quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Several ship-mates live in the US ...Bible Belt... they evidently feel out on a limb if they don't subscribe to dispensationalism, a pro-Zionist stance on Israel, vote Republican ...

Is the Bible Belt buckled so tightly that anything other than the stereotypical views that the rest of us ascribe to it cannot breathe? Or does the fertile soil allow (potentially) other flowers to bloom?

Will it loosen up in time?

---

A recent book by a liberal student who went to a conservative Bible college for a semester suggests it's not all that hard to live with these folks. infiltrating student

Even if you did miss a few issues (absolutely no abortion in any circumstance, tithing, submission of women, etc).

An article a few months ago said regions in USA are becoming less varied, people are moving to be with "their own kind." Liberals are moving to the coasts, conservatives to the center, instead of communities being thoroughly mixed as in days of old. *If* that article is true, Bible Belt will be with us a long time. OTOH, sometimes people just sort of have to write articles.

And there are Catholic churches everywhere, they don't get involved in rapture discussions. But yes to some extent the Methodists are infected even though the pastors try to fight the fascination with end times countdown. I should ask my Episcopalian friends if the topic arises there.
 

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Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :
 
The topic is split in Episcopal land. One of the problems is that the loud mouths are of this conservative breed. The majority don't really care that much about church or politics. Unless they have some spare time to complain.

In the Native arena I would say it is split as well.
 

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Posted by GoodCatholicLad (# 9231) on :
 
My cousin's job had her move to Arkansas from Wisconsin and she said there is a big, big difference in the cultures. Wisconsin to me is Catholic/Lutheran country. Anyone who says that all the states are the same nowadays, my cousin would beg to differ. She tells me it's an everyday occurrence to ask "have you heard the good news?" and go on about religion. Catholicism still gets a disapproving look and that Catholics need to accept Christ. Not to mention a plethora of BBQ joints.
She also said that Arkansas looks poor, ie the infrastructure, the buildings etc in comparison to Wisconsin. Never been to Arkansas and have no desire. Virginia or Maryland is about as southern as I will go.
 

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Posted by gaudium (# 13365) on :
 
My parents were born and raised in Oklahoma--I have lived in Oklahoma and both Carolinas, as well as in Chicago. I understand how easy it can be to scorn the Bible Belt--and how hard it can be for those outside of the evangelical loop. I have suffered much grief from my own family about my decision to leave their (One True ) church. But for all that, I want to defend the Bible Belt.

The people here have warmth and friendliness that is simply not to be found in Northern regions. I will never forget moving to my first place in Oklahoma from Chicago--waiting outside an opened door for at least 60 seconds, before realizing that the perfect stranger holding it was doing so for me! It is shocking how much better these oft-forgotten neighborly curtesies--open doors, less honking--make common life. Not everyone practices them, of course. But there is a different pace of life.

quote:

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Originally posted by AristonAstuanax:
So yes, the hypocrisy, the greed, the Normal Human Vices justified with a veneer of piety truly began to grate.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by gaudium:
Perhaps that should have been another point in my defense of the Bible Belt--they really care. No Laodiceans here! If they become convinced that God wants something, they will do it, whether it is this or this .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by GoodCatholicLad:
She also said that Arkansas looks poor, ie the infrastructure, the buildings etc in comparison to Wisconsin. Never been to Arkansas and have no desire. Virginia or Maryland is about as southern as I will go.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I think a negative aspect of Bible Belt religion that I would identify is the conflation of Christianity (esp Protestant Christianity) with nationalism, patriotism, and quasi-theocracy. There is a sort of triumphalism that comes out of Bible Belt preachers and some of their flocks that is simply hubris. As I write this, I can of course hear New Yorker whispering in my ear that many liberals are guilty of their own form of triumphalism, so I want to be clear that I'm aware of the moats and beams thing. However, I don't think Christianity is well-served by the kind of distortions that I'm describing above: these seem singularly not to resemble the teachings of Our Lord and the practice of the Church where it hasn't started confusing itself with the State. Identifying America as the New Israel and suchlike is a very dangerous game.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by New Yorker:

I would argue that it is much different today. The rise of de factoathiesm is rampant. By this I mean those to whom God means nothing or those who may go to church from time to time, but don't really let it change their lives.

---

quote:

---

I may not agree with most of what those Bible Beltian Fundamentalists teach, but at least they are Christian - at least most of them. Many of the secular elite here in New York are not only not Christian but also outright anti-Christian.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Uh yes, you're a Methodist I see.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Since the bible-belt here has been vaguely defined to include pretty much the entire United States outside of the coasts, howzabout a totally related question: Is there any hope for the coasts?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Wilfried:
There are are plenty of secular types I'd rather deal with than some Christians; Christians don't get an automatic pass, or even brownie points, in my book.

---

Amen. I keep wondering why Episcopalians (at least reputedly) get along with Jews so well. 'Cuz whatever it is, I want to make sure we don't lose it. Is it our use of the psalms? Our tolerance? Our regard for scholarship and especially history? Yesterday evening Bishop Robinson mentioned another probable reason, which does not surprise me but I had never actually made the connexion: our Incarnationalism means that we are less prone than many other Christians to "mind/body dualism", in which the mind or spirit is considered good and the body bad. [AKA Manicheism, and also part of gnosticism] This is an intrusion of Greek thought which would have been quite alien to the Jewish Jesus.

I'd rather hang out with a Jew than with a Christian waterlogged in gnosticism any day.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
I think, on a strictly statistical basis, you will find there are far more ignorant people on the coasts than in the midwest.

Zach

[ 29. April 2009, 20:21: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
That's a rather broad assertion, Zach. How do you justify it?
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Well, the population of our coastal states is much higher than in the south and midwest. So, even if a smaller proportion of the coastal population is, much like many of the people on this thread, prone to making bigoted generalizations about people who aren't like them, the slice of the pie is likely to be larger than the Bible-belt one.

Zach
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Zach, dear heart, I've spent many years of my life in various cities and regions of Texas (but mostly in Austin, Deo Gratias)as well as elsewhere in the South. I'm not coming from an uninformed perspective or from a lack of direct experience with Ye Olde Bible Belt.
 

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Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
Yeah. You have lots of friends that are in the Bible Belt, right?

Zach
 

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Posted by DmplnJeff (# 12766) on :
 
Other than possibly some parts of India I'm not sure the Holy Spirit is blowing stronger than in the deep south.

Liberalism is fine, but it can't take the place of Faith. Faith without liberalism can be twisted and tortured. Yet God makes the twisted straight over time. Liberalism without Faith is empty and leads nowhere.

In the end Faith, Hope, and Charity.
 

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Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :
 
I haven't tried very hard to find substantiation on the net, but an acquaintance from North Dakota once mentioned that his state was very proud of its percentage of high school graduates who went on to college. It wouldn't surprise me if it were superlative in this regard. Wisconsin and Minnesota have long-standing progressive reputations as well. Iowa may have hidden its light under a bushel until recently, but seems to be worthy of one too, as recent events show.
These are, of course, a cluster of upper-midwestern States, certainly not in the Bible Belt. (Wisconsin, on the contrary, lies in the Biretta Belt). Their flagship state universities have fine reputations. They are also the home of quite a few excellent small liberal-arts colleges whose student bodies are drawn from all over the country (and abroad).

With the partial exception of Indiana (and then there's Utah), the borders of the Bible belt correspond well to the Mason-Dixon line.
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Now Zach,that's just descending to a level of mixed silliness and insult. Yes, actually I do. But that's not the point -- I've experienced these places up close and personal, like. Goodness, I went to high school in Lubbock, TX and in order to graduate a year early I attended an accelerated summer programme in a Church of Christ high school that provided all my senior year academic requirements (and some of their's too, like two summer semesters of Bible).

[ 29. April 2009, 20:45: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
 

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Posted by Franco-American (# 9175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wilfried:
There are are plenty of secular types I'd rather deal with than some Christians; Christians don't get an automatic pass, or even brownie points, in my book.

---

Amen. I keep wondering why Episcopalians (at least reputedly) get along with Jews so well. 'Cuz whatever it is, I want to make sure we don't lose it. Is it our use of the psalms? Our tolerance? Our regard for scholarship and especially history? Yesterday evening Bishop Robinson mentioned another probable reason, which does not surprise me but I had never actually made the connexion: our Incarnationalism means that we are less prone than many other Christians to "mind/body dualism", in which the mind or spirit is considered good and the body bad. [AKA Manicheism, and also part of gnosticism] This is an intrusion of Greek thought which would have been quite alien to the Jewish Jesus.

I'd rather hang out with a Jew than with a Christian waterlogged in gnosticism any day.

---

quote:

---

With the partial exception of Indiana (and then there's Utah), the borders of the Bible belt correspond well to the Mason-Dixon line.

---

quote:

---

Now Zach,that's just descending to a level of mixed silliness and insult.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not one of those who sees all Mid-West/Southern US Christians as hootin' an' a hollerin' Appallachian snake handlers. But it does strike me that there's a conservative, fundamentalist, South Baptist/Pentecostal 'Left Behind' type hegemony down there that is far from healthy in many respects.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Franco-American:
That is a bizarre argument, as Jews are not incarnational at all

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wilfried:
There are are plenty of secular types I'd rather deal with than some Christians; Christians don't get an automatic pass, or even brownie points, in my book.

---

Amen. I keep wondering why Episcopalians (at least reputedly) get along with Jews so well. 'Cuz whatever it is, I want to make sure we don't lose it. Is it our use of the psalms? Our tolerance? Our regard for scholarship and especially history? Yesterday evening Bishop Robinson mentioned another probable reason, which does not surprise me but I had never actually made the connexion: our Incarnationalism means that we are less prone than many other Christians to "mind/body dualism", in which the mind or spirit is considered good and the body bad. [AKA Manicheism, and also part of gnosticism] This is an intrusion of Greek thought which would have been quite alien to the Jewish Jesus.

I'd rather hang out with a Jew than with a Christian waterlogged in gnosticism any day.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I think a negative aspect of Bible Belt religion that I would identify is the conflation of Christianity (esp Protestant Christianity) with nationalism, patriotism, and quasi-theocracy.

---

quote:

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[In Manitoba there is] a noticeable conservatism in the general outlook of people.

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Would that be the province governed by a democratically-elected socialist party? It's true that parts of the province -- the area around Steinbach, the Mennonite Vatican -- are quite Bible-beltlike. But, trust me on this: Manitoba pales in comparison with Alberta for sheer, nutty, WTF versions of conservative Christianity.
 

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Posted by multipara (# 2918) on :
 
"No point being a Xtian if the Bible Belt is wrong"...

Jesus wept; I only hope you are joking.

At least in the Antipodes we mostly laugh at that kind of thinking.

m
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by multipara:
Jesus wept; I only hope you are joking.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
Originally posted by davelarge:

quote:

---

[In Manitoba there is] a noticeable conservatism in the general outlook of people.

---

Would that be the province governed by a democratically-elected socialist party? It's true that parts of the province -- the area around Steinbach, the Mennonite Vatican -- are quite Bible-beltlike. But, trust me on this: Manitoba pales in comparison with Alberta for sheer, nutty, WTF versions of conservative Christianity.

---

quote:

---

Sadly, I don't think he is. Such rhetoric is typical of the worst kind of fundie nutjobs the world over. They're the Christian version of the Taliban.

---

It'd be easy to write it off as that if you were the worst kind of sodimite nutjob . . . you know, The Christian version of the CIA.

Fact of the matter is, I value oppinions that are different than mine and I value the freedom to express them. Bemoaning that me and a whole region predominatly share an alternative viewpoint, praying that we can be assimilated into your Borg, belittling anything non-party line liberal as fundie (even in non-right wing, non-fundies) without hearing what is actually being said . . . well, it reaks of hate speech.

Why does my culture need to be killed off? Why is a different point of view so threatening to you? Why so close minded and intollerant?
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
davelarge: The point you were making about isolation is valid, and I meant to say so, but was posting late.

Macx: Is it possible you may be overreacting slightly? I read the OP as saying, "Will the Bible belt loosen up in time?" not "Destroy Macx and his fellow travellers!" I think it's a good question about social change. ISTM Gamaliel is open about stating a suspicion that a certain religious hegemony is "far from healthy". I would have thought that defending hegemony would be the last thing a libertarian anarchist would do.

ISTM the winds of social change in Western Europe and North America have blown away from traditional versions of Christianity and toward secularism. It would be no surprise if that happened in "Bible belt" places, would it?

Lately I have been harbouring the heretical thought that maybe God is behind this trend -- maybe it's the Holy Spirit blowing those winds of change. Maybe God would rather have us live in secular societies, in relationships of justice with one another, than be in worship every Sunday and bash one another's brains out during the week. It would be just like God to care for God's children like that: preferring that they live peaceably, rather than come to Sunday dinner together and yell and fight.

OTOH... maybe the Bible belt will evangelize the rest of us? Who knows?
 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Macx:
Why does my culture need to be killed off?

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quote:

---

... the baggage of a wrongly lost war, bad post war policy, and commitment to Biblical scholarship that isn't aimed at degrading Christ.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
5. At least grudging admiration for the rich ,unlike the class resentment one finds in other classes and in other cultures

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quote:

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And if so, will it eventually go the way of the Eastern seaboard and the Pacific coast and become more liberal, more secularised or more pluralist?

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quote:

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Some are heroically bearing witness to other ways of doing things. And I take my hat off to them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Macx:
What I hope to convey is that tolerance is a two way street.

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quote:

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But not to liberals...

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Not to be extended to liberals, did you mean?

[edited for clarity]

[ 30. April 2009, 20:00: Message edited by: Leaf ]
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
No, I think New Yorker meant that liberals are intolerant of those who hold conservative views. Hence, my response that I don't believe that to be true at the level of individual relationships (hell, I have friends who are way conservative Republican types), but that perhaps tolerance isn't something that we can talk about in the same way in respect to the political programme that each side tries, understandably, to advance. In that sense, perhaps culture wars are inevitable and all we can do is try to keep them as polite and civilised as possible.
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, I think that on an individual, person to person basis, most "liberals" probably accept persons in their life space who would be deemed "conservative".

