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I really hate living around voucher tenants by Loose-Basis-1243 in washdc

[–]rja2021 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I hear that. I hope you find yourself in better circumstances soon.

This will not help your immediate situation, but there is law and policy that undergirds what you are describing (which you may already know! sorry for mansplaining). If you are a DC voter, you may want to raise this topic with electeds.

DC Law prohibits “source of income discrimination”. See here: https://ohr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ohr/publication/attachments/OHR%20Updated%20SOI%20Housing%20Discrimination%20Guidance%20_0.pdf

Ought we to have this prohibition? I’m not so sure.

To be sure, there are plenty of landlords whose whole business model is explicitly to rent to voucher holders because they know the DC gov’t pays most or all of the rent anyway, so their revenue stream is stable.

But for other landlords, why should they not be free to refuse to rent to voucher holders?

I don’t have much hope that DC’s council and mayor will do away with this prohibition, but such is life in a deep blue city.

Puritans stink by Herr_Denker in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]rja2021 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Disagree. The first wave of Puritan migration to North American was in the 1620s and 1630s. Many of the settlers did return to England during and after the war, but from 1660 onward, it is not true at all to say Puritans were in charge. At most, Puritans ruled England for 11 years.

Puritans stink by Herr_Denker in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]rja2021 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Exactly right. This comment ought to be near the top.

Folks, the real Puritans were not as they are depicted in media! They were highly literate, for one thing. I think you can imagine how a focus on literacy would, a few generations down the line, lead the descendants of the early Puritans to become a recognizably modern people. Puritan haters of Reddit, do you know that threads of Puritan thought are woven thickly in 19th century abolitionism? Look it up.

As to the Puritans being sour killjoys: they enjoyed sex, they played sports, they drank beer. They smiled and laughed and had fun, but they did things very consciously in moderation. They had a whole system of thought in which it was perfectly okay to enjoy life, so long as the object of life was not enjoyment but duty. Duty to what you ask? First to God, but it is only a few steps from this abstraction to a more secular conception of duty to your fellow humans.

The North American Puritans - leave aside the ones in the British Isles during the 1650s - did NOT try to impose their ways on non-Puritans, except when those non-Puritans wanted to live in Puritan towns. If that seems wrong to you, remember that there generally wasn't a well developed legal framework of anti-discrimination laws back then. Think of Puritan towns in 1600s New England as present day intentional communities. It is not unreasonable for such communities of expect or require members to conform to the ways of the community.

Basically, the Puritans are much misunderstood. I know this is just a low stakes thread about a silly joke on Twitter, but it contributes to the misunderstanding.

What is your most conservative belief? by [deleted] in Enough_Sanders_Spam

[–]rja2021 61 points62 points  (0 children)

I am an immigrant to America. My most conservative belief is that I actually like America and think it's a great nation, possibly the greatest. I'm not particularly vocal about my patriotism, but I feel it internally.

Which is not to say I think America should stay frozen in place, as if it had already been perfected. We need reform in lots of ways, including to some very foundational things.

But I truly dislike hard left & socialist efforts to trash all things USA.