What if I said.
 

All you people from small rural areas, bitter about imigrants cling to your religion and your guns and your antipathy.

Is it true? Discuss:

Perhaps.... What do you think?

I don't understand the question. And could you clarify; legal or illegal immigrants?

NO. I think people have their religion and their guns in exercise of their rights first. Then it's steeped in geographic culture and should not be regarded as a cultural anomoly as I think the Rev. Wrights comments were.

I don't know. I couldn't find an exact quote of Obama's statement.

Oh. Man, I keep flip-flopping on Obama..... I jut don't know....

i'm an Ohioan, no guns ( I hate guns) am pagan, believe in the goodness of the Universe, love Mexican wokers and think the country needs them and their pilgrim-like work ethic, and family values. Bring them on.

I also believe in socialized medicine. and free nachos.

the only people I have a prob with are those gd socialists like the unutterably compassionate DanaC. wink. I have had probs with Dana, but I have come to see her POV and to TRY to embrace her total love of mankind---no matter how slimey they are~ ;) to explain: Dana loves more than I do. I'm ok with that.

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

That's one way to look at it, but I wouldn't agree. :headshake

Do carry on. I have to take a nap before work. I'm not skipping out on ya :)


thnaks ut and bruce for the source quote

The statement was made at a San Francisco big big money fund-raiser. It's probably what they expected to hear.

Half of all dwellars are in rural Pennsylvania, or have family and friends there in spades. Here's the deal.

Pennsylvania small town provincialism didn't start 25 years ago. It started as soon as the society became mobile. People interested in constant change, creativity and exploration started moving to the urban areas.

Obama's real gaffe here is that his statement is the entire opposite of what his campaign has been so far. It's negative, when his campaign has been all about the positive. It's divisive when the campaign has been about unity.

Most of all, it's wrong. The differences here aren't easily explained by frustration or jobs or promises. They're just different schools of thought.

One of my own recent themes in life has been strenuously avoiding characterizing those who have different points of view as "stupid", or "broken", or "bitter", or even "wrong", because our harsh divides are too harsh now and somehow we must resolve our differences and stop being assholes. So this one hurts a little.

Wow! Very well put UT... especially

My family in rural NC is damn well bitter. And so am I.

Saying they're bitter is less offensive than pretending nothing is wrong.

Being bitter isn't the original reason for owning a gun or getting a religion.