---

I could say the same of most conservatives I've known vis a vis liberals.

Granted, I've met members of both parties who, while they could "tolerate" anyone, would be visibly less respectful to people who disagreed with them.
 

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Posted by Macx (# 14532) on :
 
I certainly didn't say that. I wouldn't be hanging around here if I was intolerant of liberals. If my bishop would have given me the choice, I would have gone to Sewanee.

I am resistant to some of the ideas, of course I find the whole "making believe homosexual acts (as distinguished from the preference) is not sin" to require leaps from logic that I am not willing to make. Sin, is sin, I have mine they have theirs we all need redemption. I am not a very good person and even if I was it wouldn't be good enough to get me through the pearly gates except for the grace of Christ. . . I don't go making believe that my sins aren't really sins, and building elaborate sets of Biblical "scholarship" to support how I wish the Book read. I am sure my point of view on this topic is not in agreement with all or even most of the folks on this forum. We both benefit from the dialogue.

I have at times wondered if the militant straight bashing that goes on is a form of compensating for an intellectually weak position on the part of liberals. Perhaps the idea that they could be wrong is what leads the liberal coasts to try and eradicate the Bible Belt ... the weaker the position the greater the intollerance perhaps?

Of course I am picking perspectives on homosexuality because it is a topic with well defined trenches in the cultural conflict. There are of course corresponding weaknesses like the topic of abortion which the Bible Belt right, tends to be very militant because they are wrong. Both sides have issues that could use some fixing, but neither switching sides nor erradicating the alternate view point is a viable cure. It'll take people willing to stretch and grow, it'll take tolerance mixed with exposure, but both systems of ideology could and should co-exist.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Whoa ... look what I've started. The US Civil War all over again ...

Let's back up a bit. And let's not forgot that Victorian Britain almost intervened on the Southern Side ...

Firstly, I need to expand a bit on the OP. I can understand how its tone has upset some Southerners. But I'd be perfectly happy to start another thread entitled 'Is there hope for secularised, post-Christian Western Europe?'

Or 'Is there hope for the gospel-amnesiac UK?'

I'm not necessarily saying that a more secularised or pluralistic culture is a good thing as far as religious observance or being nice to other people and holding doors open for them etc is concerned. I'd be more than happy to visit other parts of the US as well as New York.

And, for the record, whilst I might differ from them in some respects, I've never met a US (mostly southern or mid-western) evangelical over here in the UK (trying to convert us to their culture, Macx ) that I haven't liked. As people I'm sure they're lovely.

Nor do I subscribe to the caricature that all Southerners are troglodytes. I was being somewhat hyperbolic in the OP in order to get the ball rolling and to encourage debate.

It's not my fault if your guys aren't always good at irony (apart from Lutheranchik, Mousethief and a small number of others ... )

Anyway ... I suppose what I'm interested in is what sort of societies are conducive to religious growth and development.

Another thread, maybe?

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Apologies for the double-post but here's a bit more for Macx:

You wrote:

'The OP's statement
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And if so, will it eventually go the way of the Eastern seaboard and the Pacific coast and become more liberal, more secularised or more pluralist?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

conveyed to me that it is a goal to force coastal liberalism until they decide they like the horrific delicacy. The OP's post sounded like
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some are heroically bearing witness to other ways of doing things. And I take my hat off to them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

these people are missionaries trying to erradicate the native religion.'

For the record, I wasn't talking about carpet-baggers or people moving into the benighted Southern States in order to liberalise them. No. I was alluding to several of the shipmates here who live in the Bible Belt and are trying to pursue other ways of being Christian to what's generally on the menu.

I was wondering whether the religious hot-house atmosphere of Bible Belt type cultures could encourage other flowers to bloom. Or whether the delicate orchids and exotic blooms would be choked out by the more quickly propagating growths. Are we talking religious biodiversity or a monoculture?

It sounds like there are nuances and gradations ... like everywhere else.

I'm not a liberal theologically speaking ... and I know that many liberals can be pretty illiberal in practice. We've all come across that.

I'm sure it's a question of scale here. From this side of the Pond, US religion in general can seem a lot more polarised than the prevailing trends (such as they are) over here. For instance, the fundies and evangelicals are more fundamentalist and evangelical than ours tend to be ... or appear that way. And equally, the more way-out forms of liberalism seem, well ... more way out.

I'm not sure this is the reality, but it is a perception. I'd be interested if you were to return the favour and I turned the other cheek to allow you to share your perception of the religious scene over here in the UK.

I might react angrily. I might nod my head in agreement. Try it out.

Go ahead, punk, make my day ...

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :
 
Mechtilde has an interesting post on another thread. Not in response to this thread but to this type of attitude. And yes all people need to know that there are multiple sides.
 

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Posted by Macx (# 14532) on :
 
Well, I am learning about the UK religious scene in part in this environment. I have noticed what you say about the liberals and concervatives of the UK seeming more mild, or at least less rabid. It seems to be true both religiously and politically (of course I am very envious of your multi-party system) and kind of wonder if the political structure might be the influence on the religious. Perhaps it is that everything here is democrat/republican, liberal/conservative, where neither communist of libertarian is taken seriously and vast ammounts of cash are spent trying to polarize the centrists and we anarchists on the opposite side of them are completely ignored. It seems like a multi-party system would allow things to be discussed with more variation and tolerance for other ideas. . . . this difference, I'm postulating is why you are exactly right in saying:

quote:

---

I'm sure it's a question of scale here. From this side of the Pond, US religion in general can seem a lot more polarised than the prevailing trends (such as they are) over here. For instance, the fundies and evangelicals are more fundamentalist and evangelical than ours tend to be ... or appear that way. And equally, the more way-out forms of liberalism seem, well ... more way out.

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quote:

---

I'd be interested if you were to return the favour and I turned the other cheek to allow you to share your perception of the religious scene over here in the UK.

---

I'd rather ask than misunderstand, so, what did you mean by that?

I have only spent about 18 hours in London, saw a mugger stab a man, but didn't get to do much checking out the UK religious scene. I of course would like to. I may be an outcast Anglican, but the Church still has a place in my heart and of course I can't have Anglicanism without the UK.
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
LSK: Yes, I had understood New Yorker's meaning, thank you. Recalibrate, irony, etc.

Macx: If it helps, I've been to the UK twice and never saw anybody stab anybody else.

This discussion has illuminated for me the fact that both the whack-a-doodle extremes of liberal and conservative accuse each other of "tolerating the intolerable". Depends on your definition of intolerable, doesn't it? Liberal accusation: "You tolerate violence, exclusion, greed and ignorance." Conservative accusation: "You tolerate sexual sins, abortion and secularism." Hmmm... which form of self-righteous finger-pointing would Jesus like better?
 

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Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Macx:
If my bishop would have given me the choice, I would have gone to Sewanee.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
No, I think New Yorker meant that liberals are intolerant of those who hold conservative views.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Whoa ... look what I've started. The US Civil War all over again

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, I think that on an individual, person to person basis, most "liberals" probably accept persons in their life space who would be deemed "conservative".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And let's not forgot that Victorian Britain almost intervened on the Southern Side ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, I think that on an individual, person to person basis, most "liberals" probably accept persons in their life space who would be deemed "conservative".

---

Yes, but the same is true the other way round as well. In practice, whether they like it or not, most politically conservative people manage to deal with others who aren't. And the same I guess is true with religiously conservative people.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thanks for the comments and questions, Macx.

You wrote:

'This sentence baffled me a bit
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd be interested if you were to return the favour and I turned the other cheek to allow you to share your perception of the religious scene over here in the UK.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd rather ask than misunderstand, so, what did you mean by that?

I have only spent about 18 hours in London, saw a mugger stab a man, but didn't get to do much checking out the UK religious scene. I of course would like to. '

Ok ... all I meant was seeing as how I've taken it upon myself to pontificate about US religion, I'd like to return the compliment and allow you to pontificate on what your perceptions are of the state of Christendom (and faith in general) over here in the UK.

I'm quite willing to be put right where I misjudge or get things wrong. For instance, whilst I had heard that the ' burned over' district was in upper New York State my ignorance of US geography is such that I assumed that this was part of New England ...

I'm sure I'm not alone over here in the vague apprehension that anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard that's sort of North East constitutes New England. Maine, New Jersey, Boston and all that. Mea culpa.

I think it's generally true to say, though, that most Brits have some inkling that more Americans go to church than we do. They'd may generally think of more evangelical, 'born again' forms of Christianity as more American in tone ... despite there being a long Puritan/Wesleyan evangelical tradition here in the UK.

It's probably less well known over here that the RC church is numerically strong in the US. Most people, I suspect, would associate US Christianity with Elmer Gantry style TV evangelism, hucksterism and extreme Creationist views. Those of us who're involved with church would tend to have a more nuanced view - mainly through personal contacts as there's a lot of interaction between US and UK religious groups across the spectrum.

But even there we'd probably be prone to a more stereotypical view than is actually the case.

I'm interested to see whether the reverse is true. Whether you have a stereotypical view of what the average UK parish or non-conformist congregation is like ... bearing in mind the spread of different churchmanships etc.etc.

On the poor chap getting stabbed by a mugger in London. It happens. Just as we have shootings over here as well - but on nowhere near the same scale as you have in the US (and I know there are regional differences there too).

I didn't see anyone mugged, stabbed or shot during my visit to New York. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

And don't tempt me to start another Dead Horse thread about different viewpoints on the citizen's right to bear arms and all that ... I've got plenty of bruises on my forehead arguing that particular point with US shipmates who pack heat ...

Is that clear enough?

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok Ken ... I was being a tad flippant with my offhand comment about possible UK intervention on the Confederate side. It's probably true that the bulk of public opinion probably lay with the North - but I'm not sure the issue was that clear cut. There were a number of reactionary gits whose sympathies lay with the South ... but whether they were in a position to influence policy is a case in point.

And then there was the 'Trent' incident where the damned Yankees seized a British vessel on the high seas in order to arrest some Confederate passengers. That sparked off a serious diplomatic incident. And 11,000 troops were sent to Canada to reinforce the British garrisons there. Why would they have done that if they weren't expecting Yankee incursions or there was an outside chance of intervention on the Southern side?

All that said, the Manchester cotton workers heroically boycotted Southern cotton to show solidarity with the anti-slavery aspects of the Civil War. And suffered greatly through hunger and privation as a result.

You know more history than I do, you smug git, but I'd suggest that the UK position was more ambivalent than might be supposed.

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by Angel Wrestler (# 13673) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by LutheranChik:
And at the risk of being labeled "Borg" I will tell you some characteristics I observe, here in the jackpines, among my fundamentalist/biblical-literalist neighbors:

1. Lack of education and/or lack of exposure to a diversity of people and ideas. (We have two middle-sized state universities and two community colleges within a 50-mile radius, so it's conceivable -- actually more than that; I know many people like this -- that one may have a college degree and yet have a very provincial experience of education and of life in general.)

2. White, and especially white male, and especially white Christian male, sense of lost privilege. The people in question seem to live in a zero-sum world where granting other people equitable rights and social respect somehow diminishes their own.

3. Faux sentimentality for the fantasy America of the 1950's -- contented workers with ample savings; happy housewives dandling babies on one knee while darning their husband's socks; happy, obedient children cut from the pages of Dick and Jane Go to School; annoying minorities of various kinds safely out of sight/out of mind; simple expectations for one's life.

4. An intolerance for the ambiguous, the nuanced, the equivocal, the ironic. "Just tell me what to believe." "Just tell me what to do." "Why can't you just give me a straight answer to my question?"

5. At least grudging admiration for the rich ,unlike the class resentment one finds in other classes and in other cultures -- "They must be doing something right"; either a total inability to make a connection between the misdeeds and excesses of the rich and the economic hardships of the working and underclass, or else a resignation that, yeah, they're bastards, but they're the bastards who sign my paycheck...I wish I could be a bastard too...

I think that mainline churches have a great difficulty reaching out to people with this mindset, while at the same time fundamentalist churches are quite skilled at playing into this population's self-perceptions, fears and preferences.

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Funny you should mention the bearing arms thing as between my keyboard and my screen there is a row: a 7.62x54R round, a magazine full of .40S&W some loose .40 FMJ's, a 9x18, a row of .40 hollowpoint, a match grade .223 and a .45 Long Colt +P, a garrote, a combat knife and a holstered pistol. It is of course one of my favorite dead horses.

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Originally posted by Leaf:
Originally posted by Macx:

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Funny you should mention the bearing arms thing as between my keyboard and my screen there is a row: a 7.62x54R round, a magazine full of .40S&W some loose .40 FMJ's, a 9x18, a row of .40 hollowpoint, a match grade .223 and a .45 Long Colt +P, a garrote, a combat knife and a holstered pistol. It is of course one of my favorite dead horses.

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At least we don't have to wonder how the horse died.

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There are two very positive things I think of when I think of The South. One is the Civil Rights movement, which is absolutely inspiring. The other is Memphis, which gave the world Stax Records and Elvis Presley. Pretty positive things, in my book.
 

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Posted by Macx (# 14532) on :
 
You must have never had cheese grits or sweet tea.
 

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Posted by Zwingli (# 4438) on :
 

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
2. The people in question seem to live in a zero-sum world...

5. either a total inability to make a connection between the misdeeds and excesses of the rich and the economic hardships of the working and underclass...

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Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :
 

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Originally posted by Macx:
You must have never had cheese grits or sweet tea.

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dispensationalism, a pro-Zionist stance on Israel

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Bill Clinton somehow managed to get elected governor of Arkansas twice. The state seems to breed a form of political populism that doesn't fit the George Wallace or Lester Maddox mold.

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
I have a friend from Little Rock, who says that, outside of Little Rock and Fayetteville, the State is more or less a no-go area for non-Rednecks and that, even in Little Rock

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Gosh, maybe if your friend did not refer to such people as "rednecks" s/he might get a more welcoming reception. It's like me saying West Baltimore is a no-go area for non-n----rs.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thanks Macx

Interesting how you folks see us ...

