Will America ever overcome its redneck puritan roots?

J · Post by J » 2004-11-03 11:22pm

As long as there are hicks there will be hick-states, and as long as there are hick-states there will be hicks..it's a great example of self-perpetuating cycle. I really can't see it ending unless the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts or an asteroid impacts in the middle of hick nation.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2004-11-03 11:26pm

Darth Wong wrote:Since I've never heard of these "Sojourners", I won't hold my breath waiting for them to turn the masses.

It began as a local group in Illinois in 1971, but didn't become a national group until the late 1990s. It's still more a loose network than a strong organization like the Christian Coalition, but there're at least 100,000 people who are involved with it, so it's not an itty bitty group either. I wouldn't hold my breath for them to turn the masses either, but even small splinters are a start.

ReinnResauq · Post by **ReinnResauq** » 2004-11-03 11:27pm

Darth Wong wrote: As for Michigan, I don't see why anyone's surprised. Michigan has more of a Midwestern redneck attitude than a Northeastern blueblood attitude, for sure. I've been there and seen it first-hand.

I'm not too horribly surprised that the area I live in (read: 150 miles from the nearest intra-regional airport) is like that. In fact, in my short time here, I've met the single most fundamental christian I've ever had the misfortune of crossing paths with. And for someone who grew up in Branson, Missouri, also known as Vegas: Christian Style, that means something.

But otherwise, this state seemed quite liberal. It actually seemed like a decent balance between leftist tree huggers and right wing nutjobs. No coastal state to be sure, but it appeared to have its heart in the right place. Guess I was wrong.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-11-03 11:42pm

ReinnResauq wrote:But otherwise, this state seemed quite liberal. It actually seemed like a decent balance between leftist tree huggers and right wing nutjobs. No coastal state to be sure, but it appeared to have its heart in the right place. Guess I was wrong.

It may indeed seem quite liberal compared to Missouri, but does that really say much?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-11-03 11:47pm

A lot of this is generational. I don't have any numbers on hand, but I'd be willing to be if you did polling you'd find much more favorable views on gay marriage and other social issues among younger folks than boomers and seniors.

Or I could be totally wong. We could be right in the middle of a Great Awakening that will stymie progress for another generation. I hope not.

HyperionX · Post by **HyperionX** » 2004-11-04 12:19am

I suspect this will happen with the coming of the "Echo" boomers. Basically the children of the Baby Boomers. This'll happen in force after the decade though.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-11-04 12:53am

This calls for a Hawking bet*.

No.

* From Stephen Hawking betting against something he wanted, like when he bet against the existance of black holes. If he's wrong, he's happy because he didn't waste years of research into black holes. If he's right, he at least gets a magazine subscription or something out of it. Of course in this case, I'll never be able to collect if I'm right, so maybe I should have called it a Manhattan bet instead, after the people in the Manhattan Project who bet that the first atomic test would set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere killing all life on Earth, knowing full well that even if it did happen somehow, they would never be able to collect on it. Actually that may not be a true story, though the Hawking bets are true.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-04 01:00am

Joe wrote:A lot of this is generational. I don't have any numbers on hand, but I'd be willing to be if you did polling you'd find much more favorable views on gay marriage and other social issues among younger folks than boomers and seniors.

Or I could be totally wong. We could be right in the middle of a Great Awakening that will stymie progress for another generation. I hope not.

Not really, it depends on the polls for the particular data but even in the more fund-erfull parts of the nation people are just plain becoming more well, tolerant. They're maybe not any less approving but they aren't as willing to make it public policy.

Aeolus · Post by **Aeolus** » 2004-11-04 01:41am

White Haven wrote:...Is it too late to let the South win? I can move out of Virginia, just give me a couple weeks of warning before the split. I could even swallow my hatred of 'South Will Rise Again!' bumper stickers, if it'll mean that a large chunk of the fundies GO AWAY.

Ya'll yankees should have thought about that 140 years ago. Before you razed Atlanta to the ground. I guess this is what they mean by that old phrase "payback is a bitch"

generator_g1 · Post by **generator_g1** » 2004-11-04 01:46am

Could the re-appearance of Osama bin Laden right before the elections might have influenced people to vote for Bush?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-04 01:51am

generator_g1 wrote:Could the re-appearance of Osama bin Laden right before the elections might have influenced people to vote for Bush?

