Just in case you missed it, I want to make sure everyone in the South hears this important message.
Last night, on Real Time with Bill Maher, came this:
New rule: Southerners have to at least consider voting for candidates from the North.Reprint courtesy of Salon.North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has a powerful argument in his bid to be the Democratic nominee when he says, "What I give people is a candidate who can win everywhere in America."
Translation: "We Southerners ain't gonna vote for no Yankee! You suckers up North will take our Clintons and Carters, but we just ain't buyin' Kerrys and Deans."
And that's a shame. Not just for Democrats but for democracy itself. And I feel bad for the millions of intelligent people who live in a region still dominated by so much prejudice that anyone who wants to be president better have a twang in his voice and pronounce all four E's in the word "shit."
Sorry, but responding only to people who look and sound like you is small-minded, so if Southerners don't want to have an inferiority complex, I say, "Stop doing things that make reasonable people think you're inferior!"Like, getting rid of slavery was a good start. But don't quit there: Stop being the place that's always challenging the theory of evolution. What's next, gravity? Is that just a plot by the Jews up North to get people to drop spare change?
Southerners need to let go of the Civil War, beginning with those reenactments. First of all, you're reenacting something you lost. It's one thing to gloat about victory -- when you do it about losing, your front porch is a few couches short of being decorated.
The time has come to move on. The time has come to consider voting for a Yankee. Howard Dean's Vermont is no longer where carpetbaggers come from. Carpet munchers -- yes.
There's no good reason that America, at this late date, still needs to be a house divided. At bottom, we all want the same things: dignity, security -- and someone to slap the shit out of Janet Jackson.
The message: If you want people to stop thinking you're stupid, inbred, racist hicks, then you should vote for people who think you're stupid, inbred, racist hicks...like John Kerry. (By the way, did you know that he was in Vietnam?)
Hat Tip: Ara
One piece of evidence that Maher has no clue: he actually thinks ceremonially gloating over victory is saner than ceremonially reenacting defeat.
Hmmm, I wonder if he'd say the same about the most solid voting block in the American electorate, African-Americans. Nope, They're on his side.
The great thing about the civil war re-enactments is precisely that, Michelle. That war was the bloodiest and most horrible in American history--much more traumatic and bloody than both World War I and World War II combined, for Americans--and after that war there were huge efforts made by many honorable people to reach out to the other side, to forgive, and to honor the memory of all the fallen on both sides of the conflict. And the valor of all those who fought in it, with honor and courage.
By the way, I shouldn't have to keep saying this, but historical ignorance in this country is horrific, so: The overwhelming majority of people who fought for the South never owned slaves, and some of them were abolitionists. Robert E. Lee, in particular, tried to get the Confederacy to end slavery before the war's end.
Those re-enactments are done by people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, many of them with ancestors who fought on both sides of the conflict, in an effort to remember everything about that horrible, gruesome national trauma. A war in which brother often literally fought against brother, families torn assunder when one son fought for the Union and another fought for the Confederacy.
Remembering that conflict, and honoring the memory of all who fought and bled and died on all sides, is a part of southerners' accepting defeat, and accepting it graciously, and in many cases is part of their acknowledging that the right side won.
Not that an ignorant, cynical, elitist pompous ass like Bill Maher would deign to even try to understand something like that.
But watching hard-core Democrats cheer and laugh at Maher's ignorant rantings tells me all I need to know about why Democrats are so increasingly viewed with contempt by southerners.
And, once again, what do today's Democrats do? Rather than taking a good hard look in the mirror and asking themselves if they've got some nasty attitudes and some notions that need re-examining, they blame others for their own problems.
I have no pity on them, but I do think it's sad for the country that Democrats have become like this as a party.
More elitist and divisiveness from the "tolerant" party. First Kerry's statement pretty much saying he doesn't need the south, and now this.
Maybe if they spent as much time working to convince the south and others that they need the democratic party as they spend trying to confirm to themselves that they do not need these groups just because of the group's dissent then their party win the south and return to the party of FDR and HST. For now they are just out of touch elitists and I hope the south makes them pay for the culture warfar they are continuing day after day.
Hot damn! I love these New York-based TV elitists like Bill Maher. I just can't think of any people who serve us better than sneering anti-southerners mouthing off on prime time TV. And in the process, giving us Republicans all those luscious southern electoral votes, congressional seats, and state legislatures.
You know why it's so easy being an organizational Republican? It's because the jerks on the other side not only created for us a readymade Southern Strategy back in the 1960s, but keep reinventing a new one for us every few years. (Richard Milhouse Nixon would chuckle his ass off over all this.)
It gets better. Many of the Yankees who move south with the big population shifts adopt attitudes that are more southron than Robert E Lee, James Longstreet, or Wade Hampton. Maybe more than many. And because the sun belt population is growing at the expense of our old northern rust belt, that makes the electoral shift do a double whammy every decade or so. Even now, a white southern Democrat politico like Edwards is becoming a rarity from Virginia all the way to west Texas.
I can hardly wait for the November election, what with the Massachusetts supreme court all but anointing W for a second term.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I'm just a ignorant southrener, so can one y'all 'splain what a Carpet Muncher is?
Oh 'nit sounds to me like ol' Bill Maher's the one challengin' the theory of evolution.
A southerner would vote for a Yankee - if there was one worth voting for :-)
Again, for folks like James Doney above: Bill Maher is neither a liberal nor a Democrat. He's a libertarian. Get your friggin' facts straight.
All the above being said, you cannot reasonably deny that Dixiecrat migration to the Republican party can when the democratic party embraced blacks and the civil rights act. These lines were clearly drawn racially.
I am a lifelong southernor and grew up around upper-middle class whites who were predominantly republican and predominantly racist. Now, these weren't cross-burning racists, but they would be damned if anyone other than a white AND protestant family was going to buy a house in their neighborhoods. Timeframe: (1983-1990).
But what I found to be interesting was that in public, whites and blacks in the south existed peacefully with little if any open animosity towards each other. At the same time, those people that I grew up around did exhibit rather vocal and hostile attitudes towards people from the northeast. (We rarely saw people from the west or pacific northwest venturing into our area) This was probably not due to the stigma attached to us as much as it was that the pacific northwest is probably the most beautiful region in our country and who would want to leave it.
Another thing I attribute to the GOP's dominance of the south in national elections is the perception that a Republican administration equates to a stronger military and national defense. (sometimes they do) And a higher percentage of military members do enlist from the south. Ask any Army recruiter about where they would like to be stationed, in the south, they always exceed their quota of recruits.
Where Howard Dean was dead on was with his "God and Guns" rant. Oh, and tobacco. If you're anti-tobacco, you are going to lose the south. John McCain, Al Gore, etc.
Things are slightly different today, but I don't think Maher was completely out of bounds with his remarks.
Rosemary, Kerry was in Vietnam while the POTUS was fucking off like a immature frat boy.
Robert S.: Ah, that's why he thinks gloating over victory is sane and reliving loss is insane. It all makes sense now.
Robert S:
Bill Maher is as much a Libertarian as I am a Lesbian.
Which means, we've both flirted with it, but at the end of the day...uh-uh.
One more thing.
I can profess till I'm blue in the face that I am a Democrat. No body will believe me because I sound like a Republican.
Maher may claim he's a Libertarian but I've seen him give "public rim jobs" to enough Democrats on his show that his claim is H-O-L-L-O-W!
Dean?
I hesitate to ask this because I actually agree with your comment above, but I just have to:
Tell me you did NOT just advise the Democrats to look in the mirror and ask "Why do they hate us?"
Tim,
Rosemary, Kerry was in Vietnam while the POTUS was fucking off like a immature frat boy.