I remember seeing a TV programme where a somewhat sophisticated (smug?) and ironic UK TV journalist spent some time with a TV evangelist in Dallas. At that time we didn't have any such thing on our air-waves ... a situation that seemed to amaze and appall both the evangelist and his flock. They're couldn't conceive of such a thing.

Which was the cue for us to have a good laugh at their expense ...

Now I know how well armed you are, Macx, I think I'd better stop ...

Laetare: others will be able to explain dispensationalism better than I can. It's essentially a particular fundamentalist form of biblical interpretation that divides history into particular 'dispensations' or epochs. It was popularised by Schofield and the 'Schofield Bible' and has tended to be associated with many fundamentalist teaching institutions in the Southern US ... although it's not unknown elsewhere.

A 'pro-Zionist stance on Israel' tends to be a way of seeing Israel as the focus of God's end-time plan and leads to a fairly black-and-white Israel = the goodies, Arabs = the baddies view of the world.

Others can explain more. If you google you'll find plenty of material.

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by + Irl Gladfelter (# 14732) on :
 

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Uh yes, you're a Methodist I see.

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Methodist church I attend has the USA flag prominently up front and celebrates every veterans day and memorial day by asking those who served in the USA military to stand and state where and when they served.

I hate it, the USA military has nothing to do with Christianity, any more or less than working in an accounting firm or repairing sewers.

If we are going to twice a year honor those who ever held some particular job, how about school teachers, or those who worked for non-profits?

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dispensationalism better than I can. It's essentially a particular fundamentalist form of biblical interpretation that divides history into particular 'dispensations' or epochs. It was popularised by Schofield and the 'Schofield Bible' and has tended to be associated with many fundamentalist teaching institutions in the Southern US ... although it's not unknown elsewhere.

A 'pro-Zionist stance on Israel' tends to be a way of seeing Israel as the focus of God's end-time plan and leads to a fairly black-and-white Israel = the goodies, Arabs = the baddies view of the world.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Whoa ... look what I've started. The US Civil War all over again ...

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Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Whoa ... look what I've started. The US Civil War all over again ...

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For most of us, it never ended.

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Don't know whether to

or to
 

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Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :
 

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Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Whoa ... look what I've started. The US Civil War all over again ...

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For most of us, it never ended.

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Posted by Patrick the less saintly (# 14355) on :
 

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Originally posted by FCB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
I have a friend from Little Rock, who says that, outside of Little Rock and Fayetteville, the State is more or less a no-go area for non-Rednecks and that, even in Little Rock

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Gosh, maybe if your friend did not refer to such people as "rednecks" s/he might get a more welcoming reception. It's like me saying West Baltimore is a no-go area for non-n----rs.

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
I'm a native of the Virgen de Guadalupe belt myself, but from what I've seen of the Bible Belt, I'd say that there's very little hope. I'm surprised that Arkansas made it on to anybody's list of more moderate Bible Belt States, for it is anything but. I have a friend from Little Rock, who says that, outside of Little Rock and Fayetteville, the State is more or less a no-go area for non-Rednecks and that, even in Little Rock, he was the only student at his academically high achieving non-sectarian independent school to believe in evolution by natural selection. He also says that, among other things, he was the only one not to sign his schools abstinence pledge (because it didn't have a specified endpoint, he thought that it was ridiculous to ask students to state that they would refrain from drinking or having sex, apparently for perpetuity) and that he felt like most people thought he wasn't a 'Real Christian' because he was, and is, a liberal Anglo-Catholic.

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I'd say the single defining feature of the Bible Belt is a distrust of sophistication. It is the sort of place where many people would actually find that Stephen Colbert's 'truthiness' is how they view the world, not from the head, but from the gut. Biblical literalism doesn't require a sophisticated education or, indeed, any thought whatsoever. It is the symptom, not the cause, of a greater cultural malaise.

And yes, there are things I like about the South. Fried Chicken is one of them. My extended family isn't.

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
[qb] Christianity is not pacifist (outside the short list of "Peace Churches.")

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
Some might claim that it is possible to be a redneck without being a bigot, but I find this doubtful. Certainly, there are are now rednecks who are not openly racist, but I have never met one who wasn't both homophobic and xenophobic. This is not to mention the religion, which is always a narrow-minded sect with some vestigial resemblances to Christianity, but which would be utterly alien to Jesus of Nazareth and Erasmus alike.

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Originally Posted by Patrick the LEss Saintly:
Some might claim that it is possible to be a redneck without being a bigot, but I find this doubtful. Certainly, there are are now rednecks who are not openly racist, but I have never met one who wasn't both homophobic and xenophobic.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Matins, that actually was the only neutral definition I could think of -- Southern working class, originally rural (the thing is, I think with urbanisation, you could have urban rednecks). I was pressing to see what people would come up with. I wonder if anyone else will wade in now.

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He was born in Oklahoma,
His wife's name's Betty Lou Thelma Liz
And he's not responsible for what he's doing
Cause his mother made him what he is.

And it's up against the wall Redneck Mother,
Mother, who has raised her son so well.
He's thirty-four and drinking in a honky tonk.
Just kicking hippies asses and raising hell.

Sure does like his Falstaff beer,
Likes to chase it down with that Wild Turkey liquor;
Drives a fifty-seven GMC pickup truck;
He's got a gun rack; "Goat ropers need love, too" sticker

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• Gun culture (to an almost absurd degree. Rednecks almost invariably hunt, and are criticized for their unsporting methods by other hunters, but those that can afford it also collect guns just because they think that they're cool).
• Fundamentalist Protestant Christianity
• A machismo that identifies their lifestyle with manliness and urban lifestyle, particularly that of urban intellectuals, with effeminacy
• A belief that said effeminate urbanite intellectuals are out to get them (rednecks hate and fear the government, but for entirely different reasons than do liberals and radical leftists).
• A conception of justice based on the idea of 'an eye for an eye' (the vast majority of rednecks will be in strongly favour of capital punishment, hence the disgusting enthusiasm shown for it by both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.)
• Social, political, and religious conservatism.

quote:

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
Stereotypically redneck areas are invariably Republican...

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Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

quote:

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
Stereotypically redneck areas are invariably Republican...

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Interesting. While this is likely true on a state and national level, the majority of county and local officials around here run as Democrats. Also, according to Wikipedia, Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Alabama state legislature.

Kinda sounds like your invariably has some variations.

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Originally posted by Macx:
You must have never had cheese grits or sweet tea.

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Rednecks are invariably white, poorly educated, working class (although by no means necessarily poor) and usually with some connexion to rural areas, although many now live in cities.

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and are criticized for their unsporting methods by other hunters

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. . . belief that said effeminate urbanite intellectuals are out to get them . . .

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Originally posted by Macx:

Patrick,

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. . . belief that said effeminate urbanite intellectuals are out to get them . . .

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in the "just because your paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" kind of sense.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Seraphim: Isn't it time you got over it?

I'm not hearing a lot of Jesus in your post, to tell you the truth.

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
...it is largely a Scots-Anglo culture, heavy on the Scots. The only people who wear more plaid live in Seattle, and the only people with more Mc/Macs in their name hail from Scotland or Ireland. The South at heart is agrarian Celtic. That tells you a lot about everything else.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Seraphim: Isn't it time you got over it?

<Snip>

I'm not hearing a lot of Jesus in your post, to tell you the truth.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Seraphim: Isn't it time you got over it?

I wonder what my life would be like if I spent considerable portions of it nursing my wrath over the Wars of Religion, the Franco-Prussian War, the Stalin era in the USSR (during which a number of my German-Russian relatives "disappeared" during his various ethnic cleansings), etc., etc.

I'm not hearing a lot of Jesus in your post, to tell you the truth.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
RadicalWhig, you seem simply to be romanticising violence and anarchy.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
It's when you start talking that stuck-in-the-civil-war stuff that you completely lose my sympathies. That's like the mentality I've experienced first hands from both certain Southern Slavs and some Baltic Europeans who can't get over ancient history. Are Southerners still going to be nursing their ancient grievances another 900 years from now?

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One might argue that the Arab people are still smarting from the crusades, and that the late great unpleasantness is a product of that. Are you losing sympathy with them as well?

The Jews have not forgotten the Holocaust. Are you losing sympathy with them as well?

The African-Americans have not forgotten slavery, nearly 150 years ago. Are you losing sympathy with them as well?

They may be our trading partners now, and they may or may not have brought it upon themselves, but do you think the Japanese will ever forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Will you lose your sympathy with them?

Nor should we forget.

This is part of our history, our heritage. It is far, far deeper than we can delve into here. It is rooted in why the United States was created in the first place.

The South did not fight the War Between the States* in order to keep slaves. Slavery was already on the way out - the cotton gin and Egyptian cotton were beginning to see to that - and had the yankees left well enough alone it would have died peacefully within the next 10-20 years anyhow. No, ask a Confederate soldier why he was fighting and he would likely tell you it was over states' rights. The vast majority of southerners were not slaveholders, and many were opposed to slavery.

Even within the US forces, the question of slavery was not as common as the history books like to say. After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, a number of Union soldiers said that they would lay in the woods until moss grew on their backs before they would fight to free the slaves.

It is a question of freedom. Freedom from oppressive government. Freedom from taxation without representation. Freedom to choose which laws to enact and which ones to avoid. The freedom for states to leave the union if the people see fit.

The US Constitution was proposed by the Constitutional Convention to be an experiment. The idea was that if it didn't work, we could scrap it and try again. And what the yankee history books forget to mention is that between 1810 and 1830 a group of New Englanders were pushing - nay, clamoring - for the northeastern US to secede from the union. They were claiming - get this - that the federal government was interfering with free trade and states' rights.

Also let us not forget exactly where these slaves came from. New Englanders were some of the most prosperous slave traders in the business before the Constitution's ban on new slaves entering the country took effect. After that clause took effect, many of the same New Englanders smuggled slaves in from Africa and the Caribbean. You don't read about that in the history books.

And don't kid yourself about how Abe Lincoln was going to free the slaves. Mary Todd's family were slaveholders. When Lincoln saw in 1862 that the British were giving consideration to entering the war on the Confederate side, Lincoln knew he had to spring into action. He knew that the British were concerned over the slavery issue, and he knew that the Confederacy would possibly agree to emancipate the slaves in exchange for military and naval help. Lincoln decided to beat them to it and wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. But look at the EP closely. Note that Lincoln only frees those slaves within the territory held by the Confederate army at that time. Note that it does not free those slaves owned by Mary Todd Lincoln's family, nor those within territory controlled by the Union forces. Sounds kinda hollow to me.

Follow that up with the fact that ol' Abe Lincoln wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa (hence the nation of Liberia) or to the American Southwest. His assassination put an end to that, thankfully.

Don't misunderstand me: Slavery is wrong. But it wasn't the issue. The issue was an oppressive federal government that was overstepping its bounds.

You talk about losing sympathy with cultures which refuse to forget past atrocities. It may very well be bad for people to hang on to past wrongs. I have lost patience over the same issue in the past. The difference is that Southerners are not asking for reparations or a handout because they lost the war or were subjected to Reconstruction. Southerners do not have an inferiority complex because of the War. We remember it, we know it happened, and we know why, but we don't whine about it or allow it to hold us back. But it is as much a part of our identity as fried chicken and sweet, iced tea.

Is there hope for the south? You betcha. But not in the way some posters are thinking. I think the time is coming when, culturally and politically, the South will once again be at the forefront. The real question, as asked by so many others here, is whether or not there is hope for the coasts.

Saraphim, you put into words what I could not yesterday. Thank you.

LsK, Patrick, et. al.: We may have to agree to disagree on this. I'm not changing my mind anytime soon!

-- Joshua
_________
*This has been incorrectly labeled the Civil War. It was not a "civil war", however, because the Confederate forces did not seek to take over the government in Washington, only to remove themselves from it. Had it been successful, it would have been labeled a revolution.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 

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There is a stronger desire among people in Vermont to leave the United States.

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Originally posted by Padre Joshua:
But look at the EP closely. Note that Lincoln only frees those slaves within the territory held by the Confederate army at that time.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:

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There is a stronger desire among people in Vermont to leave the United States.

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Do you have any citeable/verifiable proof of that?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Several ship-mates live in the US Deep South or the Mid-West. The Bible Belt. Fortunately or unfortunately for them.

And they appear to struggle. Whilst appreciating aspects of the prevailing religious culture they evidently feel out on a limb if they don't subscribe to dispensationalism, a pro-Zionist stance on Israel, vote Republican or otherwise subscribe to an ethos and emphases that the rest of Christendom does not necessarily hold.

Some are heroically bearing witness to other ways of doing things. And I take my hat off to them.

My question is this. Is the Bible Belt buckled so tightly that anything other than the stereotypical views that the rest of us ascribe to it cannot breathe? Or does the fertile soil allow (potentially) other flowers to bloom?

Will it loosen up in time?

And if so, will it eventually go the way of the Eastern seaboard and the Pacific coast and become more liberal, more secularised or more pluralist?

Let's not forget that parts of New England were eventually described by Finney and other revivalists as the 'burned over district'. Could the fervour of the Bible Belt States eventually burn itself out?

I'm not one of those who sees all Mid-West/Southern US Christians as hootin' an' a hollerin' Appallachian snake handlers. But it does strike me that there's a conservative, fundamentalist, South Baptist/Pentecostal 'Left Behind' type hegemony down there that is far from healthy in many respects.

But I'm on this side of the Pond. And have only visited New York.

What are the views/insights of those who live there or who know it well?

Gamaliel

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Here's what sounded in Janine's head as she read what was originally posted by Gamaliel:

Several ship-mates live on the US East Coast -- or, God love 'em -- the Left Coast. If the undergirding middle of the map is the Bible Belt, then I suppose the bits that are not sensibly restrained by the Belt would be the... Love Handles? The Panniculum? They live there, fortunately or unfortunately for them.

