Such a shame…I go to LC for work now and again and it always seemed like a nice place. As for needles and such, I lived across Central at the entrance the Abq Country Club area. Beautiful homes but now just another stop for the drug people to tie off and sleep in. Almost stepped on a few needles myself. I’ve stopped wearing sandals after living here.
Just wait until they legalize pot. That’s when the homeless issue will really get sporty. It’s bad now, but after that well…
Doc, you have a good point. We are just scratching the surface right now. When the Governor matures into her position it will probably make what we are seeing now look like minor league shit.
Co-gnARR, I feel ya man. I don’t think we have the numbers poll wise to outweigh the dems, even more so when you throw in the apathetic population into the equation it does not look good.
Hopefully I am wrong.
Michelle Lujan Grisham is not mentally astute to run the show on her own. She’s the front person for external leftist operators outside of New Mexico. She’s kind of a moron. All the Lujans are morons. Her cousin Ben Ray Lujan is a moron, his dad, the late Ben Lujan was a moron. That has been the case here for generations.
There’s plenty of places in New Mexico to find like-minded, gun owning, traditional Conservatives. Look to the northwest, the far west, the northeast and the southeast. I don’t have enough current knowledge on the Silver City area, but it’s always been mining and ranching. Everything outside of the center of New Mexico has promise.
I operate on the San Miguel and Harding County line. Old time Spanish ranchers in the area who care less about politics. Let them earn their meager living, keep their guns and don’t mess with them and they are happy. As I have said before, get out of ABQ, Santa Fe and Taos and you have some really independent people, who will never comply with gun confiscation and registration. These old Spanish families despise the Mexican, considering these Mestizos to be almost sub-human. Calling any of these Spanish folks around here “Mexican” and you will have a fight on your hands.
For those of you posting here, get out of Doña Ana, Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties and life is good here, and will be despite what crap rolls out of the population centers in this State.
Just watch this amazing video of our moron governor on her Twitter Account, busting down walls:
I admire your optimism and outlook. I really do.
It’s just getting harder for me to share in it.
Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and even to a degree, California have a more conservative base outside their population centers, and yet it does not seem to be going well for them. Maybe New Mexico is “unique” enough to bypass the same fate. But, I personally take no comfort in our Governor’s easily influenced stance. If anything, it’s an even greater cause for concern.
This is one of those weird situations I hope I am embarrassingly wrong in my outlook.
You’re gonna run out of places to run to outside of the Land of Enchantment. I have strong roots here and I understand how this place works. In three years my family will have been here for 400 years. That’s deep roots. You couldn’t pay me to live in the Albuquerque area, but there are lots of places in this rural State where you can move to, and do your own thing. Look at how the hippies in Taos and north of Tao have operated since the late 1960’s. Depending on your profession, you may not have options. Retiring here is a great option, especially if you move away from civilization. Cost of living in this State is still low compared to other places, provided you’re not in Santa Fe or Taos.
I am lucky because I am in an area of large cattle operations where there is little or no infrastructure. You just can’t buy land, move here and survive. It’s mostly dry land and that keeps the hordes of the unclean away from here. You can find your own little bugout place if you do your research.
FYI, when you read my sig line about 1879, that’s when the ranch was incorporated. The family first settled in the area between Pena Blanca and Santa Fe in the 1620’s, working as a soldier oppressing the Pueblos in that area, then his grandson moved out here in the early 1700’s, but driven off and on by raiding Apaches and Kiowa. They managed to finally stay here permanently in 1751, and we have occupied this area ever since, including surviving Indian raids.
Truth be told, I don’t want to leave. There is a quality to the life, land, and people here that is often overlooked by many, and from the outside looking in it is very easy overlook it completely. Hard to verbalize, but it gets under ones skin. Yes, we have problems, some of them are big. But, it’s kind of like the old west with Iphones. Pretty confident you can relate to what I am trying to convey.
Plus I am becoming more in tune with the fact that the real solutions to our problems can’t really be solved by simply relocating. I believe this is true for all states. Politics have and will always be in a perpetual state of change and often it just becomes postponing the inevitable, generally speaking. If looked at through a truly honest lens, there really aren’t any “safe” locations left.
But…
The analytical side of me currently has me wondering if the juice is worth the squeeze long term. It’s just in my nature.
The “abrasive” (wife’s term) has me leaning towards staying and being the proverbial thorn, politically speaking.
The abrasive side usually wins.
Without divulging too much information, can I ask what area of the State do you reside in? I have lots of contacts here all over, mostly cattle and horse connections, but local law enforcement, BLM Rangers and range managers, plus other businesses. We are on “the list” for contributors with the New Mexico Film Commission supplying horses and tack for various films. Some you would probably be familiar with like Silverado, the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, the remake of True Grit, etc. Fun to watch films being made.
A large part of the problem is voter turnout–you’ve seen my previously cited “60% of 40%” stat re WA’s last election, right? If the Right can’t be BOTHERED to get off our asses and vote even when it’s as simple as “mark paper and mail back,” all that’s left on the field is the Left.
SILENCE IS CONSENT, people!
Silverado is hands down my favorite movie. Like ever.
Wife has worked on a fair number of tv/films all over the state. Some of them quite large productions, some stuff that never really went anywhere.
I was an extra once on a tv show. Interesting industry for sure.
Central part of the state for me. Not in the ABQ/metro, but close enough to be irritated by it.
