Headline

I think most of you know from the map during election returns that Tennessee is so Republican that they barely get results in before it's colored red. We used to be part of the Solid South which voted Democrat. No more. We have some actual conservatives who have always been Republican and continue to vote that way. Some of them have a lot of money they want to protect and some believe in the policies of the party. Those people are upset that the evangelical right-wing nutcases have taken over because this group is not what the Republican Party used to be when my father was one. That Republican Party was pro-business but not anti-intellectual. They didn't want governmental control or interference with private life. That's not how it is now. Taxes might have been cut, but look how much money was borrowed. We had a balanced budget with a surplus in it when W took office. Now we're almost a trillion dollars in debt, banks and insurance companies were bailed out, unemployment is astronomical, jobs are outsourced, the rich have gotten richer while the middle class is becoming extinct, no one in the world respects and likes us, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We desperately couldn't continue like that.

What probably happened is that Lee Atwater and Karl Rove appealed to those voters in order to manipulate them into thinking they are voting against abortion and gay marriage. We have huge numbers of Baptist and Church of Christ churches here as well as various forms of fundamentalist ones (emphasis on mental). They're everywhere and are smug, self-righteous, intolerant, and often hypocritical. They occupy all kinds of positions on school boards, local government, as teachers, blue-collar workers, and all kinds of various occupations. Then there is the redneck contingency who is racist, homophobic, and armed.

How do I stand to live here? Well, there are people who are intelligent, educated, tolerant, critical thinkers, and open-minded. I spend most of my time around them. That's all that keeps me sane. I have some friends who are Republicans and who go to fundamentalist churches, and we get along just fine even though I'm not religious. We can talk about all kinds of things and like each other.

I wouldn't, however, date Baptist Republicans. I use the term Baptist to include any of those churches along those lines. I grew up Methodist and then went to various others, including Episcopal, and can't understand those who are so narrow that they think their way is the only way to believe. Btw, have you noticed that most of the child molesters, perverts, hypocritical closeted gays who frequent airport restrooms and preach and/or pass legislature against homosexuality, and other menaces to society come from those strict, repressed, intolerant churches and belief systems? I don't go to any church now and am fine making decisions for myself.

I'm telling you all of this because of the headline in our twice-weekly local newspaper, so you'll see what I mean. It isn't online, unfortunately, so I'll just type it on here. What a crappy way to report an election this historic! I so have blue state envy!

Dickson County sees red,
nation goes Obama blue