And they appear to struggle. Whilst appreciating aspects of the prevailing religious culture they evidently feel out on a limb if they don't subscribe to existentialism, a touchie-feely stance on Palestine/Israel, vote for Liberal (or God forbid) Socialist candidates, or otherwise subscribe to an ethos and emphases that the wide majority of people who claim to follow the Christ do not necessarily, homogeneously, hold.

Some are heroically bearing witness to other, hands-on, common-sense, non-ethereal ways of doing things. And I take my hat off to them.

My question is this: Are the Love Handles hoisted up there so tight, trying so hard not to be buckled in, that anything other than the stereotypical views that the vast creamy middle of the cookie ascribe to it, cannot manifest?

Or is there any soil to allow other flowers to bloom? Will it loosen up in time?

And if so, will the leftover, unBelted, unsecured, unruly bits eventually go the way of the sturdy Heartland and the iron-bellied South, becoming more down-to-earth, more spiritual and more open-armed to anyone who'll step up and be a neighbor?


... Could the laxity of the Right and Left Coasts eventually tighten up? Develop a little warmth? Catch fire for the Lord?

I'm not one of those who sees all non-Bible-Belt Christ-followers as overswanked unrealistic Bi-Coastals. But it does strike me that there's a neo-liberal, unbounded and unfounded hegemony of churches so secular they might as well be Wal-Mart, out there around the edges. They may not be sick but they sure look peak-ed.

But, here I live, directly under the buckle of the Bible Belt -- I actually have to travel North to hit it. And I have only visited the Midwest, and a little of the Southwest -- and the only time I ever went to the East Coast north of the Carolinas, it was to visit D.C. as a child. So I know I missed a lot of East Coast nuance.

What are the views/insights of those who live out there on the edges, or so far above the Belt that they cannot feel the support? What do frequent visitors see, 'way out there on the Love Handles, flailing for their balance on the fluted edges of the Great Moon Pie?

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Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :
 
I was raised in South Eastern Oklahoma (the part of the state that the rest of them wish to forget) also known as Little Dixie. And I was raised by Yankees. (My father's job brought him south with Mom and then they had me. )

And I now know that I'm partially redneck! And liberal!

quote:

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Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
Defining features of redneck culture:

• Gun culture (to an almost absurd degree. Rednecks almost invariably hunt, and are criticized for their unsporting methods by other hunters, but those that can afford it also collect guns just because they think that they're cool).

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Fundamentalist Protestant Christianity

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A machismo that identifies their lifestyle with manliness and urban lifestyle, particularly that of urban intellectuals, with effeminacy

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A belief that said effeminate urbanite intellectuals are out to get them (rednecks hate and fear the government, but for entirely different reasons than do liberals and radical leftists).

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A conception of justice based on the idea of 'an eye for an eye' (the vast majority of rednecks will be in strongly favour of capital punishment, hence the disgusting enthusiasm shown for it by both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.)

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Social, political, and religious conservatism.

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It shouldn't be a crime to be a conservative any more than it should be a crime to be a liberal.
 

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Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
It ain't. Yet.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Great post, Janine. One of the best of yours I've seen!

And, of course, it follows neatly on from the OP. As I said to someone else, I might just as easily start a thread 'Is there hope for the Coasts?' or 'Is there hope for secularised Western Europe?' or 'Is there hope for any of us?'



I've been equally appalled and fascinated as I've read this thread. In the same way as I was appalled and fascinated by the 'Southern Gothic' novels I've read and the accounts of the US Civil War I've dipped into.

And as an Anglo-Celt (Anglo-Welsh) I can sympathise with RadicalWhig's take and with the sense of an embattled South maintaining its identity against all odds. And I don't doubt that you're more likely to find neighbourliness and people wading knee-deep in mud to push you out of a ditch below the Mason Dixon Line than you might elsewhere.

But does the buckle need to be so tight?
Can it loosen to allow the love handles to wobble and bob their way back down?

I love that image, Janine.

I wouldn't want to see the Southern States secularised and losing their flavour ... anymore than I'd want to see the Eastern seaboard or the Pacific coast turn into an extension of Alabama.

But what do I know? I'm just a pinko limey.

Socialism isn't a dirty word over here, Janine, despite Thatcher's best efforts to wipe it out and New Labour's repudiation of it.

Look at those hicksville disciples you've mentioned on another post. Strikes me that they practiced something akin to that ... but without the hi-falutin' ideology that often accompanies it.

Gamaliel
 

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Posted by Padre Joshua (# 13100) on :
 

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Originally posted by Matins:
Second Vermont Republic

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Originally posted by Twilight:
I find this thread sort of offensive but that's probably just because I'm I'm from West Virginia and not as tolerant as the rest of you.

I wouldn't worry about any of it, though. Most media is produced by liberal people on the coasts and we hillbillys are greatly influenced by what we see on the TeeVee.

Just last week a young woman lost the Miss USA contest because she gave a conservative Christian answer to a question she was asked. She had a big point lead until she got a "0" from the judge who asked where she stood on gay marriage. Little future beauty queens were watching and learning.

I disagree with her on the issue but I did wonder what any of this had to do with her ability to open car shows in a bikini.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
I find this thread sort of offensive but that's probably just because I'm I'm from West Virginia and not as tolerant as the rest of you.

I wouldn't worry about any of it, though. Most media is produced by liberal people on the coasts and we hillbillys are greatly influenced by what we see on the TeeVee.

Just last week a young woman lost the Miss USA contest because she gave a conservative Christian answer to a question she was asked. She had a big point lead until she got a "0" from the judge who asked where she stood on gay marriage. Little future beauty queens were watching and learning.

I disagree with her on the issue but I did wonder what any of this had to do with her ability to open car shows in a bikini.

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And why it's OK to judge women based on one's subjective standard of physical beauty, but not based on one's subjective standard of answers to socio-political questions.

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Originally posted by Twilight:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
I find this thread sort of offensive but that's probably just because I'm I'm from West Virginia and not as tolerant as the rest of you.

I wouldn't worry about any of it, though. Most media is produced by liberal people on the coasts and we hillbillys are greatly influenced by what we see on the TeeVee.

Just last week a young woman lost the Miss USA contest because she gave a conservative Christian answer to a question she was asked. She had a big point lead until she got a "0" from the judge who asked where she stood on gay marriage. Little future beauty queens were watching and learning.

I disagree with her on the issue but I did wonder what any of this had to do with her ability to open car shows in a bikini.

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And why it's OK to judge women based on one's subjective standard of physical beauty, but not based on one's subjective standard of answers to socio-political questions.

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Because she voluntarily agreed to be judged by a subjective standard of beauty but not on socio-political questions. After all, this is Miss USA we're talking about not Miss America -- no talented, college girls with social "platforms" in this one-- just girls hoping to use their brand new implants to best advantage and maybe be Donald Trump's next wife.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sorry, on the scale of global injustices I'm just having a pretty hard time working up a lather over that one. Poor baby.

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originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sorry, on the scale of global injustices I'm just having a pretty hard time working up a lather over that one. Poor baby.

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quote:

---

Know of any shows set in the south that don't have stereotypical characters? The Oklahoma portrayed on TV is nothing like where I was raised, or any of the "normal" parts of Oklahoma either...

---

Oklahoma is portrayed on TV? Oh, right. Saving Grace.

And I'm trying to think of any other current TV show set in the South... Real Housewives of Atlanta? It's been quite a while since Evening Shade. (Arkansas) Is King of the Hill still running?

Florida doesn't really count when it's Miami, so there goes CSI: Miami.

Check for yourself.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:
Oh, Lawd.

What state was the too-truthful contestant from? California, wasn't she?

Hmmmn. I guess California, too, must be a hotbed of fundamental traditional Christians. How ironic that a Southerner beat her, over that question.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I find this thread sort of offensive

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sorry, on the scale of global injustices I'm just having a pretty hard time working up a lather over that one. Poor baby.

---

This isn't a thread about global injustice but about fundamentalist values in certain areas of America and I thought this was a good example of how unpopular such values are becoming throughout the country.

Yet, shouldn't basic civil rights apply to everyone no matter what social class? Instances such as this indicate that we are losing our freedom of religious choice. In a nationally televised contest, a woman was asked a question that forced her to disclose that she was a fundamentalist Christian. She lost the contest because of it and no one cried foul. What next? Ask American Idol contestants where they stand on abortion? If someone on the panel had asked her if she was Muslim and then eliminated her because she said yes, would it matter?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:

quote:

---

originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sorry, on the scale of global injustices I'm just having a pretty hard time working up a lather over that one. Poor baby.

---

Of course, this is minor. Now, let me propose a hypothetical. Let's suppose a Christian minister was judging the Miss USA pageant and asked Miss California's opinion on gay marriage and she replied,"I believe our nation should stop discriminating against gays and lesbians. Everybody should be allowed to marry the person they love," or something along those lines. Then, let's suppose the Christian minister marked her down. Next day, the Christian minister posted a video on the internet in which he called her a "dumb bitch" and a host of other derogatory names.

In all honesty, and only you will know if you are being honest, would your reaction still be, "Poor baby?"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:
Oh, Lawd.

What state was the too-truthful contestant from? California, wasn't she?

Hmmmn. I guess California, too, must be a hotbed of fundamental traditional Christians. How ironic that a Southerner beat her, over that question.

---

California has the most fertile soil on earth. Everything grows here-- from citrus fruit to wine grapes. And from the John Birch society to the SLA, from conservative whacko fundamentalism to whacko alternative space invader religions. We've got it all.

which is what makes it a fun place to live.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You guys still have beauty pageants?

Gamaliel
 

---

Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
Originally posted by Seraphim:

quote:

---

[On the factors shaping Southern culture:] Though there is a lot of diversity in the South it is for all that a distinct culture closely related to that of the Appalachians, and it is largely a Scots-Anglo culture, heavy on the Scots... The South at heart is agrarian Celtic. That tells you a lot about everything else.

---

quote:

---

One person in this thread wondered if the way Christianity seems to be dying out in so may places...so weakened in others might not in some way be the work of the Holy Spirit... I think Western Christianity has to essentially die away so that it can be reseeded, rerooted from Eastern Christianity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
A funny bit of the chapter -- excerpt online here -- illustrates the different responses in southern and northern young men to being called "asshole".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingbird:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Padre Joshua:
But look at the EP closely. Note that Lincoln only frees those slaves within the territory held by the Confederate army at that time.

---

The President's power to emancipate slaves only applied where military law was in effect, since it arose from his power as commander-in-chief. So of course he had to spell out exactly where such places were. Otherwise he would have overreached his constitutional powers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mockingbird:
The Civil War was a civil war, like it or not, believe it or not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
Getting Over It: Not very likely any time soon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
Being clanish: (for what its worth here is a list of my own ancestral family names of various greats and grands going back to the mid 1600s: Hawkwold, Anderson, Henson (a couple of swedes I know), Manning (yes of Archie and Eli Manning fame...we've a common Mayflower ancestor 400 years or so back), Wyndam, Newsome, Cole, Matheeny, Flannagan, Ellis, Bruce, Pierce, Peavy, Burns, Varnado (a Huguenot I think), Black, Harrell, Moore)

---

Oh sh*t, we might be related!

My folks were at Jamestown before those Y*nkee upstarts arrived on the Mayflower.

shut up Rugasaw.

The only reason any of us are here is because the native peoples had lax immigration laws.
 

---

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:

Native American's: One little known fact about the Confederacy outside the south is that the Native American tribes of the South were given non-voting representation in the CSA Congress. And it was not like the South had been easy on the Native Americans. The Cherokees received a really raw deal. They were civilized by white standards, lived in log cabins, had their own writing system, were largely Christian, and had become excellent gunsmiths....in less than a generation in the early 1800s they were reduced from prosperity to begging door to door for food. They even won redress for their grievances in the US Supreme Court but President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the decision. And for all that, bad as it was, when the CSA was formed most of them threw their lot in with the South rather than the Union.

One of the footnotes of history that gets overlooked is that the almost genocidal campaigns against the indians of the west by the Union in the 1870s had as its impetus pay back for the Indians support of the South. It was Shermanesque Union revenge and pre-emptive vengeance on the Indian nations for the friendliness shown by Southeastern Indians towards the Confederacy. We even had a few Native American CSA generals, Chief Joseph Boudinette is one of the Cherokee (I think). Here is a little historical tidbit worthy of savor on the subject: Cherokee Declaration

---

quote:

---

It was only to diminish the tribe that the US government after the war decided that all the Cherokees fought for the South.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
Also, it is still not unusual for the better part of the teachers in the local schools to also be sunday school teachers in local churches. Bibles are pretty much in evidence in every classroom, either on the class bookshelf or on the teacher's desk or in the teacher's lounge. And that is true from kindergarten to high school. It is actually in college where a southern child will first meet an educator who is not at least a nominal Christian, if not an active one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
And of course if conversation risks straying into gossip, it can be made better by affixing "Bless his/her/their heart(s) to anything you feel compelled to say...and it is thereby known nothing mean spirited is intended.

---

I think it means I can insult you all I want but it's OK because I say bless your heart.


Campbellite, I've gotten over the various atrocities committed. Just go on back to the casino and spend your money.
 

---

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:

There is an interesting thing to me though with respect to Native American relations and the Deep South.

Growing up you were not considered "white" if you had any other race in you going back 3 or 4 generations...the one drop rule. But socially that did not apply to those with Indian heritage if they looked white. To have other admixtures was considered tragic in varying degrees...but to have an Indian ancestor was considered very cool.

I think...I don't know but I think this was for two reasons. We admired the Indians for fighting us tooth and nail. They had made very honorable (tenacious/even terrifying) enemies when they were enemies. Secondly, if anyone was natually connected to the land we live in it was the Indians. It was theirs first, their place names were found everywhere. So given that Southerners highly valued rootedness, connectedness to the land they farmed, to have indian blood was to be super connected past any gainsaying. It mean you belonged where you were the way others could not hope to belong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:
The only reason any of us are here is because the native peoples had lax immigration laws.

---

OTOH, some nations had pretty negative opinions about the white invasion. Chiricahua Apache come to mind.
 