I think you are confusing going skiing in Colorado and laying cement...with joing the Texas National Guard.
The fact that you, a military person, would stoop to calling Bush a frat boy and demeaning his National Guard service as fucking off, says more about you than anything. Do you know any Guardsmen Tim? Do you think that little of them and their contribution?
You demean yourself with that comment Tim. I thought you better than that, I'm sorry I was wrong.
Rosemary, et al, regarding Maher's supposed Libertarianism: I've noticed a lot of people flirt with Libertarianism--notice I keep using the big ell here. Another "celebrity" that comes to mind is Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG). On his blog, he mentioned how he'd have liked to vote Libertarian in 2000, but in the end decided to vote for Nader. Hello? He clearly just bellied up to the salad bar of third parties and chose the one that looked good that day.
I expect Maher is the same, but who knows. Perhaps some would complain that Drew Carey isn't really Libertarian, either. He announced publicly that he voted for Harry Brown in 2000, but gave a first-rate hand-job to Bush and Co at 2002's Pres Corps dinner.
Regardless of Maher's actual affiliation, his rant was ignorant and close-minded, and is guaranteed to infuriate all the right people--the "porch decorator" voters of the South.
It's not true that Southerners won't vote for a Northerner. It's just that only in the South are there any Democrats left who still have some shreds of traditional American values...or who at least can fake it.
I don't think racism has that much to do with it. But there are NO Northern Dems who can even fake being Christian, and right now they are all forced to pretend to be lefty loons even when they aren't.
And there's nothing 'frat boy" about flying F102's in the Guard. It's difficult and dangerous, and Bush got high marks. And men from his unit were flying in Vietnam when he joined. Later he missed meetings, but that was when most Americans had been pulled out of Vietnam, the 102 was being phased out, and there was no importance in his attendance.
But watching hard-core Democrats XXX tells me all I need to know about why Democrats XXX
That's a mistake you make all the time, Dean. Its a big mistake.
I don't think so, Max M.
I was a hard-line Democrat for many years. Supported Jesse Jackson, Paul Simon, Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Michael Dukakis, and sitll liked guys like Paul Tsongas and saw many good things to see about Bill Clinton as late as 1992.
I see a Democratic Party today that routinely and unquestioningly looks at the South and says, "these people are illiterate inbred scum, and we need to talk down to them to hope they'll vote for us." And which treats them with contempt when they fail to do so.
Like it's the voters' fault rather than the fault of the party and its message and attitudes.
Don't tell me I don't get Democrats, Max, because I was once a member of the fold, and I still hold out hope that they'll shake off this stupidity and grow up. They just aren't doing it. They're just making fun of southerners, and putting the responsibility in the laps of the voters rather than themselves, which is where any blame honestly belongs.
When I see Democrats not becoming angry and outraged by the rantings of a Bill Maher, that tells me everything about where they are today. Because it tells me they are angry with the voters for not supporting their message, rather than asking themselves if the message itself is saying things that repels everyday people.
Rather than asking if their ideas and their message and their candidates are upsetting people, and doing something about it, instead they rail against the stupid hick redneck racist uneducated hicks are something more than a barrier to them.
"Party of the people" indeed.
Why do you need a southern Democrat on the ticket if you're to win as a Democrat? It's not because southerners want another southerner on the ticket. If they did, southerners would never have supported Richard Nixon (who had no southerner on his ticket). They would never have supported Ronald Reagan (who had no southerner on his ticket). They would never have supported George H.W. Bush (who had no southerner on this ticket).
What Southerners percieve--quite rightly I think--is that most non-Southern Democrats think of them with contempt. They see it, they sense it, and they are absolutely right--as Ara Rubyan has so amply demonstrated.
The reason Democrats so often need a southerner on their ticket is not because southerners want a fellow good-ol-boy on their ticket. It's because they--quite rightly, it appears--view Democracts as people who view them with contempt and loathing, and at least having a southerner on the ticket assures them that this condescending, pompous, and fundamentally ignorant bigotry that has come to infect the Democratic Party may not be so widespread as it seems.
Republicans have no such challenge, for they rightly perceive that Republicans do not hold them in contempt. Whereas it's crystal-clear obvious that most Democrats do view them with contempt.
Southerners were happy to vote Nixon even though Nixon had no southerner on the ticket. They were happy to vote for Reagan, a Californian from Illinois, even though he had a Maine patrician on his ticket. They were happy to vote for Patrician George Herbert Walk Bush even though his running-mate was a frat boy from Indiana and had no southern connection.
Now, it that because Southerners only want to see another southerner on the ticket? Hardly. No, it's because they perceive something about Democrats that Democrats really ought to be addressing, but refuse to examine.
Democrats have chosen to portray the South as a bunch of inbred semi-literate racist bigots. And they're suprirsed when Southerners don't want to vote for them?
Failure to acknowledge this problem is hurting Democrats. Dismissing it says more about you than it does about politics, frankly.
In fact, let me be more direct:
When voters fail to support you, there are two ways to react:
1) They're a bunch of ignorant stupid sheep, or bigoted fools, otherwise they would vote for us.
2) We screwed up and did not reach out to them properly.
Answer #1 is the constant drumbeat I see out of Democrats today.
Shouldn't that tell you something?
"No Northern Dems who can even fake being Christian"? You ain't from up there, are you? Let me start with Pennsylvania. I would say that Congressmen Kanjorski, Murtha, Holden, Brady, and Doyle would all disagree. There are several Congressmen in NY, including McNulty, Hinchey, and Rangel, that would dissent. In Connecticut, both Dodd and DeRosa would have a problem with that, as would both Congressmen in Rhode Island and Sen. Jack Reed. There are several Congressman in Mass. who are religious, and I've seen even Teddy regularly in church. Kerry I believe also is Christian. Up in Maine, you have Michaud, who most certainly is Christian. Shall we go over various Governors, such as Baldacci in Maine or McGreevey in New Jersey, or local politicians? Christian politicians in the Dems up North? Want to find them? Just choose them at random, and you'll most likely do so. John, you a Southerner? I would say branding a foreign people who you appear to know nothing about is no better than any prejudices that exist North of the Mason-Dixon. I have no idea if Bush was "fucking off" back than, I don't know if he went AWOL or not, but I do know that many of these armchair warriors around him had "more important things to do". People such as Dick Cheney. Our Georgian Beanbag Commandant, Saxby Chambliss got several deferrals from service, after the "bad knee" claim did not work. Of course, Cleland has no bad knees, or knees at all for that matter! Some claim that he was pushed ahead in line for the National Guard, and that he was pushed ahead to train for a plane they were phasing out of Vietnam to assist in preventing him from being shipped out. That is possible, it looks suspicious. But before the Queen of All Evil jumps on this prematurely, we do not know whose idea this would have been! We have no evidence that Junior was behind it! He's still innocent until proven guilty. Odds are dynasty-obsessed papa was behind it, not the reckless young Georgie Junior. Doesn't fit him back then. Oh, yes, and a Happy Birthday to the Gipper. Hope he can hang on for a little bit longer. Put him on the $10 bill. No one cares about Hamilton.
I have a question for Dean. If Pataki was the nominee in 2008, would Southern states go for him? Is there not contempt for "Yankees" down there, and the way that they express their faith? Wasn't Bush Sr. part of the reason that Clinton won in '92? They voted for him as Reagan's heir, but many abandoned him when they saw him in action? There are more Republicans, percentagewise and numerically, in the Philadelphia suburbs than in Mississippi, but we don't mean shit to the likes of Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed, do we? A bunch of pissed off Democrats, angry at the shifts in the Dem Party, matter more to the GOP than people who had been Republicans for six generations, because they now have control and are determined to make up for the mistreatment they felt they received at the hands of the Northern Democrats by doing likewise to Northern Republicans. How is that fine?