From your lips to Gods ears.
You sir, most definitely have one of the radest family histories that I have happened upon considering you and your children still work the land. Your family beat my family to this continent by a century.
Thanks for sharing.
Actually, my eldest son isn’t working the place since he spent 10 years in the Navy and is now a producer for a major radio company. My second son is in his 2nd year at West Point, and my teenage daughter is still in High School, planning to be a Veterinarian for large animals. She may be the one working the place for a while since she wants to remain in New Mexico. Both of my sons have indicated they would still like to be involved in the operation, even from afar.
This history is interesting because in this remote part of North America, you had sophisticated Europeans colonizing here before the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. You had sophisticated Europeans here at the same time as the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Many times the story of Colonial Spain is ignored when the study of early America is focused on. Most think anything outside of original 13 colonies was uncivilized and full of savages. In fact since the 1540’s, Spain was forcing Christianity by the sword out here. My soldier ancestor from Castille Spain (born 1597) was a young 25 year old mounted Conquistador when he defended a resupply mission from Mexico in 1622. He never returned to Mexico or Spain.
For the old families here in New Mexico, this is fairly normal. I have said before that by the time US Troops rolled into New Mexico in 1846, New Mexicans didn’t care. They had already been doing trade with the Americans via the Santa Fe Trail for a long time and American greenbacks were a common currency. Mexico had really abandoned this area because they had shifted their focus to the California coast and the missions there. Resupply by ship was easier there than the dangerous overland trek from central Mexico. Our common theme in my family is that:
“We didn’t come to America - America came to us”.
I moved here from New England and saw certain parallels with the deep roots and established culture. My born & bred yankee friends asked what New Mexico was like. I told them it’s a former colony, just like the north east. The difference though is this land flew the flag of a different crown.
Yup, there is a huge amount of history here in New Mexico that pre-dates the US as a whole. Santa Fe as an example is the oldest capitol city in the U.S. (1600’s) and is like the third or fourth oldest city in the U.S. if memory serves correctly.
Pretty cool stuff really.
Yep, it is cool. For people worried about so-called Climate Change, the Spanish Priests kept detailed records of rain and snow, hot and cold, drought and heavy rainy periods beginning in the early 1600’s. These records (if you can translate them) are found in the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. What is evident is the climate was constantly changing out here. For this part of the southwest, there have been constant 100 year cycles of wet and dry periods. The Spanish Priest records combined with tree ring dating (Dendrochronology) confirms this.
The 19th Century here in the American west was a very dry period, but by the late 1890’s a wet period returned, only interrupted by the dust bowl. From the 1940’s to the early 1990’s we were still fairly wet out here with normal wet and dry annual cycles. In the mid-1990’s a major drought cycle returned out here and it continues. This is probably a return of a century long cycle. I keep track of this sort of thing since I deal with range management and rotating herds between grazing areas.
Russell Johnson, whose ranch borders Mexico, said he has dealt with break-ins, litter, theft and damage to his property and livestock from trespassing immigrants.
"We’ve had people break into our buildings. Fortunately, nobody has broken into our house, but other family members have had their houses broken into down here in the border.
“We have had a lot of cattle theft issues in the past because a portion of our borders is still barbed wire fence so, we’ve had some people come across and steal some of our cattle.”
"We’ve had vehicles stolen. We’ve had instances where if they get lost or if the smuggler figures if that person cant keep up, and they get dropped out of the group, they’ll set fire to pasture grass to try to signal for help.
“They’ve cut through fencing that divide our pastures. They’ve torn up our floats and our water towers that we have for our cattle and have drained our water systems.”
My take: Mr. President–GIVE US OUR WALL!
Nothing new on the border. Back a decade or more ago, the government tried a system by Boeing called SBI.net. It was some high-tech electronic system utilizing real-time cameras and long range communications. Local land owners had to provide rights of way so the government could get in and install this stuff. I think it was scrapped at some point.
Maybe the silver lining is that this issue seems to be gaining some momentum. Hopefully it gains enough to garner attention at the federal level so these folks down there can get some help while bringing it to the nations attention in the process.
I know, I know. But one can hope right?
Right. I think we really need to get some crowd sourced funding and a few eager indepent media types to start a huge media blitz, rogue style. Viral videos, town hall meetings, the works. I know two guys who have a drone business for the film industry. I’m sure it’s not terribly expense to hire some one just to do fly overs and record what’s happening.
I’m sure the bulk of the nation is totally ignorant of the true calamity here. We know MSM is behind this. With some unbiased real footage we could effect a seachange.
The major challenge will ultimately be distribution- we know elgoog, rettiwt, etc, (the evil ones always have names spelled backwards to prevent summoning, right?) will catch on and shut down YouTube channels, tweets, etc.
But where there’s a will there’s a way.
A lot of folks don’t know it but there is a Federal Anti-Terrorism training center in the former Phelps-Dodge/Freeport McMoran mining town of Playas, in Hidalgo County. I’ve been down there in the Antelope Wells area off and on for years with a ranching friend (who was not interviewed by KOB TV last month). There is a decent Federal presence there with Homeland Security and various military units that rotate in and out of that training “town”. The locals are afraid to engage with guns because they figure the retaliation from cartels would be swift and deadly. You can’t keep someone up all day and all night and still try to make a living. At some point you will be murdered in your house or out on the range somewhere.
Total government failure in it’s requirement of protecting the citizenry from foreign invaders.