---

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
Brings to mind the way, in some areas, every other fishbelly white person claims to be a descendant of a "Cherokee princess".

Sheesh. 'Em Cher-kee princessus musta dropped 'em some litters.
 

---

Posted by Seraphim (# 14676) on :
 

quote:

---

I think it means I can insult you all I want but it's OK because I say bless your heart.

---

quote:

---

Brings to mind the way, in some areas, every other fishbelly white person claims to be a descendant of a "Cherokee princess".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patrick the less saintly:
Rednecks are invariably white, poorly educated, working class (although by no means necessarily poor)... not responsible for what he's doing... does like his Falstaff beer... Drives a... pickup truck... got a gun rack...

---

quote:

---

... rednecks invariably being the sort for whom the broadest possible interpretation of the 2nd must always take precedence over such mundane factors as common sense...

---

quote:

---

... in stereotype always and in fact not infrequently, is known to lash out irrationally whenever (his) world view is challenged...

---

Oh, Lord. Like everyone, everywhere else floats lightly and sweetly as a cotton-candy butterfly into the accepting arms of Change, at all times.

<... skipping over the bit congratulating the ignorant rednecks for being so very modern as to arrest white murderers of a black victim, yet damning them because they dare to put murderers to death...>

quote:

---

... Redneck culture is deeply wrapped up in the Stars and Bars flag... often seen... on pickup trucks in less salubrious parts of the American South...

---

quote:

---

The irony of this is lost on them, as, in fact, is all irony...

---

quote:

---

Younger rednecks... have their own prejudices, which are as acceptable in their culture as they are unacceptable in most of the developed Western World... homophobia... xenophobia... anti-immigrant terms...

---

Hmph. Just because they haven't been exposed to you... or is it because they've been exposed to you? How much time have you spent in the American South, and what did you do to the poor rednecks? Were you tossing peanuts at them through the bars again?

quote:

---

... Gun culture... Rednecks almost invariably hunt...

---

quote:

---

... and are criticized for their unsporting methods by other hunters...

---

quote:

---

... Fundamentalist Protestant Christianity...

---

• Fundamentals = basics, common ground
• Protestant = no thank you, religious figures, I'll stand before God on my own two feet with Jesus alone vouching for me
• Christianity = following the Way, the Truth, the Light. You got a problem with that, take it up with Jesus.

quote:

---

... A machismo that identifies their lifestyle with manliness and urban lifestyle, particularly that of urban intellectuals, with effeminacy...

---

quote:

---

... A belief that said effeminate urbanite intellectuals are out to get them (rednecks hate and fear the government, but for entirely different reasons than do liberals and radical leftists)...

---

quote:

---

... A conception of justice based on the idea of 'an eye for an eye' (the vast majority of rednecks will be in strongly favour of capital punishment, hence the disgusting enthusiasm shown for it by both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush)...

---

quote:

---

... Social, political, and religious conservatism...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:
So, Patrick-the-less, did you get your degree in Redneckology from a school over there in the UK? Or are you from the Bible Belt originally?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:

quote:

---

I think it means I can insult you all I want but it's OK because I say bless your heart.

---

Pretty much...just make sure your tone of voice is sincere.

quote:

---

Brings to mind the way, in some areas, every other fishbelly white person claims to be a descendant of a "Cherokee princess".

---

It ain't just a white thing...plenty of black families lay claim to distant cherokee princess ancestors

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:


A few years ago a 9000 year old skeleton in a cave in Cheddar England was genetially mapped, and swabs were taken from the local populace to see if he had any descendants left in the area. It turned out he actually did, one school teacher took the dna test and came back a mitocondrial match for the Cheddar man, establishing thereby the oldest known continuous biological lineage in the world. That man and his family belonged in Cheddar in a way no one else there could.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:
So... did you get your degree in Redneckology from a school over there in the UK? Or are you from the Bible Belt originally?

---

He's from Texas but now studying in the UK.

I tend to think of Patrick as the anti-Maxc. If the pair of them were disarmed and locked in a room together you'd see some fascinating subatomic physics.

---

If I wanted to be meanspirited, I'd say -- bless their hearts -- that's they'd get along like anti-matter and it-don't matter.

I do have to say -- lest PTLSaintly thinks I was casting asparagus on the manliness of city folk... one can be an Intellectual and a Dazzling Urbanite and still be quite the man.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
This thread seems to have become "Revenge of the Rednecks" or "Southerners Slamming Cynics into Silence". The Southern apologist responses have been incredibly heavy-handed and hellish.
 

---

Posted by Zwingli (# 4438) on :
 
LSK you must be reading an entirely different thread. What I saw was some grossly insulting stereotypes of Southerners and "rednecks", then various responses pointing out the complexities of the region and explaining why Southerners might view the world the way they do. I haven't seen any similar insults directed at Northerners or Brits though; the response of the Bible-Belters has been quite restrained, given some of the outright bigotry hurled in their direction in the OP and other early posts.
 

---

Posted by Matins (# 11644) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
This thread seems to have become "Revenge of the Rednecks" or "Southerners Slamming Cynics into Silence". The Southern apologist responses have been incredibly heavy-handed and hellish.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zwingli:
I haven't seen any similar insults directed at Northerners or Brits though; the response of the Bible-Belters has been quite restrained, <snip>

---

quote:

---

You guys still have beauty pageants?

---

 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
This thread seems to have become "Revenge of the Rednecks" or "Southerners Slamming Cynics into Silence". The Southern apologist responses have been incredibly heavy-handed and hellish.

---

All the stuff about some people belonging to a place, with the implicit corollary that everyone else does not belong there and should get the fuck out, makes me glad I've never been east of Texas or south of Virginia. But perhaps that's the intent.

ETA: I'll cry me a river for the stereotyping of Southerners on these boards just as soon as Californians stop getting written off as loonies.

[ 05. May 2009, 15:19: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 

---

Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
RuthW: Again, if I may, Malcolm Gladwell: "The 'culture of honour' hypothesis says that it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents grew up and even where your great-great-great-grandparents grew up. That is a strange and powerful fact."

Reminds me of something I once heard about Prince Edward Island: If you were born on the Island, but one minute after birth, you were moved away and grew up somewhere else, you will always be "from the Island" and accepted as local. If you were born somewhere else, but one minute after birth, you were moved to the Island and spent your whole life there, you'd still be "from away" and suspect.

Hey, what can I say? It's not my cultural legacy, and I'm guessing not yours either, RuthW.

Here is what intrigues me. Would it be true to suggest that The Stereotypical Southern US Man might have more in common with The Stereotypical Afghan Tribesman, than with The Stereotypical Northern US Man? Imagine the meeting: "Wow! You think guns are great, foreigners should fuck off, and women should mind their place? Me too! Come here, bro!"
 

---

Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
Would it be true to suggest that The Stereotypical Southern US Man might have more in common with The Stereotypical Afghan Tribesman, than with The Stereotypical Northern US Man? Imagine the meeting: "Wow! You think guns are great, foreigners should fuck off, and women should mind their place? Me too! Come here, bro!"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
Here is what intrigues me. Would it be true to suggest that The Stereotypical Southern US Man might have more in common with The Stereotypical Afghan Tribesman, than with The Stereotypical Northern US Man? Imagine the meeting: "Wow! You think guns are great, foreigners should fuck off, and women should mind their place? Me too! Come here, bro!"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

I tend to think of Patrick as the anti-Maxc. If the pair of them were disarmed and locked in a room together you'd see some fascinating subatomic physics.

---

If you mean that you think of Patrick as the Anti-Max. then it may surprise you that Patrick and I are actually friends in real life.


Max.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Max, dear, have you noticed there's a shipmate now called "Macx"? He's rather to the right of Patrick and I suspect of you.
 

---

Posted by Seraphim (# 14676) on :
 
There is a quote from I Claudius that is apropos many a Southern household and its natural patriarchy:

"Augustus ruled Rome, but Livia ruled Augustus."

In many Southern homes if you were a child prone to getting in trouble, the one you feared to cross most was not Daddy, it was Mama.

That said, Mama wrath was for most day to day misbehavior (it could be hard to stay out of trouble). Daddy wrath was special and hard to provoke, but it was the worst mentally because it was reserved for only the most shameful and wayward of offenses. You knew you had done wrong when Daddy was mad. When mama was mad however, sometimes Daddy understood...a guy thing, and served as a refuge from the storm to keep it from growing out of proportion.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
No. You had some imaginary stereotype in mind. Three of them in fact, which is quite a pile of 'stereotypical'. Quite a pile period, actually.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
There are still many dry counties in the south where it is illegal to sell anything stronger than beer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The thing is, it seems to be some of the Southerners here who are painting Southerners in some of the most stereotyped, caricatured colours.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
No. You had some imaginary stereotype in mind. Three of them in fact, which is quite a pile of 'stereotypical'. Quite a pile period, actually.

---

About as clear as one of Shelley Von Strunckel's horoscopes in The Times. Care to expand upon that?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
There is a quote from I Claudius that is apropos many a Southern household and its natural patriarchy:

"Augustus ruled Rome, but Livia ruled Augustus."

In many Southern homes if you were a child prone to getting in trouble, the one you feared to cross most was not Daddy, it was Mama.

That said, Mama wrath was for most day to day misbehavior (it could be hard to stay out of trouble). Daddy wrath was special and hard to provoke, but it was the worst mentally because it was reserved for only the most shameful and wayward of offenses. You knew you had done wrong when Daddy was mad. When mama was mad however, sometimes Daddy understood...a guy thing, and served as a refuge from the storm to keep it from growing out of proportion.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Max, dear, have you noticed there's a shipmate now called "Macx"? He's rather to the right of Patrick and I suspect of you.

---

Oh wow - Dogs and Big Guns?
Yeah - I don't like either of them so I think he is probably to the right of me. Last night I dreamt that we all got together, redistributed wealth around the world, created a "World Government" and destroyed all borders making countries, countries.

Ahh....


Max. (Lives in the North-Centre of the World)
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Bigotry in the OP, Zwingli? What calumny ...

It was a deliberately provocative opener. Nothing more. I'm genuinely intrigued and trying to understand. It was inevitable that I'd be seen as some Yankee-lovin' pinko Brit but that was never my intention. A plague on both their houses if you ask me ...

Seriously, I'm both impressed by some of the Southern restraint shown on this thread. It genuinely has been from some folks. But equally, being 'Gamaliel' and generally aiming for the 'middle way', I've been put off by some of the Yankee and UK prejudices shown here. And appalled by some of the attitudes expressed by our gun-totin', rootin'-tootin' Southern cousins.

But I'm glad Janine showed up. I like Janine. If anyone's going to get me to wrap myself in a Confederate flag, eat grits and crawfish and run around New Orleans, Tallahasee, Little Rock Arkansas and whereever else hollerin' 'Yee-haw! Is we goinna whup them Yankees! Son-of-a-gun-we'll-have-big-fun-on-the-bayou ...' then it'd be Janine.



For the record: Southern music is cool. Whether Cajun, Zydeco or Johnny Cash. So is Southern literature (sorry, 'lidewadjure').

And I'm glad that Southern folks seem so 'down home' and friendly. Bless their hearts.

And Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson seem a darn sight more attractive individuals - for all their faults (yes, they had some, like everyone else), than those ranged against them ...

Heck. Give them their due.

And it probably is true that dudes up there on the East Coast and over in Californi-ay and up there in Washington State and Oregan and Seattle and all could do with tightening their little-biddy Bible Belt buckle a bit.

Just as those Southern folks maybe ought to untighten theirs.

But who's to say?

And who's to say (outside of the US) whether a Southern victory in the Civil War would've been better than a Northern one. A colleague of mine who is a bit of a US Civil War geek (yes, we have some over here in the UK) admires the Southern war effort but is mighty glad they lost. He feels the US would've descended into an appalling nightmarish reactionary dark age. But then, those Puritan New Englanders weren't always known for sweetness and light. As indeed neither we were over here in Blighty when we were at the height of our powers.

Interesting thread, y'all.

Gamaliel
 

---

Posted by Redolent Spilogale Putorius (# 8783) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
No. You had some imaginary stereotype in mind. Three of them in fact, which is quite a pile of 'stereotypical'. Quite a pile period, actually.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And who's to say (outside of the US) whether a Southern victory in the Civil War would've been better than a Northern one. A colleague of mine who is a bit of a US Civil War geek (yes, we have some over here in the UK) admires the Southern war effort but is mighty glad they lost. He feels the US would've descended into an appalling nightmarish reactionary dark age. But then, those Puritan New Englanders weren't always known for sweetness and light. As indeed neither we were over here in Blighty when we were at the height of our powers.

Interesting thread, y'all.

Gamaliel

---

quote:

---

originally posted by Leaf:
Here is what intrigues me. Would it be true to suggest that The Stereotypical Southern US Man might have more in common with The Stereotypical Afghan Tribesman, than with The Stereotypical Northern US Man? Imagine the meeting: "Wow! You think guns are great, foreigners should fuck off, and women should mind their place? Me too! Come here, bro!"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Right-on, Croesos.

But as we've been reminded, the war wasn't just about slavery. That was tacked on.

Gamaliel

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
You haven't met Northern Man have you?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
You haven't met Northern Man have you?

---

It wasn't 'the Northern Man'.

It was 'the Stereotypical Northern Man' which apparently is a whole different kettle of fish.

I'm thinking 'the Stereotypical Northern Man' abhors guns and violence, consistently votes Democratic, wears sweaters with leather patches on the elbows and always lets the woman climb on top.

...Oh!...and is a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Do you think there is hope for them?

---

If the economy improves, yes indeedy. My main man, Obama, says that they cling to stuff because of their insecurities, so I reckon if we make 'em more financially secure they won't be so clingy, like.
 

---

Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on :
 
Then perhaps that's the answer to the OP too.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You wear sweaters with leather patches on the elbows?



Gamaliel
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
I have owned such garments in the past, but I think that tweed jackets, with or without leather elbow patches, qualify as essentially the same cultural statement.
 