I don't think that George HW Bush was dynasty obsessed. Anything I have ever read about him suggests the opposite.
Lots of people "avoided" Vietnam. If they did so legally, so what?
People calling Bush AWOL and desserter? Those are serious charges and apparantly the Honorable Discharge he got is meaningless to people. That is what is pissing me off.
Just in case anyone still cares about this, they are replaying the show right now I tried to struggle through it cause I was interested in hearing from Andrew Sullivan in a form other than his writings, but after 10 minutes I have turned it back to the Hockey Skills Challenge.
Doesn't seem to be much more than Maher bashing the US and talking about how stupid us americans are. Hell even stated that he was embarrassed to be an american himself and was telling people he was canadien over the boob incident. Now I know he was "satirizing" and joking about the situattion and maybe I am too uptight but being embarassed of being american disgusts me. The pride I have in this country and myself as an american is unrelenting, and to hear him dismiss it as he did made my choice not to watch anymore an easy one.
End of rant.
Please resume your regularly scheduled program.
As I said, I never accused him of either charge that pisses you off. He's innocent until proven guilty. I am suspicious of people who, yes legally avoided Vietnam, but are so quick to put others into harm's way. Legality is not the same as morality, is it? You know better than that. These armchair warriors love making wars as long as they are in no danger of getting scratched themselves. I do not trust people who are so tough when it comes to other people's lives, but so wimpy when it comes to themselves. Be constant in your views! Bush Sr. could be accused of being hawkish, but no one can say he wouldn't put himself on the front line if he was young enough! The questions I stated about Bush Jr. meant that we can't show that he wouldn't so we must assume the same answer for him. These armchair warriors could not do this, and you know that! Is it just, not is it legal, the behavior of these brave Warriors of the Bean Bag? By the way, what do you think of Jennifer Granholm? Really, that is? When I voted in 2000, I did not vote for perpetual war for perpetual peace, for the Patriot Act, or for these massive increases of spending. I thought I voted for someone who cared about civil liberties (After all, who were the ones stopping similar power grabs by Reno and Company), cared about not getting involved in Clinton-like perpetual conflicts, cared about reducing spending and balanced budgets, and who actually would care what party members north of the Mason-Dixon thought. I guarantee you I'm not voting the same way this year unless a miracle happens.
I know that you weren't accusing. I was just stating what does bug me. I am consistent in my views. I never hammered Clinton for going to Kosovo - even though he was an avoider of Vietnam.
I didn't vote for Granholm. I didn't agree with her on any issue. That said, I really have no complaints about the job she's been doing. So far, she's ok.
If you voted for Bush and didn't expect spending on areas like education, medicare and the like - you weren't listening to him during the campaign.
Bush was against nation building and all that. I think that you are doing yourself a disservice if you can't understand WHY 9/11 changed Bush's foreign policy.
Lib,
I have one request - use paragraphs! Please....
It makes it very hard to read your thoughts when they are all clumped together.
I shall break up my paragraphs.
Libertarian,
It seems to me that while the republicans welcome a wide spectrum of views the democrats would not even let the widely respected Gov. of Pa. speak at there convention several years ago because he was pro-life.
I have not seen anything from Tom or Ralph to suggest that they disrespect republicans in the Phily burbs. They might not agree with some of the more liberal views but the northern libs do have a seat at the table which is more then the Dems give to their right wing.
As an old Democrat who don't know what to do..
Shall I hang on to the old, or grab on the new..
Sorry, drifted off for an second.
Look, I voted for Kennedy and was a Democrat until 1972, when McGovern and the radical Left convinced me, and a ton of other folks, that the Democratic party had been hijacked by a bunch of elitist socialists who wanted nothing more than to absolutely control my life.
From that point on it was easy to understand that the Left hated this country for its opposition to
the Soviets, Cuba and other "progressive" states.
Nothing has changed.
One last question. All those bloody fetal picture wavers that descended upon Granholm's church, was their behavior appropriate, and was the GOP appropriate in siding with the picture wavers? I read how they got involved in that.
It happened in Maine with Baldacci. I saw it in Pa. with Ridge and Fumo.
More and more, these "family value" nuts seem to be able to push the GOP to give them the Republican Impremateur to declare those who disagree with their religious political agenda as hell bound.
I saw Connie Morella go down without any help because Deal Hudson, Judie Brown, and Gary Bauer mean more to the current administration than party members who more identify with her.
There's a church that looks like the Star Ship Enterprise. If the "Family Value" people want to declare me hell bound and anthamatized, they can find me there.
I don't listen to democrats anymore. Can't stand Daschle, or Pelosi or Kennedy. I just listen to Al Gore and know that if I do the opposite of what he says, I'm heading in the right direction.
I don't know what happened about waving bloody pictures. But, Granholm is a Catholic and her unconditional support for abortion is something that people disagree with.
Exercising free speech is still a right and just because you disagree with them doesn't invalidate their right to protest.
Rose:
The fact that you, a military person, would stoop to calling Bush a frat boy and demeaning his National Guard service as fucking off, says more about you than anything. Do you know any Guardsmen Tim? Do you think that little of them and their contribution?
Hahahahaha!
I'm with Tim: I DO know Guardsmen; and I DO respect their contribution.
But I don't think YOU understand: The problem isn't that President Bush was IN the Guard. The problem might just be that he snuck OUT of the Guard.
Thirty five years ago -- I don't care. But weaseling out of a straight accounting today? Not excusable. But not surprising either.
What makes it weaseling? The fact that he doesnt answer to irresponsible and untrue assertions that he is a desserter? Why should the burden of proof be on him to prove a negative (He is not a desserter or Did not go AWOL) instead of the burden of proof being on Michael Moores, Maculife(SP?), Clark, Kerry and others who hint and even boldly declare these postulates as truth?
Sometimes it helps to get the lies straight about GWB. Why are so many willing to swallow the poisoned bait found in the media about Bush's military service ?
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/003235.html
"The South will rise again." Interesting ring to it. Interesing that both Bush boys were and are Southern governors. Interesting that a family saw a dynamic in time to place sons in a position of national importance.
My dear Democrats,
The game is chess - not checkers.
Very sincerely,
The Bush Family
PS Shak Mat
PPS FU and the horse you thought you were riding.
I count myself in with the Literate Southerners of the world. I have two university degrees (neither of which is in agriculture) and I have traveled and worked in the U.S. and across Europe. So, when I say what I'm about to say, it's from a position of experience.
One of the prime factors that keeps the North-South divide/conflict running (at least in the South) is that the North won't let us forget the war (either directly or by extension).
As a kid growing up in the South I saw this time and time again. My mother worked in a large textile mill in our town (as did many people and as, indeed, I did when I got out of high school to save money for college). It was a Northern-based company with Northern management. And, conspicuously, whenever any major promotions were to be made, Northerners were imported to fill the roles rather than promoting Southerners who had worked there and done the job for years.
This was a major bone of contention.
But, as unions were de facto outlawed (it was made clear to me when I took the job in the warehouse that any comments perceived as being pro-union or in any way pro-organization of the work force to make requests for improved pay or working conditions would cost me my job), nothing changed. Northerners continued to be brought in to fill executive jobs and Southerners continued to work on the floor. And before you say, "Did you ever think it was because there were no qualified Southerners for the positions?", there were. University graduates and people who had been doing the necessary (often with over 20 years experience) were passed over in favor of young (often clueless) Notherners. And to make matters worse, they brought their predjudices with them. They treated the men and women who worked for them like cattle they swore at them, were abusive, and generally made it clear that as far as they were concerned we were all ignorant and somehow less than human, so not deserving of respect or common human decency. It still pisses me off when I think about it.