A bit, maybe, but not that much. More likely Bush just won because of Kerry's lackluster campaign.

generator_g1 · Post by **generator_g1** » 2004-11-04 01:54am

Maybe you're right, I was thinking that Osama's reappearance could have scared some voters into thinking "This guy's still out there, Bush has to take him out this time...."

Aeolus · Post by **Aeolus** » 2004-11-04 01:56am

Joe wrote:A lot of this is generational. I don't have any numbers on hand, but I'd be willing to be if you did polling you'd find much more favorable views on gay marriage and other social issues among younger folks than boomers and seniors.

Or I could be totally wong. We could be right in the middle of a Great Awakening that will stymie progress for another generation. I hope not.

That precisely what we are in

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-11-04 02:04am

Aeolus wrote:
White Haven wrote:...Is it too late to let the South win? I can move out of Virginia, just give me a couple weeks of warning before the split. I could even swallow my hatred of 'South Will Rise Again!' bumper stickers, if it'll mean that a large chunk of the fundies GO AWAY.
Ya'll yankees should have thought about that 140 years ago. Before you razed Atlanta to the ground. I guess this is what they mean by that old phrase "payback is a bitch"

Atlanta is now a large (mostly) modern city with a large liberal population, immigrant population, and openly gay population (not all necessarily in the same people) with many universities, high tech industries, and multinational businesses. And that airport.

What are you doing, trying to give people ideas about cleansing the world with fire?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-04 02:08am

Aeolus wrote:
Joe wrote:A lot of this is generational. I don't have any numbers on hand, but I'd be willing to be if you did polling you'd find much more favorable views on gay marriage and other social issues among younger folks than boomers and seniors.

Or I could be totally wong. We could be right in the middle of a Great Awakening that will stymie progress for another generation. I hope not.
That precisely what we are in

Just an assumption or are there numbers to back that?

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2004-11-04 02:13am

Mayabird wrote:
Aeolus wrote:
White Haven wrote:...Is it too late to let the South win? I can move out of Virginia, just give me a couple weeks of warning before the split. I could even swallow my hatred of 'South Will Rise Again!' bumper stickers, if it'll mean that a large chunk of the fundies GO AWAY.
Ya'll yankees should have thought about that 140 years ago. Before you razed Atlanta to the ground. I guess this is what they mean by that old phrase "payback is a bitch"
Atlanta is now a large (mostly) modern city with a large liberal population, immigrant population, and openly gay population (not all necessarily in the same people) with many universities, high tech industries, and multinational businesses. And that airport.

What are you doing, trying to give people ideas about cleansing the world with fire?

True, but the first year Georgia's per-capita real GDP returned to its 1860 levels was 1960. In other words, it took a full century for the Georgian economy to return to its pre-Civil War levels. The other Southern states weren't quite as bad, but most still took until the late 1940s to return to pre-Civil War economic levels. If we extrapolate that out to now, the South is currently at the relative level of development that the rest of the nation achieved around the 1920s. We're still economically retarded compared to the rest of the country.

Aeolus · Post by **Aeolus** » 2004-11-04 02:24am

Stormbringer wrote:
Aeolus wrote:
Joe wrote:A lot of this is generational. I don't have any numbers on hand, but I'd be willing to be if you did polling you'd find much more favorable views on gay marriage and other social issues among younger folks than boomers and seniors.

Or I could be totally wong. We could be right in the middle of a Great Awakening that will stymie progress for another generation. I hope not.
That precisely what we are in
Just an assumption or are there numbers to back that?

read up on the great awakening and make your own judgement. It's only my opinion

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2004-11-04 02:26am

Darth Wong wrote:
So can anyone foresee a time that America will not be ruled by the lowest common denominator?

No.
It will be as it has always been in any democracy 95% follow and 5% manipulate the rest. Those 5% , broadly speaking, are cunning and can be well educated and above all rutheless.