---

Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
All the stuff about some people belonging to a place, with the implicit corollary that everyone else does not belong there and should get the fuck out, makes me glad I've never been east of Texas or south of Virginia. But perhaps that's the intent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Do you think there is hope for them?

---

If the economy improves, yes indeedy. My main man, Obama, says that they cling to stuff because of their insecurities, so I reckon if we make 'em more financially secure they won't be so clingy, like.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Do you think there is hope for them?

---

If the economy improves, yes indeedy. My main man, Obama, says that they cling to stuff because of their insecurities, so I reckon if we make 'em more financially secure they won't be so clingy, like.

---

You assume Barack Obama knows jack about those people, why?

I know some of them voted for him but they were torn. They had.

Barack "God, Guns, and Gays" Obama

or

John "Those Jobs Aren't Coming Back" McCain

On one hand, they had the guy who outright insulted them. On the other, they had a guy telling them that the same economic policy that saw 3 million jobs lost would actually help them if we did it some more. Apparently, Mccain thought they would buy that. Hence, he thought they were stupid. It wasn't a good election for Poor Northern Man.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
A number of cities and towns have long had a counter-culture that is indigenous and liberal-minded.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
For what it's worth, for a good many years, especially in the 80s and 90s we had droves of people moving to Nashville from Southern California, specifically from the Los Angeles area.

Nearly all of them seemed to love it here, thought the 'quality of life' was fabulous, the scenery beautiful...and the natives extremely friendly.

Of course those were the ones who were fed up with life in Southern Cal to begin with so it was I suppose a self-selecting group of malcontents who couldn't hack it on the coast.

Still...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by New Yorker:

Also, years ago I would visit friends in Ohio driving up from the South. North of Cincinnati there was a farm off the interstate that flew the largest Confederate Battle Flag I have ever seen.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:

quote:

---

Originally posted by New Yorker:

Also, years ago I would visit friends in Ohio driving up from the South. North of Cincinnati there was a farm off the interstate that flew the largest Confederate Battle Flag I have ever seen.

---

I can tell you that for a nominally Northern city Cincinnati has quite a high proportion of ignorant, hostile people, redneck and otherwise. I grew up in the South and never saw the kind of poisonous hatred of "others" (blacks, Mexicans, Muslims) down home that I do up here.

Of course I did grow up in one of those like-minded enclaves that Lietvuos mentions.

---

Regarding Civil Rights in the north...

I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen---even in Mississippi and Alabama---mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago,” a shaken King said later. “I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.”
 

---

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
Hey, watch it with the Chicago bashing there, buddy!
 

---

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... I'm... impressed by some of the Southern restraint shown on this thread... I've been put off by some of the Yankee and UK prejudices... appalled by some of the attitudes expressed by our gun-totin', rootin'-tootin' Southern cousins...

... If anyone's going to get me to wrap myself in a Confederate flag, eat grits and crawfish and run around... hollerin' 'Yee-haw!'... it'd be Janine...

---

Actually, though I feel I have a really good grasp of the many positives in the "redneck" parts of the country, it's only because the Oilfields, Shipyards and Tourism bring so many outsiders down here -- and because Daddy was a Navy man and found him a girl from Appalachia when he was up at Norfolk -- and because, just in general, there's much similarity linking any sort of country and small town folk -- and, well, a compelling, competent man is an interesting man, and, erm, "smells" the same no matter the field in which you consider him -- ("Yeah, that's a real gun in that gun rack! No, I don't have a permit for it! You got a permit to ask stupid questions?")



Actually, I look at the redneck element as a useful cousin, me living the Cajun half of my heritage. And having somewhat of a sense of place from that -- some of the ancestors having been booted out of Nova Scotia, and the main line through Grandpere Cletus coming straight here from a French fishing village almost 200 years back.

When Cousin Redneck acts up and starts waving a Confederate flag, I would never wrap myself or anyone else up in it -- but, I am tolerant of him. Probably because that flag reminds me that the War Between the States was at least the second time my region was invaded by Northern Aggressors.

Ma Louisianne was purchased by that there Jefferson, and all those alien Americans poured down the River; it became worse after the Civil War, but it had already been a long-established sorrow.

Ah, well, enough. Turning back to the OP a bit -- That's What I Like About Sunday --

Yes, there's hope.
 

---

Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I think it's not actually full-scale

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not one of those who sees all Mid-West/Southern US Christians as hootin' an' a hollerin' Appallachian snake handlers. But it does strike me that there's a conservative, fundamentalist, South Baptist/Pentecostal 'Left Behind' type hegemony down there that is far from healthy in many respects.

But I'm on this side of the Pond. And have only visited New York.

What are the views/insights of those who live there or who know it well?

Gamaliel

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
About the Civil War:

1. If it was about states' rights, then chief among the rights in question was slavery.

2. The South started it, at Fort Sumter.

3. The Union didn't do all the invading in the Civil War. The South invaded the North, entering Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was turned back at Gettysburg. (The Confederates captured some 40 black folks in Pennsylvania, mostly freemen, and sent them south into slavery.) Confederate forces also entered Missouri, Kentucky, Indian Territory, New Mexico Territory and Arizona Territory.

---

Y*nkees. Cain't live with 'em.
Cain't shoot 'em.


Anymore.
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
As far as RuthW's point #3 goes, it should be remembered that the Confederacy's extra-territorial ambitions were spelled out symbolically in the now notorious Confederate battle flag. Despite the fact that only eleven states attempted secession, the flag has thirteen stars, representing the Confederacy's view that it had a "natural" claim on the non-secessionist states of Missouri and Kentucky.
 

---

Posted by Campbellite (# 1202) on :
 
OK, a more serious response.

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
1. If it was about states' rights, then chief among the rights in question was slavery.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
2. The South started it, at Fort Sumter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
3. The Union didn't do all the invading in the Civil War. The South invaded the North, entering Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was turned back at Gettysburg. (The Confederates captured some 40 black folks in Pennsylvania, mostly freemen, and sent them south into slavery.) Confederate forces also entered Missouri, Kentucky, Indian Territory, New Mexico Territory and Arizona Territory.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Confederacy's view that it had a "natural" claim on the non-secessionist states of Missouri and Kentucky.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:
Maryland was a Southern state which did not secede only because the US Army posted a garrison surrounding the capital and would not let the duly elected legislature vote on the issue.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:
Kentucky, likewise was a Southern state, but their own indecisiveness prevented them from taking a vote until the war was already raging on their soil.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
Xenophobic. Personally I don't find this to be true in its extremes, but there is a definite sense, especially in rural areas that if you aren't from there, then you aren't from there. In order to really be from a place a] your ancestors had to have settled it, b) your family has been in the area approaching a century....if your great grandparents are in the local church graveyard, you are from there, and have a certain natural right. Even if you've moved off for your whole life...and came back, if your family is rooted there, then you belong entirely. If your family is more recent, then you may be fully accepted but your roots in the community are more incidental, not so tight knit....its a nuance.

But it is not a hateful mindset. It is very welcoming of the stranger. It only grows intolerant when the stranger tries to challenge or change local ways.

---

quote:

---

Though there is a lot of diversity in the South it is for all that a distinct culture closely related to that of the Appalachians, and it is largely a Scots-Anglo culture, heavy on the Scots. The only people who wear more plaid live in Seattle, and the only people with more Mc/Macs in their name hail from Scotland or Ireland. The South at heart is agrarian Celtic. That tells you a lot about everything else.

---

quote:

---

The point is, we were invaded, made to feel it, and not let to forget it...and we haven't. We don't like yankee interlopers for much of the same reason the rest of the world resents the "ugly american" Brash, know it all, disrespectful, meddlesome, garishly wealthy and willing to spend gobs of money to remake you in his image for your own good. No thank you. When the world says Yankee Go Home, they mean it pretty much the way it is meant in the south...except we resent being lumped in with the yankees.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I've also never heard anyone use the word "redneck" as an insult who knew what they were talking about.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I went to high school in Lubbock, TX and in order to graduate a year early I attended an accelerated summer programme in a Church of Christ high school that provided all my senior year academic requirements (and some of their's too, like two summer semesters of Bible).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I went to high school in Lubbock, TX and in order to graduate a year early I attended an accelerated summer programme in a Church of Christ high school that provided all my senior year academic requirements (and some of their's too, like two summer semesters of Bible).

---

That's interesting. We have kids at a COC university in Nashville.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The emphasis should be understood as my desperation to put the high school experience behind me and get out of Lubbock!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Haven't heard of him in years! Was he the one who wrote the lyric referring to "Lubbock in my rear view mirror"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The more interesting musical talent from "the Hub of the Plains" being Buddy Holly, of course.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by fionn:
Croesus - Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were slave states. Lincoln prevented Md from seceding by occupying Annapolis and Baltimore and arresting many members of the legislature as well as the mayor and most of the city council of Baltimore.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Dang Longstreet, if Stonewall Jackson had been with Lee at Gettysburg, we would have won the war.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:
No one said that slavery was not an issue. But it was by no means the only issue. The entire tax system was keenly debated for the entire time from the adoption of the Constitution until the War. Who had the power to tax, the states? the Federal government? Both? What is the legitimate role to the central government? How much power does the Constitution actually permit the central government?

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
2. The South started it, at Fort Sumter.

---

You could just as easily say that John Brown started it at Harper's Ferry, or the settlers in "Bloody" Kansas started it, or the Founding fathers started it by not abolishing slavery back in 1789.

---

quote:

---

Lee invaded Pennsylvania (what? 50 miles if that?) after Grant and co. had captured all of the Mississippi River save Vicksburg (which fell the same day as the Battle of Gettysburg) I don't recall Lee burning a 20 mile wide swath of complete destruction all the way to the sea.

---

quote:

---

Against the backdrop of a War which claimed over 600,000 lives, the fate of 40 captured freemen is small potatoes, relatively speaking.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Ah, here we go again...Southerners are bad because they had slaves. The Northerners were good because they fought to end slavery.

---

Nope. But nice try.
 

---

Posted by Matins (# 11644) on :
 
You are the one trying to demonize the South. Let's just put the whole thing in context. The only reason Southerners need to defend their honor is because people from other parts of the country and world are attacking it. I'm not saying the South is perfect. My argument is that other parts of the country are living in glass houses.
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
Ah, Manichean simplicity. Unless something can be definitively shown to be the worst thing in the history of humanity, it must be "good".

Gotta respect Matin's honesty, though. Not many would so openly advocate for chattel slavery in this day and age.
 

---

Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've been put off by some of the Yankee and UK prejudices shown here.[...]
Interesting thread, y'all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
You are the one trying to demonize the South. Let's just put the whole thing in context. The only reason Southerners need to defend their honor is because people from other parts of the country and world are attacking it. I'm not saying the South is perfect. My argument is that other parts of the country are living in glass houses.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
You are the one trying to demonize the South. Let's just put the whole thing in context. The only reason Southerners need to defend their honor is because people from other parts of the country and world are attacking it. I'm not saying the South is perfect. My argument is that other parts of the country are living in glass houses.

---

Again, a nice try.

This is a thread about the Bible Belt. So any criticisms to be leveled are going to be about that part of the country. If you want to dump on the place where I live, go right ahead (and I'll help you out by ranting about the fucked-up state budgeting process and the insanity of our ballot propositions, not to mention the general stupidity of cramming a whole lot of people into a place with not enough water to support them) -- but start a new thread to save confusion.
 

---

Posted by NemTudom (# 2762) on :
 
The South sounds like a cool place. Does it have a tourist office?
 

---

Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
Originally posted by Nem Tudom:

quote:

---

The South sounds like a cool place. Does it have a tourist office?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
The most passionate US conservatives appear to be southern - e.g. New Yorker, Mere Nick, Maxc (I think), Seraphim, etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
You are the one trying to demonize the South. Let's just put the whole thing in context. The only reason Southerners need to defend their honor is because people from other parts of the country and world are attacking it. I'm not saying the South is perfect. My argument is that other parts of the country are living in glass houses.

---

[Slightly] Shorter Matins: I'm not saying the South is perfect, I'm just saying that only perfect people can make any criticism or observation about it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by New Yorker:
Thanks, H.L!

---

I suspect anyone would class you as one of the Ship's most passionate conservatives. Whether that's a good thing or not is more subjective.
 

---

Posted by Padre Joshua (# 13100) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Ah, here we go again...Southerners are bad because they had slaves. The Northerners were good because they fought to end slavery.

---

Nope. But nice try.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Ah, here we go again...Southerners are bad because they had slaves. The Northerners were good because they fought to end slavery.

---

Nope. But nice try.

---

Care to expand on that, or is this the best comeback you can think of? As I read your posts, I came to the same conclusion that Matins did, above.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Ah, here we go again...Southerners are bad because they had slaves. The Northerners were good because they fought to end slavery.

---

Nope. But nice try.

---

Care to expand on that,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
It is . . . notable that for Matins and Padre Joshua the category of "Southerners" seems to implicitly include slaveowners but not slaves. The idea that Southerners could be slaves seems to have either escaped their notice entirely or been outright rejected.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
What makes it tiresome is that there's no resolution to it -- it's like arguing with the late Gordon Chang.

---

Wouldn't arguing with the late anyone be a trifle one-sided? On the other hand, the absence of objections would make resolution much easier than you seem to think.
 

---

Posted by Zwingli (# 4438) on :
 
Maybe I could post replies on Gordo's behalf.
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I was merely proposing a settlement ...

---

Ah, I get it: it's tiresome that people have views that don't agree with yours.

quote:

---

how many here would really think it a good thing if the United States of America had fallen apart?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Padre Joshua:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Ah, here we go again...Southerners are bad because they had slaves. The Northerners were good because they fought to end slavery.

---

Nope. But nice try.

---

Care to expand on that, or is this the best comeback you can think of? As I read your posts, I came to the same conclusion that Matins did, above.

---

It is . . . notable that for Matins and Padre Joshua the category of "Southerners" seems to implicitly include slaveowners but not slaves. The idea that Southerners could be slaves seems to have either escaped their notice entirely or been outright rejected.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zwingli:
Maybe I could post replies on Gordo's behalf.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Every part of the country has good things about it and bad things about it.