It also chafed when Northerners would retire, move South, and then start telling us everything that was "wrong" about the South. "Why do you do that? That's stupid. You should do it this way or that - like we do it up North". Or, "Show me "a grit"" and similarly moronic asides. This only served to entrench a feeling of being militated against and threatened.
When you add into the mix constant representations on TV and in movies that Southerners are either stupid or sinister and crooked, you begin to understand why we don't have a great deal of trust in Northerners as a whole.
Southerners do have a history of being insular and apart. But it's not by accident and the North is very much to blame for a large part of it.
Perhaps when we start being treated with respect we'll see less of a need to run to those crack pots that pander to our worst fears (pick your favorite Mississippi politician or televangelist) and will be more likely to engage on all levels.
Oh, and btw - tons of Southerners vote for Northern politicians. Dixicrat is just another name of "Ultra-Conservative Republican". :)
But I don't think YOU understand: The problem isn't that President Bush was IN the Guard. The problem might just be that he snuck OUT of the Guard.
Might? What does that mean, might? What if he didn't? Why are people willing to label a President who has proven himself to be a very effective wartime leader yet call him a coward, frat boy or whatever else when baseless accusations are raised? Let's say he did go AWOL and forget the fact that he was Honorably Discharged. So frickin' what? Does that somehow make him incapable of being an effective military leader? I'd say his actions in Afganistan and Iraq put the issue to rest. Judge a man for who he is, not who he was. Especially when the so-called "coward" has conducted a stellar war campaign.
Tim the Soldier: All the above being said, you cannot reasonably deny that Dixiecrat migration to the Republican party can when the democratic party embraced blacks and the civil rights act. These lines were clearly drawn racially.
Tim, yes I can deny it, because that's not what happened.
Whites in the South did not flee to the Republican Party becuse of civil rights legislation. Period. If that were the case, then they'd be morons, since most of the Republicans they elected during the 1960s and 1970s were on record as favoring civil-rights legislation.
Including, by the way, the guy who took Al Gore Sr.'s Senate seat from him.
As for dividing up the congressional districts along racial lines: it was political liberals/progressives who did that, who demanded a "one man one vote" standard in congressional district apportionment and then gerrymandered the districts to make mostly black or mostly white.
Oh, and Tim? I grew up around lower-middle class whites who were predominantly Democrats and predominantly racists. So what's your point?
Once again, for Robert Doney:
Bill Maher is neither a liberal nor a Democrat. He's a libertarian. Get your friggin' facts straigh.
No, he's not a libertarian. He's not a Democrat, either, in the same sense that Bill O'Reilly is not a Republican.
But when diehard Democrats, instead of being mortified by Maher's pig-ignorant and inaccurate rant, when they laugh and applaud, they have revealed something rotton at the core of themselves and their party.
It's something they ought to expunge, but it appears that they'd rather blame southerners for not voting for them.
I repeat:
Southerners put a New York aristocrat named Franklin Roosevelt into the White House. They put a Massachussetts aristocrat named John F. Kennedy into the White House. They put a Californian named Richard Nixon into the White House. They put another Californian named Ronald Reagan into the White House, and they put a Maine Yankee named George H.W. Bush into the White House.
Southerners have no problem whatsoever with voting for non-southerners.
What is an issue is a Democratic Party that appears to be led by snotty condescending elitists who look down their nose at them. You know, the kind of condescending elitists who laugh at pricks like Bill Maher.
Libertarian:
"No Northern Dems who can even fake being Christian"? You ain't from up there, are you?
I believe Mr. Weidner was referring to the current crop of Presidential candidates. About which he is completely correct.
If Pataki was the nominee in 2008, would Southern states go for him? Is there not contempt for "Yankees" down there, and the way that they express their faith?
1) Pataki would have a hard time in the South, but only because his political record isn't one that would much appeal to the average southern voter, not because he's a "yankee." However, if his message were right, and if he avoided the kind of condescension that we've seen coming out of the likes of Howard Dean and John Kerry in this current election cycle, I think he would have a pretty good shot down there.
2) No, there is very little in the way of real contempt for "yankees" in the South, except via the impression--a quite correct one--that many Northerners stereotype and demean them.
I repeat for you--Southerners put Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush into office. The South voted overwhelmingly to support all those guys.
The problem here is not Southern attitudes toward yankee politicians. It's yankee politicians' attitudes toward them.
Ara: The problem isn't that President Bush was IN the Guard. The problem might just be that he snuck OUT of the Guard.
You're never one to let facts get in your way, are you Ara?
It has already been proven, repeatedly, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this did not happen, and that there is no reason to believe it.
The simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with a guardsman taking a leave so long as it's approved--and if it had not been approved, then his CO would have brought him up on AWOL charges. No one remembers anything like that occurring, nor can anyone find evidence that anyone ever tried to prevent or pressure his CO from doing it.
We know his service record was clean, we know he was respected and well thought of by his fellow guardsman, we know he volunteered to serve in a unit that was doing combat duty in Vietnam at the time, we know that he actually put in more than the required hours to complete his service, and we know that he received an honorable discharge.
Continuing to repeat this crap about Bush "sneaking out of the guard" says far, far more about you than it does about Bush.
Maher was making sense (!!!) until he chickened out and said "reasonable" people are anti-South.
No, he wasn't, maor.
I posted this data in another thread, but it bears repeating:
Here is the electoral map of the 1932 election, in which the South voted overwhelmingly for a New York aristocrat named Franklin Roosevelt.
Here is the electoral map for the 1960 election, wherein the South went overwhelmingly for Kennedy.
Furthermore, here is the electoral map for the 1972 election, in which Southerners overwhelmingly supported Richard Nixon, despite the fact that Nixon signed several major expansions of civil rights laws, and despite the fact that he had no Southerner on his ticket.
Now here is the electoral map for the 1980 election. Notice something funny? Reagan was from California, his V.P. candidate was from Maine, and he was running against a southerner named Jimmy Carter. Look at that map reeeeeal close. Which way did the South vote in that election?
Now here is the electoral map of 1992. Notice something? Oh yeah, that Maine Yankee George H.W. Bush, who had no southerner on his ticket, still took most of the southern states, despite the fact that Bush was running against a Texan named Perot and an Arkansas governor named Clinton.
Now, can someone explain to me why they think the problem is with southern attitudes toward non-southerners?
I mean, don't let the facts get in your way or anything.
Furthermore:
In 1960, while the South pretty overwhelmingly went for Kennedy, several important Southern states (Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida) went for Nixon over Kennedy, despite the fact that Kennedy had a southern running-mate (Lyndon Johnson), whereas Nixon's running-mate was yet another Massachussetts patrician named Henry Cabot Lodge. Click here to see.
I suppose some would say George H.W. Bush was a Texan, but no Texan I know ever thought so, and no southerner I ever met really thought so. Everyone thought of him as a New England patrician--since that's what he was and is.
Southerners have no problem voting for people who aren't from the south, and never really have.
Dean,
George HW Bush spent a lot of time in Texas, specifically in Midland, and now calls Houston (ugh!) home, so there were ties to the south (although we Texans don't really like to be considered part of the "south", but a separate entity).
After all, that's how GWB ended up in Texas to begin with.
"Southerners have no problem voting for people who aren't from the south, and never really have."
Abraham Lincoln was a southerner by birth. And no southern states voted for him in 1860. They voted for John Bell or John Breckenridge.