Sporkzen · Post by **Sporkzen** » 2004-11-04 08:35am

I honestly thought kerry had a shot... living in alabama even.. though i live in north alabama in a tech heavy city that had a good bit of kerry support...then i remember that i'm in the 7th layer of hell just in a cool spot.. and i'm constantly reminded of that when i go 10 miles in any direction from my house..

Btw back on topic there was a very interesting spot on 60 minutes wednesday about the red and blue states and how we should just go ahead and split the country in two.. and only then would we realize we need to work together as a country like we should... it was satire but i found it very amusing. I'll try to maybe find a link or something to it when i get home from work.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-04 09:27am

Aeolus wrote:
White Haven wrote:...Is it too late to let the South win? I can move out of Virginia, just give me a couple weeks of warning before the split. I could even swallow my hatred of 'South Will Rise Again!' bumper stickers, if it'll mean that a large chunk of the fundies GO AWAY.
Ya'll yankees should have thought about that 140 years ago. Before you razed Atlanta to the ground. I guess this is what they mean by that old phrase "payback is a bitch"

Before you throw that nasty word 'you' around, have a gander at my location. That's right, the capitol of the Confederacy. Born and raised here, and willing to /move out/ to points north in a heartbeat, ESPECIALLY if I can be assured that the Fundie Hordes will stay behind a nice, safe border.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-11-04 09:30am

America needs to break the power of the Church. Hopefully an inter-faith schism will do some of the work for us, but we need to start taxing churches, removing federal funds from faith-based programs (yes, even the Boy Scouts), banning the teaching of religious works in anything other than history classes, and going for broke to stop the fucking evangelicals.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-11-04 04:48pm

The Dark wrote:We're still economically retarded compared to the rest of the country.

...

That's just too easy and too mean, even for me. You were lucky this time.

Augustus · Post by **Augustus** » 2004-11-04 05:00pm

HemlockGrey wrote:America needs to break the power of the Church. Hopefully an inter-faith schism will do some of the work for us, but we need to start taxing churches, removing federal funds from faith-based programs (yes, even the Boy Scouts), banning the teaching of religious works in anything other than history classes, and going for broke to stop the fucking evangelicals.

In other words revoke the Bill of Rights

Flakin · Post by **Flakin** » 2004-11-04 05:03pm

Alot of people will beleive whatever their preacher tells them to beleive.

For example: (Man I'm giving out alot of examples today... but then, MS has plenty of examples to make...)....

The county I live in in MS bans liquor sales. There is beer of 4% but nothing harder. For that, you have to drive down the road to Hinds or Madison county. Rankin county, where I live, had a vote in this election to allow liquor sales.

It failed, by a 60% / 40% margin.

I was talking to a girl in the bar last night (in one of the 'wet' counties), over margharitas - her EXACT words were: "Well, we had a discussion in church about the Liquor law and we just dont think its right so I voted against.". I looked at her, then at her drink, then back up to her. I blinked.

She then said "Well, this is different".

Another fine example:

Another friend of mine is the former leader of the DNC in the state. Shes also a Baptist. She she joined her new church in the area she moved to, they announced this fact as "this is Alice, shes also a leading democrat, but its ok Alice, we love Democrats too here and we'll be trying to convert you......".

In the bible belt, the church controls all. It may be indirectly, but peoples beliefs directly affect their actions. Which affects everyones actions.

People down here are so friendly, but I wonder about some of the things they do and say so much....

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2004-11-04 05:05pm

America needs to break the power of the Church. Hopefully an inter-faith schism will do some of the work for us, but we need to start taxing churches, removing federal funds from faith-based programs (yes, even the Boy Scouts), banning the teaching of religious works in anything other than history classes, and going for broke to stop the fucking evangelicals

Yes, tax the churches, that will make them less political! Oh wait, no it won't, because now you'll have to deal with every last church moblizing to "ensure our tax dollars are spent morally and wisely."

Your little maneveur will increase the power of the churches and tear a gaping hole in seperation of church and state. Just shoot yourself because it will be quicker and less painful.

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Will America ever overcome its redneck puritan roots?

Re: Will America ever overcome its redneck puritan roots?