---

quote:

---

Northerners used the slave trade to accumulate vast amounts of wealth which they used to build a manufacturing base. It is interesting to note how poorly they treated the workers in their factories. When their conscience wouldn't allow them to tolerate slavery in the South, what did they do? Did they invest vast sums of money buying the Southern slaves? Doing so would have freed the slaves without destroying the Southern economy. When the decided to invade the South, did they even take up arms and fight themselves? Nope. They paid $300 to send those same mistreated workers and Irish immigrants to fight the war and assuage their feelings of guilt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Is the Bible Belt buckled so tightly that anything other than the stereotypical views that the rest of us ascribe to it cannot breathe? Or does the fertile soil allow (potentially) other flowers to bloom?

Will it loosen up in time?

And if so, will it eventually go the way of the Eastern seaboard and the Pacific coast and become more liberal, more secularised or more pluralist?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matins:
Every part of the country has good things about it and bad things about it.

---

No one here disputes that. But as I said before, this is a thread about the Bible Belt, so any criticisms to be leveled are going to be about that area of the country. Feel free to start a thread on the evil emanating from La La Land any time you like.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by fionn:
Rugasaw - I am from LeFlore County. What county are you from?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by fionn:

The Cherokee were divided over more than which side to support. Stan Watie of the Southern faction was also a leader of the faction that left Georgia before Jackson forced the bulk of the tribe out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
It's not like Lee stopped out of the goodness of his heart. Lee didn't make it more than 50 miles because he lost a major battle. No one knows what he would have done if he had been more successful.

---

quote:

---

It's a point worth making on a thread where Southerners are defending their honor as well as trying to say the Civil War wasn't about slavery.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I do think that the Civil War is a pointless tangent that has only a very limited place in helping us understand the situation of 21st Century America, both in its regions and in its totality as a nation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by New Yorker:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
The most passionate US conservatives appear to be southern - e.g. New Yorker, Mere Nick, Maxc (I think), Seraphim, etc.

---

Thanks, H.L!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I do think that the Civil War is a pointless tangent that has only a very limited place in helping us understand the situation of 21st Century America, both in its regions and in its totality as a nation.

---

To say this is to completely misunderstand the South. The War (here it is almost always simply, "The War", if you listen carefully you can even hear the Capitalization) was the crucible which forged the South, and indeed the US as a whole. To dismiss it as irrelevant is to dismiss the South as irrelevant. It's like trying to understand the British Empire apart from Queen Victoria or India without the Raj. The War is interwoven throughout the entire fabric of the region. An Atlas of Virginia reads like a listing of Civil War battles.

Amherst County is the only one out of more than 100 counties in Virginia that did not see a single battle or skirmish.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

I find this recurrent question of who was at fault in the Civil War to be very tiresome.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I do think that the Civil War is a pointless tangent that has only a very limited place in helping us understand the situation of 21st Century America, both in its regions and in its totality as a nation.

---

To say this is to completely misunderstand the South. The War (here it is almost always simply, "The War", if you listen carefully you can even hear the Capitalization) was the crucible which forged the South, and indeed the US as a whole. To dismiss it as irrelevant is to dismiss the South as irrelevant. It's like trying to understand the British Empire apart from Queen Victoria or India without the Raj. The War is interwoven throughout the entire fabric of the region. An Atlas of Virginia reads like a listing of Civil War battles.

Amherst County is the only one out of more than 100 counties in Virginia that did not see a single battle or skirmish.

---

Yes, it changed the political nature of the American Republic. But don't you think it's time to move on now?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NemTudom:
The South sounds like a cool place. Does it have a tourist office?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
The idea that Southerners could be slaves seems to have either escaped their notice entirely or been outright rejected.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the gnome:
I've heard, though I don't know that it's true, that there were counties in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee that sent more recruits to the Union than to the Confederacy--
All of which is mostly to say that the historical details are considerably more complex than we tend to imagine.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Campbellite:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
... the Civil War is a pointless tangent... only a very limited place in helping us understand... 21st Century America... in its regions and... as a nation.

---

To say this is to completely misunderstand the South. The War... was the crucible which forged the South... the US as a whole. To dismiss it as irrelevant is... like trying to understand the British Empire apart from Queen Victoria or India without the Raj... Atlas of Virginia reads like a listing of Civil War battles.

---

Yes, it changed the political nature of the American Republic. But don't you think it's time to move on now?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by GoodCatholicLad:
Is this becoming one of those threads where it's a family squabble amongst the Americans and the rest of the Ship are just sitting back and watching?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Well, NYC is in Southern New York.

---

IIRC New Yorker moved to New York from one of the southern states.

No insult was intended by my observation btw. It just struck me that a lot of the people defending the ***** belt were also ones I tend to disagree with most strongly on political and economic issues. In the UK there's a north-south politicial split but it doesn't seem to be nearly as pronounced.

[Whoa! The message board software has asterixed out "b-i-b-l-e". Has this always happened? ITTWACW]
 

---

Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
A-ha!

[ 08. May 2009, 08:42: Message edited by: Hiro's Leap ]
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Janine, I can't help but think that your pleadings about the effects of graves, monuments and battlefields has more to do with mindsets than with the actual physical proximity of those things. I presently live 5 to 10 miles down the road from the site of one of the biggest battles of the Revolution, the Battle of Brandywine. I drive by there frequently and have visited the site. As with my childhood years in northern Virginia, I value living in one of the original 13 colonies where our nation began. As a kid I schlepped round to all the Civil War battlefields with my parents and all the stately historic homes in VA. In Texas, where I spent so many subsequent years of my life, there is a Confederate war memorial on the grounds of most court houses. But while these things hold historic interest, they are all backward looking. Faced with the challenges of advancing the prosperity, social equality, and security of the American people, I just don't see how one can get so exercised over lost causes and monuments to the past. Honour them but don't get so hung up on them. There are more important things and frankly the exaltation of regionalism and preoccupation with ancestor worship have been divisive forces in this federal union of 50 states; the celebration of the past has not helped advance social justice and harmony in the body politic.
 

---

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
between the Industrial North and the Agrarian South were just different skirmishes in one long war for Anglo-Saxon civilisation (the outcome of which was a victory for mass consumer-capitalism, liberal pluralism and individualism, over all more communal ideas).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap: IIRC New Yorker moved to New York from one of the southern states.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
There are more important things and frankly the exaltation of regionalism and preoccupation with ancestor worship have been divisive forces in this federal union of 50 states; the celebration of the past has not helped advance social justice and harmony in the body politic.

---

quote:

---

The only way to have it not matter at all is to not know or care about it at all. So far, cultural ignorance/illiteracy have not wiped our long, long memories -- and no TV or internet or other homogenizing factor has whitebreaded it away. (italics mine)

---

quote:

---

Honour them but don't get so hung up on them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
There are more important things and frankly the exaltation of regionalism and preoccupation with ancestor worship have been divisive forces in this federal union of 50 states; the celebration of the past has not helped advance social justice and harmony in the body politic.

---

"Exaltation" and "preoccupation" seem a bit of an overstatement, and castigation isn't very unifying, either. Celebration of the past is usually a good thing. It helps to inform us of who we are. Living in the past, though, is different.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
When every public message that you get is that your whole heritage is evil and should be confined to a dark corner of a small museum in a thinly populated state, and you know that message is a lie, but no one can hear you...it tends motivate you to not get over it, because to get over it from the other perspective is to spit on your ancestors, to deny your roots, to surrender the narrative of your own history to those who hate you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Seraphim, you're still talking as if all Southerners were white. How many of the black people in the South want to see the Confederate flag displayed? How many of them were unhappy about MLK Day becoming a national holiday?

And out of interest, what Confederate day of remembrance used to be held on the third Monday of January?

---

quote:

---

What I find intriguing is the insistence that the "whole heritage" of the South is confined to four years during the mid-nineteenth century. It's as if they insist that the South produced no historical persons of note outside that generation, no significant battles ever took place there other than in the Civil War, that its native sons never served in their nation's armed forces except during the Late Unpleasantness, that the South produced no great literary minds or musical geniuses or other artists which could constitute a "heritage" beyond those four years of warfare. In short, they assert that aside from four years of treason in defense of slavery nothing noteworthy ever happened in the southern United States.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:

(responding to question re: how many Southern blacks honor the memory of the Confederacy):

They aren't but most of the ones who still honor the memory of the Confederacy are white. If they didn't do it who would?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
[QUOTE]Nor are blacks unhappy with celebrations of MLK day, nor am I suggesting they should be. What I am suggesting is that his name/celebration is being used to erase /silence confederate memorials. That is not an accident. Any day could have been chosen for MLK day, but the day that was chosen was a date otherwise significant to many white southerners...but I guess our history, our narrative must be excised from the public square and public consciousness. There are no riots over it, but the intended slight is definitely noticed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
[QUOTE] You don't quite understand. No one that I know of is trying to erase or demonize our artistic or literary heritage. Those four years of our national heritage and what they meant and what they mean...that is trying to be demonized and erased. That is why it figures so prominently in discussions such as these.

We would be happy to leave it alone, not have to make so much of it...but outsiders won't leave us alone about it and keep wanting to take it from us, to demean and diminish it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seraphim:
[QUOTE]
There was a lot more to Chirst's ministry than a few hours He spent on Golgatha....but those few hours loom very large in salvic history. Similarly our nation went to its golgatha in a sense during those 4 years, thus no matter how small they seem to outsiders, they are not small to us....they shape us and how think still.

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
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The Civil War and Christianity are the Warp and Woof of traditional southern culture. It is all interwoven.

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
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Indeed the literature and music you say we should celebrate would not exist without those 4 years.

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
When every public message that you get is that your whole heritage is evil and should be confined to a dark corner of a small museum in a thinly populated state . . .

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
You don't quite understand. No one that I know of is trying to erase or demonize our artistic or literary heritage.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seraphim:
(responding to question re: how many Southern blacks honor the memory of the Confederacy)...

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A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

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Originally posted by Mere Nick:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras: There are more important things... the exaltation of regionalism and preoccupation with ancestor worship have been divisive forces... the celebration of the past has not helped advance social justice and harmony in the body politic.

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"Exaltation" and "preoccupation" seem a bit of an overstatement, and castigation isn't very unifying, either. Celebration of the past is usually a good thing. It helps to inform us of who we are. Living in the past, though, is different.

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Precisely.

I have never, ever touted "the good old days". They were never as "good" as anyone thinks they were.

But -- I live out, I support, I look for signs of, I proclaim, I enjoy, I spread about as much as possible, the taking-to-heart of the foundations and basic principles that made those good ol' days worth reminiscing about.

Like, the simple fellowship of the breaking of bread and singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with other Christians.

Such as, when possible, supporting a business, a merchant, a provider of a service, by patronizing them (in a good way! ). If the owners and managers and workers are members of my immediate area, I want to deal with them when I can. Just like in the "good old days", when your butcher and baker and candlestick maker were your neighbors and pewmates.

Also, there's the basics of self-sufficiency. The ability to take care of your self, your family, your neighbor, if (-- when, God forbid, but ya got to think about the when --) everything falls apart and you no longer have any infrastructure around you. That surely counts as a harking-back to elder days, 'cause there ain't too many around me on a daily basis now, equipped with skills like that.

Would this nebulous thing I'm so awkwardly describing -- this foot firmly planted in the past, whether it be 100 or 200 or 2000 years ago -- could it be that this concept explains some of the difference between the B-i-b-l-e Belt and the Great Spare Tire?
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
The last several posts have been interesting and edifying. I just wanted to clarify a couple of minor points. Much much earlier in this thread someone (possibly RadicalWhig) had confused the Stars and Bars with the Confederate Battle Flag. To clarify for those who don't know better, the Stars and Bars is properly the official civil national flag of the CSA, combining a blue field with a circle of stars and "bars" of red and white. The battle flag was used strictly by the Confederate Army from 1863 onward, combining the Cross of St Andrew in which the stars for each of the member states is shown, surmounted against a red background. The battle flag was adopted due to confusion in battle of the Stars and Stripes with the Stars and Bars.

The Confederate Battle Flag, though most popular as a Southern symbol in the last 60 years, carries the most negative conotations of racism and rebellion against the federal government. By contrast, the Stars and Bars - the symbol of the civil authority of the CSA - has been a relatively benign symbol.

I'd just suggest that the Stars and Bars supplant the Battle Flag as a regional symbol of the South.

The recognition that Americans of African ancestry, first brought to these shores in bondage, fully built this country along with whites and are equals in the nation's history, has only just been brought to some fruition with the election of our current President of the United States (even though he doesn't personally fit that ancient heritage). Seeing African Americans in the South as Southerners in their own right was something advanced by MLK and even figures before him, but is a truth that should increasingly come into its own right over the next couple of decades. When both whites and blacks are equally seen as true "sons" of the South, then perhaps the legacy of the Civil War will have been largely redeemed.

The redemption of America has been and will be to hold and synthesise all these tensions within herself. Like the other great North American federation, Canada, the USA has been more successful than the UK or any nation-state in Europe in achieving a nationality that is based not on race or origin but on subscription to a national ideal and a shared mythos that transcends and ultimately abolishes the primacy of identity and prejudice that predate the New World. Among the further tasks of this reconciliation of North American identity is the assimiliation of the identity and ethos of the First Nations, the "Native Americans" who inhabited these lands before the coming of immigrants from abroad, into the national identity of those immigrant-descendent North Americans who arrived on these shores in the past 500 years.
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
Is it worth pointing out that the ***** Belt is a lot bigger than the old Confederacy?
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Yes, I think that's worth re-emphasising, though this thread seems to have got focussed on the Southern states very early on. It might be worthwile to look at the stylistic differences and nuances that differentiate ***** Belt Christianity in different bits of the country. Earlier on I related some aspects of the situation in the extremely ***** Belt Lubbock Texas which is very puritanical and conservative but not very Southern.
 