Yeah, well, you can make a case for Papa Bush as a Texan. Though most Texans I know never really considered him one.
Then again, when he moved to Texas in his 30s, and ran for office, Texas voters recognized him as a Maine Yankee and put him into office anyway, choosing him over a local boy.
He spent most of his life in Maine and Washington D.C., and everybody knew it. Hell, for a while there, his "residence" in Texas was a hotel suite he hadn't visited in years.
But all right, we can claim him as a Southerner, I suppose. Sort of.
"and now calls Houston (ugh!) home"
Let me guess, you must be from Dallas. I lived their for over a decade, my folks still do, and I'll take Houston over it any day.
On topic, GWB is a Texan, GHWB was an yankee (like a lot of Dallas :-p). HW was elected for what he stood for, in spite of being a yankee.
Good bumper sticker: "We don't care how the h*ll ya'll did it up North"
In response: Service in the National Guard NOW is much different then it was THEN. If you got into the Guard or Reserves during Vietnam, that was almost ensuring that you would not see combat. Today, joining the Guard or Reserves almost assures that you will deploy to a hostile area of operations.
BTW, I fully support Bush on his war in Iraq and Afganistan and am pissed that opponents say we went to war under false pretenses. This is the issue in the south that could cost a northern democrat significant votes in the election. However, southerners (nor do most Americans)don't like see their men and women dying in a foreign land if they can't directly see the fruits of the sacrifice. Translation: will the manager of the King Frog Motel in Adel, GA feel safer now that Sadaam is gone, Iraq is moving toward democracy, but his son's best friend is dead? I can't answer that honestly.
"Whites in the South did not flee to the Republican Party becuse of civil rights legislation. Period. If that were the case, then they'd be morons, since most of the Republicans they elected during the 1960s and 1970s were on record as favoring civil-rights legislation."
Dean, now you are doing what you accuse Ara of doing. I nearly fell for it.
What SOUTHERN (former democrat turned republican) voted to support the civil rights act? Obviously, republicans AND democrats in congress supported the civil rights act otherwise progress would have been slower.
Once again, awesome thread! I'm just happy to be along for the ride.
Failure to acknowledge this problem is hurting Democrats. Dismissing it says more about you than it does about politics, frankly.
Failure to acknowledge I said nothing about dismissing anything says more about you than it does about me, frankly.
I was drawing attention to your tendency to extrapolate the worst of the 'hard-core' Democrats to the Democratic party as a whole. This whole 'well I don't see anyone denouncing him so y'all obviously agree with him' argument is bunk, too, by the way.
Oh, and using Dick 'Southern Strategy' Nixon as proof that there wasn't a racist element in souther republicanism - I love it.
I'm just a ignorant southrener, so can one y'all 'splain what a Carpet Muncher is?
Carpet Muncher is code for homosexual. Males munch the carpet as they are taking it rectally (also called Pillow Biter), females munch the carpet when they give oral sex.
Just another example of how low class and bigoted Maher is.
...if it had not been approved, then his CO would have brought him up on AWOL charges
The ONLY time a Guardsman can be AWOL is DURING his required 2 weeks of drill each year, IF he shows up for the drill in the first place. Once he is on location, on the books, he then cannot leave without permission. If he never shows up in the first place, he is not AWOL, he is just missing an appointment.
He has signed a contract promising the USG that he will serve "X" numbers of weekends and "X" numbers of weeks of active duty once he has completed his training. He must complete the specified number of hours of service within a specified period of time. If he does not complete the specified hours of service, he is subject to being FINED a substantial ammount of money to recompense the government for the money they spent training him. There is no CRIMINAL charge (unless you refuse to pay the fine).
It is not POSSIBLE to be AWOL from the National Guard, nor is it possible to desert for the same reasons.
Service in the National Guard NOW is much different then it was THEN. If you got into the Guard or Reserves during Vietnam, that was almost ensuring that you would not see combat.
That turns out not to be the case. Whether you get called up or not, whether now OR then, depends on what your Guard or Reserve unit does. If you are in an Engineering battalion or an MP battalion, you are gonna see Iraq. Those same units would never have seen Viet Nam. If you are a member of a Community Affairs unit, you would have seen Viet Nam then and you will see Iraq (or Afghanistan) now.
The Air Guard unit Bush was in was serving in Viet Nam WHEN HE JOINED, and he knew that. The war, at that time, was expanding, so Bush had a damned good chance of going over. By the time he had completed his training, Nixon was winding the war down, withdrawing troops, withdrawing units. Bush volunteered to go to Viet Nam (that's documented) and was denied.
Meanwhile, at the same time this was going on,_I_ was in Viet Nam, and who should I run into but a whole bunch of ol' boys from my home town. It seems that their Engineer battalion had been activated and they were doing a six month tour in Beautiful Southeast Asia.
Another point... there are Guard units EVERYWHERE. There are some units, in places like, sayyyyyy Grosse Pointe, that take a pretty good amount of pull to get into. There are other units, in places like sayyyyy, Delhi New York, that are filled with local farm boys. There are half a dozen guys right in my office who are in the Guard. Not a one of them is in the SAME guard unit, and only two of them have been called up. One other was alerted that he MIGHT be called up in June. The rest are cruising.
This whole business about Bush and the Guard is nonsense, plain and simple. You should be more concerned about the fact that he beats his wife and sodomizes his secretarys. (He does, you know, because he hasn't offerred any documentation that the doesn't.)
Also add 1988, when Southerners overwhelming elected a Yankee who didn't have a southern running mate over a Yankee who did.
Gary, you are partially correct, but a much higher percentage of the Guard is serving in Iraq than were serving in Vietnam. I don't have the exact figures however. Now, that being said, it is somewhat misleading due to the fact that our active duty force is smaller today and more Guard and Reserve soldiers are needed in Iraq, but wouldn't it be nice to have these soldiers replaced by Arab troops.
I have to disagree with your statement about Vietnam Guard and Reservists. I still believe this was a way men avoided going to combat without disgrace. I certainly don't think that opposition to Vietnam was disgraceful, nor do I think that "draft-dodgers" during that time are scum or unpatriotic, but I am offended that sons and sons of friends of prominent politicians from both parties avoided combat while their father's not only sent other sons off to war but heavily profited from it.
Even though I will support Kerry against Bush, the Vietnam thing is a non-issue in my mind. Bush was hardly a coward, and Kerry did what most honorable people would do in his situation, go back and get your friend. Bush would have gone back to even get Michael Moore in such a situation.
Disclaimer: I don't think Gary Utter has ever supported ANYTHING I have ever posted in Dean's World. That is something Casey, Arnold, Rosemary, Dean, Mark Noonan, or Un-Gay Jeff cannot honestly state.
I didn't post my thoughts the first time around because it was AWESOME to read all the posts.
I grew up in the South and lived many years in The North. Geez, this has been a ride and I too went along for it but did not comment. This is a great thread of real good thoughts through out!
Anger and passion moves us forward with reservations on either side.
LOVE, Love, love this Country! I have to say this, I have to! You know the bobbin dolls they make for sports figures where the head be bops around and around? I get such a kick out of that ole' gal, PELOSI! Now come on folks, I don't care that she is a democrat, I believe the folks that make money off of those be bopping dolls must make one of her. You know, when you come up a poor little deer in the road, lights shining on him...His eyes get bigger than Texas or Alaska but together.
Let's make a be bopping head doll with those big frightening eyes like a deer of...Nancy Pelosi!
That's my take on this thread diverse thread.
Oh, oh oh...one more thing, not only did I live up North for many years but, I was raised in the South. My Mom was a staunch democrat, and I admired her anger, her furry on so many issues. My Dad was mostly republican, note I said, mostly Republican.
