slapnose.com

Please Read this article. It's kind of long, but it's worth it.

Part of a series, the article describes the life of a "typical Red Stater," in Sugar Land, Texas, home of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and "a large number of Indian residents -- 'that's with a dot, not with a feather.'"

The basic picture is of a happy family with no problems who can't seem to understand why Blue Staters -- liberals -- are so worked up. What's the problem? Things are good. We all go to the same church, we all plant the same bushes, we don't give a shit about the environment, and we all drive American pick-up trucks. Why are those liberals so "whiny?"

It's a fascinating portrait. They're not stupid people, not bigots or assholes, but they can't see past the ends of their noses. If things are good in Sugar Land, Texas, well then things are probably good everywhere, and they'll thank you not to go on and on about how that's not so. People shouldn't look to the government to help them, they should help themselves, like the Steins did.

The Red Staters don't eat healthy food. They don't grind their own coffee. They own many guns and view hunting in the most romantic terms. Their definition of bravery is firing laser-guided missiles into practically prehistoric villages from miles above. They get their news from Pat Buchanon, Robert Novak and Ann Coulter.

That's very nice. And very typical. As long as things look nice and there is the appearance of calm and control, it's really not all that important what any of it means to the rest of the world. I wonder if he "could care less" how many people live in virtual slavery so that he can have low, low prices and nice, bleached white coffee filters. I wonder if he "could care less" that species are disappearing off of our planet at an unprecedented rate, with consequences we can't begin to understand.

And this is the problem: They don't care. They care about each other -- their families, their church -- but they don't care about people they can't see. They care about their rights -- to own guns, to buy cheap gas, to good schools -- but they don't care about rights for which they have no personal use. There's no empathy.

I'm sure these are nice folks in most everyday ways, and it's obvious that they hold their views strongly, but I can't shake the feeling that they're just wrong. I can't shake the feeling that if any of these issues ever came home to roost in Sugar Land, Texas -- if they had any idea what it was like to be on the losing end of the policies and attitudes they profit from -- they would feel differently.

Mr. Stein describes a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. as "great" (after an "awesome" speech by Bush and an "amazing" speech by Reagan). I wonder if this was part of the speech:

the article

NOTE : Tomorrow comes the (already posted) Blue States installment. I'll probably have something to say about that too.