Thanks for this post. I truly appreciate it. And I understand what you’re saying. I live in California now, but I lived in New England growing up. I grew up in the sticks, and would get comments about being my sister’s son and so forth.
I’ve driven across the country a few times, and I’ve never gone to a state I outright didn’t like. Driving across Kansas felt like the Twilight Zone for a bit in that it was so flat and big I didn’t think we were moving. The “red states” are just like any other state and the caricatures of the midwest or the south are just flat out wrong and ignorant.
But now I live in California and I get the same comments about how fruity and “elitist” we are and how we’re not truly American. I’ve actually been scoffed at when people have seen my driver’s license. Just because I live in California. I could have been the hardest core Freeper in the country and this guy was judging me on geography. Now, GRANTED, he may have just had excellent liberal radar.
And I don’t think there’s anything outright wrong with conservative ideas, just as I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with liberal ideas. But both get perverted, twisted, manipulated. I think there’s a middle ground - a kind of stasis - where the country is best served by a clash of liberal and conservative ideals.
For instance, if Obama really turns out to be a crazy socialist Manchurian candidate Islamic terrorist android from Venus - I’d trust that the Republicans in congress would take action.
The problem with that is the news media would have to report it accurately in order for the Republicans to get the support necessary to take action. Do you really think that the MSM is going to accurately report anything that might make Mr. Obama look bad? They have refused to do so for the past year ... why should they ever change?