressive politics takes a certain amount of free time and neurons that aren't fried after work.

Then there's the typically religious (but not always) nutjobs that want the world to end faster. This is where you start to see the weird overlap with ecofascism. They believe humanity is a scourge, and we ought to die. My stepfather was mentally ill and got us involved in a christian-flavored cult along these lines. I'm one of the rare few that can count themselves fortunate to have been in poverty, because it means my parents couldn't afford to send me to a Jesus Camp or a private school. I left as soon as I could, and don't talk to them any more.

I got lucky, and was able to get out, but people really don't acknowledge how hard it is to overcome indoctrination. When I realized at 19 that I'd been raised with nothing but lies, my entire reality crumbled in front of me, and part of me died that day. I was raised to have my entire identity be in the cult, and I didn't even know who I was any more. I wound up couch surfing and being transient for a while until I got my head back on straight. If it hadn't been for the couple of internet friends willing to help me out, I'd still be homeless.

I found my belt at a secondhand store. It did take some hunting before one turned up, but I can change the buckle on it if I want. I got it for extra cheap because it had snaps holding the buckle on originally, but one of the snaps was broken. It was an easy enough fix to remove the snaps and replace them with chicago screws, and it's honestly a bit more durable with screws anyways.

as you exited a reality that defined you into one where you had to rebuild most or all of your definitions

And by extension, everything that had been constructed using those definitions. My understanding of who I was as a person had to be redefined. My values, my preferences, my likes and dislikes were all based on the cult and had to be redefined.

All my hopes and dreams were gone, because they had been built on a fantasy understanding of reality. My understanding of what the future would look like was gone, and with it the security of having a place in that future. In the cult, I was supposed to be something great, groomed to follow the footsteps of the apostles, but outside of it I am a nobody.

It didn't feel good in the slightest, it just felt so overwhelming and terrifying and confusing. I had no footing I could trust, my compass was freewheeling, I was just ragdolling through the void with no idea of where I'd land.

It's better now, but only because I got very lucky in a few key areas. I'm entirely serious when I say that if it hadn't been for a few friends to help me through it, I never would have gotten back on my feet, and even then, I've never gotten very far.

Hey, it's 80% of reported violent crime. We're just better at it and don't get caught, obvs.

It's not shoplifting, its an employee discount.

I have wasted so much fucking time in games trying to climb ladders that were just decor.

There's no law saying guys can't wear sundresses too

It's also wild to me that I've been told multiple times by experienced outdoorsmen that the most dangerous animal you can encounter in the woods is another human, but that's entirely forgotten as soon as the culture war revs up.

OP went through a functional assessment and/or rehab as a kid without being told what it was

Similar thing happened to my partner over a decade ago. He was working security at a casino, and a poker player keeled over at the table.

The ambulance wouldn't take the body, said they had to contact a private funeral home. The funeral home said they needed a coroner's permission, and the body wound up laying on the floor for several hours while it got sorted out.

They didn't shut down. They didn't even stop using the poker table he died at, people were still happily drinking and gambling with an uncovered body on the floor next to them.

Its fucked up.

It's probably staffed by Nurse Practitioners. They do a lot of stuff that used to be handled by doctors, even my primary care provider is a NP and not a Dr.

Don't we all

Sorta. I was raised with this bullshit, so I can see the distortion of reality. I'm still unpacking all this in therapy myself, because it's a whole worldview.

First off, they're woefully uneducated about history. My high school in Oklahoma briefly touched on the Civil Rights Movement and tried to pass it off as something that was over and done. Rosa Parks got arrested, the white people were shocked that this could happen, they had a sit-in party at a milkshake stand (they didn't talk about any of the pushback that got), MLK did his speech and now everything is fine for black people, no more institutional racism, literally being taught in schools. Now, combine that with your own needs not being met, and the talking heads/politicans say that you're not getting the aid you need because it's going towards making hurt feelings better. There's only so much money in the coffers, and you gotta be really hard up if you're white, but it's easy to get if you're black.

There's also a heavy religious framing about ancestral guilt. Like, if God can make life suck for everybody because Eve ate an apple, and libs are trying to play god, it follows to reason they'd want to make your life suck for the sins of your great-great-great grandparents. It's never outright stated, but if you listen to enough sermons, the puzzle fills in. Like, again, they think the civil rights movement fixed everything, so they think white people have atoned for their transgressions, but the pastor says libs are in consort with satan and can't forgive like jesus, so that's why they want white people to suffer.

Edit: I want to make it clear that I do not personally believe any of that, it's just what I was taught as a kid.

Fed is best.

If you can breastfeed, that's fantastic! But don't be ashamed if you're struggling to produce milk, it's quite common and you shouldn't avoid formula out of fear. It's far worse for a baby to go hungry!

I think this is Black heart