I couldn't agree more with you on the whole red staters are stupid hicks, blue staters are thoughtful intelligent people silliness. I've been here for just over 10 years and the bulk of the people I know are smart and well educated.
In my sons' Scout troop/pack most of the Dads are professionals. We are part of the local home school community; there is a diverstiy of education levels. The parents are intellectually curious and thoughtful; not a Karl Rove mind-controlled robot among them.
I think conservatives tend to view education as tool to help them in their future endeavors, whereas liberals seem to think education is the end all of their existence. If they go to Stanford or Harvard and finish they think they have arrived, and all the unwashed masses need to have these college educated 'intellectuals' run their lives for them. My husband is a computer programmer who learned his trade on the job; an extention of his hobby. He also has three post secondary degrees that have been mosty worthless as far as putting food on the table goes (He used two of them in the AF, but civilian airlines have no use for bombadiers). Red Staters aren't any more stupid, ignorant or mind controlled than blue staters, of course, I doubt we'd ever convince them of that, though.
I don't have a red neck; but I do have a farmer's tan all summer long.
That was my mistake, madam--but I was young and green in judgement, a sallow youth. I figured that getting that degree in history was enough of an "end," after which only good things would happen, and effortlessly too.
I had to grow up in a hurry.
I don't regret getting a B.A. in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth--it has surely provided me with much intellectual satisfaction--but as for putting food on the table, well.....
Whenever I read the DUmmie FUnnies on Free Republic--the democraticunderground is the whacked-out counterpart to the more-sober Free Republic, I am constantly reminded of myself when I was in college, thinking that all I had to do was so much, after which life would be a piece of cake.
Bah, humbug.