I wish Americans would grow up and learn to coexist.

> the light at the end of the tunnel may be you.

https://genius.com/Aerosmith-amazing-lyrics

Having grown up in Moscow, I’ve never heard of those Siberian separatists. However, in my almost two decades in the US I haven’t gone a year without Texan separatism becoming a topic in my social circle.

This observation is made without controlling for my age or current political climate, so a hunk of rock salt is in order.

We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative. Next they'll come for those who have stayed silent. Failure to project virtue signaling will soon be used to deny employment and participation in other aspects of society. Just you wait.

Anonymity is a risk mitigation technique that speaks to the very real desire to keep speech free. If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.

That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repairman who was at my house yesterday was horrified to find out that I need a special keyboard to prevent pain in my hands from too much typing. “Don’t you have insurance or workers comp?” he asked. He thought I was lying or mistaken when I laughed and explained that my injuries are mine to deal with on my own.

In my part of America, which is neither overly cosmopolitan nor a big city where all the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed dreamers are flocking, most people aim to work in the various trades after high school. The ambitious ones will move up in the world by owning businesses which employ tradesmen, but that’s about as far as most will go. To most HN readers this will seem like a colossal economic hole, but it’s nothing like it. Tradesmen with only a few years of experience make decent money, and business owners are enjoying conditions similar to those which HNers with “lifestyle businesses” aim to attain.

Yes, there are untold millions of Americans working menial jobs. Those jobs require no special skills or experience, which is why such workers are seen as expendable. To lump such workers and their plight together with decidedly blue-collar tradesmen is a mistake.