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Same Sex Marriage Rights Defeated In Maine
Palin recognized that being a mayor and Governor didn’t give her the experience she needed to be President.
She’s going to Chicago to be a community organizer to fill the hole in her resume.
The rank opposition, I think, can be understood through fairly straight-forward "In-group/Out-group" psychology. As rural consevatives have become identified as a group, their views towards out-groups have hardened to the point where any opposition seems to be a direct attack to them. Coupled with anti-intellectualism and a shared religious paranoia (if believing The Revelations doesn't lead someone to paranoia, nothing will), it's a fairly easy culture to understand.
The thing is that the rural lifestyle was never purely conservative. In fact, there is a very strong component of "live and let live" that fits with liberalism fairly well. You just don't have a dedicated "news" channel to represent liberal rural voters.
I grew up in the middle of absolute nowhere on a farm in South Dakota, and I will say that this sums it up quite well. My family has lived their as long as I can remember. The "live and let live" mentality is very strong up there, but it works both ways. Most folks don't like it when others come to the door telling them to repent and come to church. At the same time, you won't find many advocating a gay pride parade on main street. Most folks simply don't care one way or the other; they just don't like having things thrown in their face. Now, if you start talking gun control to a community who's economy depends primarily on pheasant hunting, you won't get many people to listen to what you have to say.
1. This is classical liberalism, now called "libertarianism."
2. Actual liberal (leftish) US politics is nothing new by farmers, since the Grangers and Progressives.
Note that that is true not only for political progress but for media and market exposure, book deals, etc.
As the non-lifestyle Republicans have fled the party due to its extremism and incompetence, the GOP has shrunk back to what amounts to a regional party in the Red States, dominated by the lifestyle conservatives.
The only way to restore the GOP is to grow it outside the Red States. And this will be difficult, because the culturally conservative GOP base won't support moderate Republican candidates, even if moderate Republicanism is the only type that can win in the Northeast, Oregon, etc.
My view is that the Republican party needs to return to actual, you know, Republicanism - the ideals of freedom and fiscal conservativism. Nanny-state nonsense - regulating what others say and do with their bodies in a consensual manner - is stupid and ought to be avoided. I know what the bible says, and I know what the Q'uran teaches, that why I follow it. I don't think that the state has the ability *or* the authority to be the final moral judge, that comes on judgement day. As the prophet Isa said, "render unto Caesar"....
scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462
www.realclimate.org
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, by Chris Mooney
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, by Charles P. Pierce
Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter, by Rick Shenkman