I don't think Alabama is sending it's best people

[misanthrope]

14. Alabama's longtime problem has been retaining its "best people"

Are there good people in Alabama? Sure, but they are vastly outnumbered by the complacent and cowed, the marginalized and malicious and, most of all, the willfully ignorant.

So many of those who could make Alabama a better place get worn out by fighting the tide or squandering their potential and leave to find their lives' purpose elsewhere. I've seen it for a half-century, the cycle that keeps places like this making the same mistakes with little change.