Geez, talk about having a life of opposing views! When my Mom left and went overseas, I took a deep breath, phew! Now Dad can relax. Man she hammered him all the time! This is the way is should be, period...her view or NO VIEW!
I love all the posted views, why wouldn't I? Which party do I vote for? Depends. It depends on a lot. Who said, "Youth and inexperience"?
It's not easy for someone like myself to try to just stay in the middle (ha, I was a middle child) and watch both parties scream insane things! GEEZ!
Dean said, our Dean of Dean's World that he loves the democratic process even tho he gets furious at some politics, he keeps a perspective. Were you a middle child too Dean? If you were, God love ya, God love ya!
Hey, in the autumn of my parents life they got back together. Phew, Mom had calmed down a lot. Dad just loved her all the more, all the more.
Tim: Once again, I merely urge people to research the record.
When southerners began voting Republican, almost none of those Republicans they began supporting had an anti-civil rights record, either before being elected or after.
Much is made of party-switcher Strom Thurmond's switch to the Republican Party. What is not often noted is that after switching to become a Republican, Thurmond also had a pretty good civil rights record. Not a great one, but not a horrible one, after he made the switch. He had a terrible civil rights record before that, but not a bad one at all after that. Yeah, he voted against making MLK's birthday a national holiday--but if that's the worst you can say about that guy, you're really stretching.
A more archetypal figure for southern Republicans in the late 20th century is Senator William Brock. Brock was the man who took Senator Albert Gore Senior's Senate seat away from him in 1970. Many, including Al Gore Jr., have tried to portray this as An Evil Republican Who Attacked Gore's Pro-Civil Rights Record. Nothing could be further from the truth. Brock's record was exemplary: as a member of the House of Representatives, he had supported important civil-rights legislation, some of which Al Gore Sr. himself had opposed. He beat out Gore for his Senate seat NOT by attacking him on civil rights issues--his own record on civil rights was actually better than Gore's--but by attacking Gore for his anti-Vietnam War stance, and portraying him as an out-of-touch liberal extremist who was weak on national defense and welfare issues.
Tennessee voters--who had kept electing Al Gore Sr. despite several of his pro-civil-rights votes--agreed, and sent Gore packing. Not because Gore was too nice to the black people, since Brock's record was quite good in that regard, but because on issues like taxes, welfare, and national defense, they thought Gore was weak.
You can read a good debunking of the Gore civil rights record right here. The man was better on civil rights than many southern Democrats, but hardly exemplary. Indeed, he took part in Robert Byrd's historic filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964--and Tennessee voters failed to reward him for that.
Max: The historical record stands as it stands. Richard Nixon's signature appears on many important Civil Rights laws that were passed in the period from 1969 to 1973. Do you deny this? If so, can you name a single Civil Rights measure that Nixon vetoed, or refused to sign? If so, go on, name it.
I don't think you can. Because Nixon's civil rights record, as was typical for Republicans of his day, was quite exemplary. His one failing was that he refused to come out in defense of Martin Luther King while King was in jail, while Kennedy did. In later years, Nixon always said that he truly regretted that, and that the only reason he'd kept mum was because he thought it was grandstanding. He also said he always regretted it.
So tell me, if you think Nixon was so awful on civil rights, can you name me the civil rights legislation that he opposed, that he filibustered, that he voted against, that he vetoed? I don't think you can.
Y'all can't appreciate this Real Time is a show of humor.
Bill Maher's show is filmed in LA, not NY.
Because he says - in complete humor that he was embarrased to be an American over Janet's tit, you (a commentator up there) take him seriously anddenounce him as hating America. Wow - a sense of humor is dead.
Repeat -- Comedy show. And one that showed that Andrew Sullivan has a sense of humor (but chooses not to express it even slihtly on his blog) - and cute dimples. ;)
The discussion separate from "the Maher" is valuable.
I fell silly correcting this, but I must. A carpet muncher is someone who um, goes down on a woman. This, I am quite willing to accept may have the meaning you state in south and east, where I have never lived.
There is nothing sexier than a good female southern drawl. Or moan. A blanket statement? Only under them.
. . . .
Where was I?
Any discussion of Southern voting politics before Nixon's "Southern Strategy", I would say is not revelant to a discussion of southern politics today.
At least to what I read into it when I watched, you neglected to point out in Maher's comments that he specifically was pointing to all the southerners who tell us - by their votes - that they won't vote for a Democrat Yankee. Why is that?
It's the message we keep on hearing from pundits - who are to be sure no experts on anything it appears.
Maher mentioned the "million of others" as well.
Lastly, I think it is these same pundits who push more than is the reality that northern Democrats have a snotty attitude toward the south. (That the "evolution" was almost wiped out of Georgie curricula certainly does not help matters, however.)
I really don't get that. My mother's side of the family is all Tennessee, and Georgia born and bred. Few think they get a snotty attitude from northerners. They do not all think alike.
Some stereotypes exist for a reason. I do not claim to know which traits are fair to generalize about. That would be another thread, perhaps.
Groups can be pigeon-holed -- wacky Californians, Hollywood Liberals, northern elitists - sure. But these designations mean less and less.
After all, aren't there an awful lot of blacks in the south, too? Aren't we told Democrats take that group for granted?
Which is it to be?
So, Maher's point was, don't count anyone out. Don't let others do it for you either.
Whew. All without name-calling.
Andrew,
I do appreciate that Maher was being funny. I was laughing and I thought it was funny. That is until I realized how unfunny that bit would have been if he was talking about Polish people. I'm Polish and I would not have found it funny if he were ripping on my ancestors. I would have been pretty pissed.
It's always funny if you aren't the butt of the joke. The south seems to just be our default funny group. It's always ok to rip on the south.
That bugs me a lttle. If it doesn't bother you than I can feel a little less guilty for laughing. I know that many southerners were offended.
Tim,
I'm not sure I can vouch for you. I think Gary might have agreed with you once or twice. I know that you and I agreed once and I think Gary agreed with it too. It was women in the military, I think...
Garry Utter wrote:
"This whole business about Bush and the Guard is nonsense, plain and simple. You should be more concerned about the fact that he beats his wife and sodomizes his secretarys. (He does, you know, because he hasn't offerred any documentation that the doesn't.)"
I prefer to think that he's secretly in love with Condi. I am (not so secretly).
Good to see Gary Utter here again. I was wondering about where he might have been to ever since Dean's special salutation to Mr. Utter and Arnold Harris a little while ago. I love that cat he drew. Very well done. I love cats. Arnold Harris of Mt. Horeb, WI, has been writing some extremely interesting things lately. Mt. Horeb reminds me of the great General Horem-heb, who restored Egypt's polytheist religion and military might after Akhenaton's blaphemies and betrayals.
Tim,
I have to disagree with your statement about Vietnam Guard and Reservists. I still believe this was a way men avoided going to combat without disgrace.
Wellll, here's the deal. Being in the Guard was less likely to get you shipped to Viet Nam that being in the Regular Army, for sure. However, there were plenty of other reasons for joining the Guard and Reserves (as we called them those days).
An awful lot of people joined the Guard who had no chance of being drafted. (Until '65 or '66, married men with children were exempt from the draft, for instance.) Prior to Viet Nam, the general concept was that the Guard would be activated in time of war or disaster (hurricanes, etc). A lot of folks considered the Guard as some sort of volunteer work, being ready to help in an emergency. The Guard (less than the Reserve) was also very much a SOCIAL club. One reason there was difficulty in getting in to some units was that the members of individual units unofficially controlled who got to join.
