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Oh, Look: More People Are Now Leaving Florida Than Moving In

Crazy politics and bad state governance are a big reason to leave.

I really like Florida -- but I would never move there because of the harm inflicted by the DeSantis administration. Turns out more people are agreeing with me.

Then we have things like this, via Popular Information:

Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism, a right-wing effort to merge Christian and American identities. Thousands of Florida teachers, lured by cash stipends, have attended trainings featuring these materials.

A three-day training course on civic education, conducted throughout Florida in the summer of 2023, included a presentation on the "Influences of the Judeo-Christian Tradition" on the founding of the United States. According to speaker notes accompanying one slide, teachers were told that "Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state," and the same hierarchy is reflected in America's founding documents. That slide quotes the Bible to assert that "[c]ivil government must be respected, but the state is not God." Teachers were told the same principle is embedded in the Declaration of Independence.

[...] The next slide in the deck quotes an article by Peter Lillback, the president of Westminster Theological Seminary and the founder of The Providence Forum, an organization that promotes and defends Christian nationalism. The group's executive director, Jerry Newcombe, writes a weekly column for World Net Daily — a far-right site known for publishing hundreds of stories falsely suggesting Obama was a Muslim born in Africa.

Lillback, a favorite of right-wing pundit Glenn Beck, is not a prominent historian. But Lillback is one of the original signatories of the Manhattan Declaration, a 2009 document calling for civil disobedience if the United States fails to adopt the views of right-wing Christians on abortion and same-sex marriage.

So even a moderate conservative from Connecticut regrets his decision to move there? Two of the most previously enthusiastic Florida transplants I know also are making plans to get out.

Part of it is climate change (which, as you may know, is now forbidden to mention in any state communications). Even people who previously loved the Florida sunshine are wilting in the current 114 degree temperatures. How about a refreshing dip in the ocean? Nope, the Florida Gulf waters are now 90 degrees. In May.

And need I remind you, the hotter the offshore waters, the more powerful the hurricanes?

I've always cautioned people who move to low-tax states like Texas and Florida, "You get what you pay for."

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