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The last several posts have been interesting and edifying. I just wanted to clarify a couple of minor points. Much much earlier in this thread someone (possibly RadicalWhig) had confused the Stars and Bars with the Confederate Battle Flag. To clarify for those who don't know better, the Stars and Bars is properly the official civil national flag of the CSA, combining a blue field with a circle of stars and "bars" of red and white. The battle flag was used strictly by the Confederate Army from 1863 onward, combining the Cross of St Andrew in which the stars for each of the member states is shown, surmounted against a red background. The battle flag was adopted due to confusion in battle of the Stars and Stripes with the Stars and Bars.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Confederate Battle Flag, though most popular as a Southern symbol in the last 60 years, carries the most negative conotations of racism and rebellion against the federal government. By contrast, the Stars and Bars - the symbol of the civil authority of the CSA - has been a relatively benign symbol.

I'd just suggest that the Stars and Bars supplant the Battle Flag as a regional symbol of the South.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate battle flag actually has two "extra" stars, symbolically representing the Confederacy's intention to wrest at least two non-secessionist states from the Union.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Confederate Battle Flag, though most popular as a Southern symbol in the last 60 years, carries the most negative conotations of racism and rebellion against the federal government. By contrast, the Stars and Bars - the symbol of the civil authority of the CSA - has been a relatively benign symbol.

I'd just suggest that the Stars and Bars supplant the Battle Flag as a regional symbol of the South.

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
I don't think a large percentage of fundamentalist Christians who constitute the ***** Belt pay any attention to the nostalgia of the antebellum South although they do rant on about "states rights."

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I realise this is a complete tangent, but Campbellite, do you think that Lincoln would have been able to maintain control of the congressional Republicans? Obviously they ate Andrew Johnson for lunch. I know it's conventional wisdom that Reconstruction wouldn't have been so harsh if Lincoln had not been killed, but should that be questioned in terms of the ascendency of the Radical Republicans and Lincoln's ability to control his own party in Congress?

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
A friend who is a Southern Baptist Pastor explained the popularity of his "muscular" brand of Christianity by waying that it was "free-enterprise religion." One's salvation was between the individual and God on his own, with no intermediaries, and Southerners liked that.

The liturgical, sacramental denominations on the other hand, were "socialized religion" in which there were "big-government" denominations in which a "spiritual welfare program" - "cradle-to grave" was administered by the denomination's "big-government bureaucrats (priests/pastors who were priests in all but name. He felt people in the Northeast, on the West Coast and in parts of the Upper Midwest liked that.

The former focused on personal autonomy and independence, the latter on community, mutual responsibility and interdependence.

An over-simplification for sure, but an interesting one . . .

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:This sounds like late 20th Century revisionism to me, and quite frankly as bullshit. I don't think the origins of anabaptism in the ***** Belt can be traced - in some perversely Marxian fashion - to an ideology of laissez faire capitalism. Indeed, if anything, this would dictate that anabaptism should be the preferred religion historically of the industrial, non-***** Belt North. It just isn't the case. [/QB]

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Originally posted by DmplnJeff:
Living heros are so undependable.

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
As I recall my History, didn't Lincoln have the opinion that there would never be a place for the freed African slaves in the U.S., and favor sending them, involuntarily, if necessary and using U.S. Naval vessels or federally chartered ships if necessary, back to Africa?

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
I have also heard and read it argued by some historians that while slavery was certainly a major factor leading to the Civil War and kept the somewhat pacifist-tending New Englanders on board with the war effort, that once the Constitution went into effect among all the states without the ratification of the Southern States, the Civil War was inevitable. One theory.

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What is hard to understand for those outside our culture is that the lost but still glorious cause of yesteryear, is for us second only to Golgatha in its effect...

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For Christ's sake (literally) -- are you serious?

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the one with the odd idea that history is larger than our own provincial histories and goes in a forward, not a backward, trajectory.

Maybe instead of living into the future I should be sitting here reliving the 30 Years' War over and over and over and over and over again.


 

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Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :
 
Actually, after the Barnes flag debacle in Georgia, I am actually rather pleased with their new state flag. It simply replaces the Battle Flag with the Stars and Bars. Looking at it proudly waving one can almost imagine a different outcome after the Late Unpleasantness! I tend to see the Battle Flag in many strange places. I have already alluded to Ohio. I've seen it in shops in Toronto. I've seen it in Germany and France of all places. I don't necessarily think its symbolism is restricted to racial oppression. I think it also has connotations of honor and duty, as well as of independence and self-reliance. Unfortunately, it has all three connotations which leads to its mixed message.
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Well, isn't one connotation simply that of being a rebel? In that truculant sense it could surely be found attractive to certain persons anywhere.
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
I agree RE the Georgia state flag, New Yorker. The one with the battle flag bit was obnoxious (intentionly so, I think) and the current banner reverts largely to an earlier one based on the Stars and Bars. The silly thing they had for a few years at the beginning of the present century was completely insipid -- the state seal (I guess) inside a blue field. That's a popular but unimaginative solution for state flags, of course, but other states have more interesting seals, like Virginia ("Sic Semper Tyrannis") and Delaware with its little men and animals!
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
German-Americans, even those several generations removed from the boat, are known for frequently indulging in bouts of Heimatskrankheit -- sappy songs of longing for the good beer, verdant landscapes and fair maidens of the Fatherland -- but most of us don't choose to live in that fantasy romance 24/7.
 

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Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
 

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
As I recall my History, didn't Lincoln have the opinion that there would never be a place for the freed African slaves in the U.S., and favor sending them, involuntarily, if necessary and using U.S. Naval vessels or federally chartered ships if necessary, back to Africa?

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No, you do not recall correctly. He certainly didn't advocate anything like that during his presidency.

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Originally posted by + Irl Gladfelter:
I have also heard and read it argued by some historians that while slavery was certainly a major factor leading to the Civil War and kept the somewhat pacifist-tending New Englanders on board with the war effort, that once the Constitution went into effect among all the states without the ratification of the Southern States, the Civil War was inevitable. One theory.

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:

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What is hard to understand for those outside our culture is that the lost but still glorious cause of yesteryear, is for us second only to Golgatha in its effect...

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For Christ's sake (literally) -- are you serious?

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the one with the odd idea that history is larger than our own provincial histories and goes in a forward, not a backward, trajectory.

Maybe instead of living into the future I should be sitting here reliving the 30 Years' War over and over and over and over and over again.

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:

FWIW Gen. Sherman was rather a racist and didn't want any black troops in the Army of the Tennessee yet his March to the Sea destroyed the ability of South to supply itself and brought the South to its knees.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
other states have more interesting seals, like Virginia ("Sic Semper Tyrannis")

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From Wikipedia:
The Flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia consists of the Seal of Virginia against a blue background. The current version of the flag was adopted at the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861. The flag is decorated with a white fringe along the fly. It is the only state flag to contain any form of nudity.

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Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :
 
My early history was that the KKK was, immediately after the War, necessary to defend Southerners against Carpetbaggers when the Yankee forces would not act. It was only later that it became a racist organization. I have never read up on the history of the Klan. I still harbor some romantic thoughts of noble gentlemen defending innocent citizens from unscrupulous Yankee interlopers. Of course, that's not the way the Klan operated.

Concerning state flags, don't get me going. Stick a seal on a blue field is such a piss poor way of designing a flag. Having written words is even worse! so the Barnes monstrosity with all the little flags, the seal, and writing sucked. The current Georgia flag is great except for the small scroll with the motto. New Mexico and Alaska have great flags off the top of my head.
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
New Mexico is probably my fave. Arizona and Colorado have good flags too. I'm not quite so totally opposed to the seal and written words thing if they're interesting. I rather like NY's Excelsior flag and the California Republic bear flag. New Yorker, I was hoping you could tell us about the Georgia Barnes flag episode?
 

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
My early history was that the KKK was, immediately after the War, necessary to defend Southerners against Carpetbaggers when the Yankee forces would not act. It was only later that it became a racist organization. I have never read up on the history of the Klan. I still harbor some romantic thoughts of noble gentlemen defending innocent citizens from unscrupulous Yankee interlopers. Of course, that's not the way the Klan operated.

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
My early history was that the KKK was, immediately after the War, necessary to defend Southerners against Carpetbaggers when the Yankee forces would not act. It was only later that it became a racist organization. I have never read up on the history of the Klan. I still harbor some romantic thoughts of noble gentlemen defending innocent citizens from unscrupulous Yankee interlopers. Of course, that's not the way the Klan operated.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:

FWIW Gen. Sherman was rather a racist and didn't want any black troops in the Army of the Tennessee yet his March to the Sea destroyed the ability of South to supply itself and brought the South to its knees.

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I don't see a contradiction here. Sherman was acting as a general officer of the American army, under the authority of the POTUS, and was carrying out his military mission irrespective of any personal opinions. That would be SOP wouldn't it?

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Originally posted by Matins:
I'm guessing very few abolitionists believed in racial equality.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
New Mexico is probably my fave. Arizona and Colorado have good flags too. I'm not quite so totally opposed to the seal and written words thing if they're interesting. I rather like NY's Excelsior flag and the California Republic bear flag. New Yorker, I was hoping you could tell us about the Georgia Barnes flag episode?

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Originally posted by Matins:
I'm guessing very few abolitionists believed in racial equality.

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Originally posted by Campbellite:
That is not far from the truth. It was started in Pulaski Tennessee by Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1866. (And he was a deeply racist SOB by all accounts.) The original intent was, as you said, to provide some measure of extra-legal protection for disenfranchised whites who could get no legal protection from the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags (Southerners who collaborated with the Carpetbaggers). This original Klan pretty much died out after the official end of Reconstruction in 1877.

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Originally posted by Campbellite:
The current Klan was born about 1915, and had no such practical or "romantic" purpose. FWIW, the largest Klan ever was in the 1920s, in Indiana. The Imperial Wizard was also the state governor, or so I have heard.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
]That's right. For instance, southern whites were "disenfranchised"

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Originally posted by Janine:
All I can say is, if those rumors of Texas seceding ever come true, I may immigrate.

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Don't hold your breath (or do ).
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 

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Originally posted by Seraphim:

Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary;
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary;
Furl it, fold it, it is best;
For there's not a man to wave it,
And there's not a sword to save it,
And there's not one left ot lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it;
And its foes now scorn and brave it;
Furl it, hide it --let it rest!

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore".

Take that Banner down! 'tis tattered;
Broken is its staff and shattered;
And the valiant hosts are scattered
Over whom it floated high.
Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it;
Hard to think there's non to hold it;
Hard that those who once unrolled it
Now must furl it with a sigh.

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore".

Furl that Banner! furl it sadly!
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly,
Swore it should forever wave;
Swore that foeman's sword should never
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,
Till that flag should float forever
O'er their freedom or their grave!

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore".

Furl it! for the hands that grasped it,
And the hearts that fondly clasped it,
Cold and dead are lying low;
And that banner --it is trailing!
While around it sounds the wailing
Of its people in their woe.

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore".

For, though conquered, they adore it!
Love the cold, dead hands that bore it!
Weep for those who fell before it!
Pardon those who trailed and tore it!
But, oh! wildly they deplore it,
Now who furl and fold it so.
Furl that Banner! True, 'tis gory,
Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,
And 'twill live in song and story,
Though its folds are in the dust:
For its fame on brightest pages,
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages--
Furl its folds though now we must.
Furl that Banner, softly, slowly!
Treat it gently --it is holy--
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not --unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!

Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore"!

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Originally posted by Janine:
All I can say is, if those rumors of Texas seceding ever come true, I may immigrate.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

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Originally posted by Janine:
All I can say is, if those rumors of Texas seceding ever come true, I may immigrate.

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Don't hold your breath (or do ).

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Originally posted by Matins:
The state that should really think about leaving the union is Minnesota. They pay far more in taxes than they receive in federal funding (at least according the numbers I found on the internet).

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Originally posted by Zach82:
I've been there. It's just a bunch of freeways, Del Tacos, and muffler shops.

Zach

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Originally posted by Campbellite:
The rest of your post notwithstanding . . .

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Originally posted by Seraphim:
For what it is worth in hopes of correcting certain errant bits of public perception, here is a link to a post war interview with Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest whom some credit with the establishment of the Klan in its first incarnation, the klan as it existed before being reconstituted on different philosophical lines by Forrest's grandson some years later: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Interview_with_Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, isn't one connotation simply that of being a rebel? In that truculant sense it could surely be found attractive to certain persons anywhere.

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
Maryland's flag is inappropriate. It simply the arms of the Baltimore (Calvert) family. It is like using the British royal banner as the national flag of the UK. That practice died out years ago. It is a pretty flag, though.

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
Thank you for those links, LSK.

So yesterday was Confederate Flag Day in NC? I wonder when it is in NY? I'll have make sure I have mine ready to run up the pole!

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
Thank you for those links, LSK.

So yesterday was Confederate Flag Day in NC? I wonder when it is in NY? I'll have make sure I have mine ready to run up the pole!

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So if you have Confederate Flag Day do you really ALSO need whatever Confederate holiday Jan. 20th is? How many holidays are needed to "honor your heritage"?

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Now, don't be churlish, Cliffdweller. I doubt that any of these get very widely observed and they are at the behest of the individual states anyway.

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I actually think that Southern states could have several of these occasions, but not as full state holidays (with paid leave and all). Who cares? At some point when I have enough time, I may write a lengthier post on my view of all this.

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
I think (and I may not remember this correctly) that when the MLK Federal holiday was enacted it coincided with an already existing Lee holiday in some states.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I actually think that Southern states could have several of these occasions, but not as full state holidays (with paid leave and all). Who cares? At some point when I have enough time, I may write a lengthier post on my view of all this.

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Who cares if a big chunk of the population is made to feel inferior? I mean really.

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Originally posted by Campbellite:

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Originally posted by New Yorker:
I think (and I may not remember this correctly) that when the MLK Federal holiday was enacted it coincided with an already existing Lee holiday in some states.

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It is simply the coincidence that R E Lee and M L King shared the same birthdate. Nothing more.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
No, No, it was clearly a Northern conspiracy.

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I wouldn't put it past them.
 

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