By the time the Viet Nam war was at its peak, the slack in membership in METROPOLITAN units of the National Guard was used up by people, as you say, avoiding active duty service. Out in the country, there were openings. I could have joined the Guard, I was offered a slot, but I declined. (This was the same unit I later ran into in Nam, just to gloss the point.)
But the Guard was never primarily about avoiding the draft. It was considered one more way to serve your country. Sure, there were people in the Guard who were trying to avoid Viet Nam, some had success, some didn't. To suggest that Bush joined the Guard to avoid combat service, or that Quayle did, is pure political poisoning. Not only is it untrue/unprovable, it insults every man and woman in the Guard who joined to SERVE, which is most of them.
(And you should look up the planes that Bush was flying, the Delta Dagger was a well known death trap that was retired from service shortly after Bush was. His chances of dieing in training to fly that sled were probably at least equal to his chances of dieing as an active duty Air Force officer in Viet Nam.)
Steven,
Good to see Gary Utter here again. I was wondering about where he might have been to...
Confession time.
I am on kidney dialysis. Sometimes I feel good, and I get pretty active, on line and off. Sometimes I am unwell, and spend most of my time sleeping. I've been unwell lately, and I'm just starting to turn the corner.
I am glad I came back her Mr. Gary Utter. I was wondering where you went myself.
I love to fly Gary and when people talk about Bush and the Guard I rise up at attention. A lot of people in that era wanted to avoid going to viet nam and that is understandable. Those young men would be facing a country that they had never gone to much less heard much about. Men were going to Canada to flee the draft, many were faking health problems out of a fear to serve. Those men were scared.
My brother wanted to serve in Viet Nam so much. He went into the Green Beret. My Mom was in the orient and DID NOT want her son to go over there. My Dad told my brother he understood his reason for wanting to go to Viet Nam. He did not like it that my brother would go but sincerely backed him up.
Did he go? No, someone had pull. I had a very rich Grandmother over there in the Orient as well and she worked for the likes of General Westmoreland and General Hightower. Did my Grandmother who served an immaculate record in the Cival Service have anything to do with my brother not going over there? Well, it was known that Grandmother of mine had tremendous political pull. Did she in fact stop a few men from going over there? I would say she did. Afterall, that woman started out as a typist in her career in the South of of country. Lost her husband, went to Okinawa, Japan, Viet Nam and all over this world.
Love to say that the Guard or anything else to get out of serving someone foreign is the reason Bush got out of his quandry. Nope, don't know for sure. Money buys a lot of things...
He flew an airplane that is out of this world. I remember talking about that Gary Utter. If the man went AWOL then I would love to have spent one day, just one day with him on that AWOL excursion and ask him where did you get that determination to fly that plane! AWOL, tish, tish!
Bush didn't go to where others went. Bush did other things with his life and Kerry went to Vietnam. Admirable, I care less what people say about that either. I loved a soldier that went to Vietnam, he too was a Green Beret like my brother.
Gary, I too have a serious disease and my heart goes out to you. Being on the machine you are on is terrible and it is sad. I won't go into what I have to take each week. You were missed sir and your thoughts are highly appreciated by this, ole' gal. I am just a bit over 50 and love to call myself that. Got an outstanding IQ but you woulkd not know that, because I just don't blab it and my daughter in law made me giggle when she told me of hers. She told me people like herself usually end up weaving baskets...I did not tell her of course how high mine was, I would love to weave baskets...ha, it's not the IQ that makes people great, it is how they use their smarts, street smarts, experiences and what they give back in this lifetime & how they contribute in the world. Just being a Mom or a Dad is the most honorable of fields to go into, just being a simple loving housewife, a simple loving husband or whatever is an outstanding accomplishment. My Dad was the best man in the World!
We will wait to hear from you Gary Utter, I will wait to hear from you. Again, I am sorry to know of your situation. Do you have someone you admire and can concentrate on that can help you when it is dark & scarey? Mine is lance Armstrong. His picture is on my refrigerator.
--The problem might just be that he snuck OUT of the Guard.--
No, according to what I've read which was posted by a reservist on another site,-- (And you should look up the planes that Bush was flying, the Delta Dagger was a well known death trap that was retired from service shortly after Bush was.--
They were retiring these planes and since they weren't going to invest time and money to teach those pilots how to fly anything else and it was close to his time up, they honorably discharged him. The NG has been known to do that. What do you do w/a reservist with nothing to do? Why keep him/her around if time is short??
Janelle,
Being on the machine you are on is terrible and it is sad.
Naaaaah. It's a pain in the tucchus, maybe, but it ain't terrible OR sad. It's just another challenge. Stuff like this let's you know you're ALIVE. :)
Tim,
I forgot to mention that the single most widely used and most effective way to avoid the draft was a college deferment. I know people who were in college for 8 or 9 years. :) W could certainly have arranged for that if he wanted to.
Gary, true enough. I just have a compassionate heart. I knew a few people on that machine and that is where I was drawing that statement from. You sound like a fighter and sincerely, some am I.
I am still going to say what you are going through is rough and to me it is sad Mr. Utter. Your spirit and determination is admirable sir. Hey, I am a caring woman and that is all there is to it! Now don't argue with me, giggle giggle. My hero right now is still that Lance Armstrong. When I take my treatment each week it knocks me out for a few days. I told a male friend of mine how I look up to Lance Armstrong. That male friend had the gull to say, "Well it is good you admire Lance Armstrong and all, but...he is a lot younger than you and that is why he got through his chemo and got back on a bike".
Well, I never! Talk about spitting mad! He was a lot younger...geez Mr. Utter, that got my dander up!
My situation and ill health let's me know I am alive too but...damn it is hell!
Back to that plane Bush flew, one day, just one day learning to be a pilot is hard. Go look at the cock pit of the plane Bush flew. It doesn't matter that the plane he flew was put to rest! Sit in an airplane and FLY it before you make remarks about being a pilot. That took hours and hours of determination to learn how to fly that aircraft. Day one on learning to fly is fun and exciting and absolutely thrilling. Day two, is still lot's of fun. Day three, still fun! A pilot is a pretty hard job to do no matter if you are just getting an Instrument Rating or go on and get a liscense to fly without the IFR. Go on to the next step which is flying without the luxury of seeing outside, then go on to flying what Bush did or helicopters like my cousin did in VietNam.
You were right about Bush flying. It is a whole other animal to learn how to fly and have the dedication.
Do you suppose I like flying!?! Nah...
Oh, I posted somewhere that I have made a lot of mistakes typing...too bad, maybe I have 13 dancing fingers and they get in the way of this wacky brain of mine.
"Sorry, but responding only to people who look and sound like you is small-minded, so if Southerners don't want to have an inferiority complex, I say, "Stop doing things that make reasonable people think you're inferior!" - Maher
Sorry, but responding only to people who look and sound like you is small-minded, so if Democrats don't want to have an inferiority complex, I say, "Stop doing things that make reasonable people think you're inferior!" - Ironbear
Heh. My version scans better. ;]
Almost half to disagree with you on one point, Dean: this is one Southerner who is becoming increasingly disinclined to vote for a Yankee. Or a Californian. Not until they lose the condescension and the "you're too stupid to vote right" attitudes.
Maybe if we get a presidential candidate from way up north, like say, Alaska, where they still believe in and practice libertarian and Jeffersonian values in politics, I may reconsider.
People who assert that white Southern Democrats left the Democratic party over civil rights issues are just plain ignorant. There was no place to go. The Republicans were the party that freed the slaves, and Eisenhower was the guy who called in the National Guard in Arkansas to enforce integration. White southern racists were even less welcome in the Republican party than the Democratic party.
No, the issues that turned many southern white Democrats into Republicans were 1) the ant-war movement of Vietnam and the fact that the anti-war movment had highjacked the Democratic party in 1972, and 2) Roe v. Wade in 1973. Take it to the bank. These were the issues that changed party allegiances.
All of the truly southern white racist bigots stayed with the democrats right up to the present. Believe me, I know. My neighbor, a redneck Texan from the Piney woods of East Texas is as racist as they come. And he is still a Democrat.
Arnold Harris said:
“Many of the Yankees who move south with the big population shifts adopt attitudes that are more southron than Robert E Lee, James Longstreet, or Wade Hampton. Maybe more than many.”
Dean said:
“I was a hard-line Democrat for many years. Supported Jesse Jackson, Paul Simon, Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Michael Dukakis, and sitll liked guys like Paul Tsongas and saw many good things to see about Bill Clinton as late as 1992.”
Peer pressure (tribal thinking) is a terrible thing. It’s really the only good explanation (along with contrarianism – thx, Q. O. A. E.) of the geographic split that is killing this country and the crazy (literally) rationalizations that are necessary as a substitute for a relatively universal view of empirical reality. One day you think Jesse Jackson is pretty cool and next thing you know you’ve become a anti-Democrat partisan who thinks southern Republicans were civil rights leaders and that Democratic Party has a bigotry problem.
I thought I'd join this discussion on Southern voters, too, since I got called a liar in the previous one.
We Southerners are tired of Hollywood's asinine opinions. They know next to nothing about real people in states such as North Carolina: they read "Gone With the Wind" and think they know everything, and then make movies such as "Cold Mountain" to glorify deserters and paint the rest of us as bigoted bullies.
And they can't even get the accents right...
I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. I wasn't raised in the South. Just my mother's side of the family. I've heard a lot. I was raised throughout the West Coast - including Alaska.
Shep,
I still can't tell if you think my theory is at all sound. What do you think, seriously?
Am I just fishing or am I possibly on to something?
Since we are polar opposites politically, your opinion has more value, than those who always agree with me.
Totally off-topic. Andrew you were partially raised in Alaska? That is just way cool!
What area in Alaska?
I'm a West Coast man, too, (Washington, Oregon, California) but never been to Alaska. I'm afraid it would be _too_ cool for me. I prefer warmer climates. Haven't been to Hawaii, though, yet, I must confess. I've always wanted to visit there, must do so someday. I have a book on ancient Hawaiian mythology.
I also plan to visit Lawrence, Kansas, where Laird Wilcox has a special collection of extremist writings.
I have visited parts of the Southwest (New Mexico, Arizona [Goldwater's state], including the Grand Canyon). Beautiful. Next to the West Coast, that's my favorite part of the country.
Gary and Janelle: Sorry about your health problems. I hope you feel better.
Dean,
"The problem here is not Southern attitudes toward yankee politicians. It's yankee politicians' attitudes toward them."
I agree. It isn't just yankee politicians--it's 'a lot of folks.' (Accent added for affect.)
When I moved from Texas to Seattle with my South Texas drawl, I was amazed at people's immediate assumption that I was ignorant. I immediately took speech classes.
Now, some 20+ years later, I can turn that Southern drawl on and off at whim and it still amazes me the reactions I get. I don't use it much but I am still able.
I can charm the bears out of the woods--so to speak, calm stormy seas, tell off a yank without him knowing it with the best of manners or get a man to lift this or that--all with a southern drawl. This little bit of power works in Texas, where everyone knows what is being done, in Seattle, in Los Angeles, and even in Athens, Greece. Poweful thing...
Now tell me who's ignorant?
Rosemary:
“I still can't tell if you think my theory is at all sound. What do you think, seriously?”
Rosemary, I am absolutely sincere about your theory and how it is relevant to 1860 and today. I think that anger and then hate over not just being told what to do but all the subsequent events, including the most morally and emotionally weighted circumstances (slavery, rebellion and costly war), provide more than ample reason for centuries of animosity between northern and southern states (basically). And I think that the party forced to accept the greatest change and facing the most important moral questions, owns the lions share of animosity (in other words, it is facing mostly from south to north), the opposite of the way Dean sees it. I don’t know that is true I just think so.
Katherine may be right that some Yankees falsely conflate her accent with ignorance but she is definitely right that they can all be completely charmed by it. Reconcile that with a strong bias against southerners.
With regard to individual behaviors, the data suggest that it’s not a theory at all. Check out any psychology textbook on adolescent development ;-)
I slept thru Psych 101, all that talking bored the crap out of me. I was a Biology major and Chem minor, much more fun.
:-)
Shep,
And I think that the party forced to accept the greatest change and facing the most important moral questions, owns the lions share of animosity (in other words, it is facing mostly from south to north), the opposite of the way Dean sees it. I don’t know that is true I just think so.
I don't know that I agree. Only based on personal experience, I found southerners really, really nice. If you are right and I have just been lucky in my experience, do you think it has anything to do with us Yank's as seeming to come across as morally superior?
Rosemary,
Psych 101 is universally boring even if you’re interested in the subject (and I also enjoyed my time “studying” biology). But psychology gets extremely interesting from 101 on. As some guidance counselor should have said about understanding politics, religion, love, art, business, science, etc.: “It’s the human psychology, stupid.”
I also find most southerners to be very nice (and most northerners as well). If Yankees do “come across as morally superior” I see no reason to believe that it is necessarily their doing. It could easily be projected upon them. I think the psychological dynamic we’re talking about is a highly generalized feeling and, thankfully, most of us take people one-at-a-time regardless of our biases. In the extreme, a ranting, screaming, frothing racist white who truly loves a black person (a close uncle from Georgia). I take southern resentment of northerners as sometimes manifested in passive-aggressiveness or even saccharin politeness masking darker feelings (something like Dean’s take on Molly Ivins). Otherwise, it seems mostly to strongly color their political beliefs.
After all, it’s been a long time since Yankees did anything to the south. During my lifetime, it’s been mostly the other way ‘round.
"Hatred wells up from the villages. Contempt flashes back from the castles." -Spengler
I spent six years down in Virginia. Several events stick in my mind. Two involves cops and the other two the local city council meetings.
Got stopped just south of Harrisonburg on I-81 for having the left headlight burned out. Told why I better get back to Pennsylvania. My only other encounter was for no seatbelt on. Informed that there too many of us down there, and that we should have stayed where we were.
The city council meetings were fun! The local Catholic Church wanted to expand! The meeting on that was exciting! Never knew that a bigger church for them meant that their members "are going to take over the town."
Never knew until then how many nearby and on the council were a bunch of 19th century no nothings. This was confirmed when they re-zoned a piece of property to prevent a congregation of Egyptian christians from building a church on it.
Interesting enough, the Expatriate Yankees (That is how some of us thought of ourselves as after a while) down there were far more Republican than the native population.
Has the South really changed, or has, as had occurred to similarly situated Northern areas, many areas been overrun by immigration (from either other states or countries) and suburban growth? Has the native population changed?
There is an "election atlas" on-line. Check Tennessee. Four Republican Congressmen. Three are in the far eastern part of the state. This area voted Republican in 1944,and there was a large amount of Unionist support in that region during the War. The other is a suburban district.
One person mentioned a bigot in some region of Texas who is still a Democrat. One question - did he vote for Bush or Gore OR DID HE NOT VOTE FOR EITHER ONE? Are they, perchance, Rove's missing four million?
If people could actually belong to the party they REALLY believe in, would not some of the supposed Republican areas turn out to be Democratic and vice versa?
Libertarian,
He voted for Gore all the way.