Bubba pride

After that last post I wrote, something sort of interesting happened that's well worth noting. First of all, my troll who insists that I accept his belief that relinquishing my rights is just a matter of "convienence" and the woman who wrote the post about how it's critical that we force a high schooler to wear clothes that embarrass her so that we don't give an inch to the homosexuals 'cause next thing you know they'll be all homosexual as if their right to live their life in a way that makes them happy is more important than her right not to deal with diversity took offense at being called "Bubba". Well, I didn't call y'all Bubba, so relax. By using "Bubba" I was poking gentle fun at Digsby for what I saw as a minor lapse in an otherwise on-target post in tying the southern white male so firmly to intolerance. There is a strong relationship, no doubt, but not all Bubba is an asshole and there are a lot more assholes than just plain Bubba. So get it right, non-Bubbas. You aren't Bubba. However, you are shoring up lots of evidence for the asshole moniker.

(Now that my traffic is quadrupaled, I'm going to have to give up the pleasure of mocking my rare trolls. I have a feeling they won't be rare any longer.)

But I believe that they aren't ignorant rednecks. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Bush voters who voted to get the gays have ever stood drinking beer with friends "King of the Hill"-style. Yeah, I would definitely say that a lot of white Southerners vote for the Republicans because the mouthpieces for the party, Limbaugh and pals, run around telling us that liberals snicker at us behind our backs and call us ignorant rednecks.

Well, there's a grain of truth to that--I've had the pleasure of being regarded as an ignorant redneck because of my accent. Of course, there's a grain of truth to the ignorant redneck stereotype, too. We do have huge swarms of dipshit conservatives down here who are racist, sexist, and homophobic, too. And we send a bunch of them to Congress, so many at this point that I have to suspect that it's almost an attempt to get them out of here and keep them busy.

The divisiveness that the Republicans are sowing in order to get the spite vote extends beyond coming to the South and trying to drum up Bubba pride. (Or more alarmingly, white pride, which needs to be regarded as a separate thing but is also being not-so-covertly drummed up in order to solidify the Republican base.) But the Republican strategy of coded racism and naked support for male dominance is hardly limited to the South, in case you haven't noticed the surge of wacky Christian fundamentalism that's rising up in Colorado, the boldly racist election strategies in California, or the Senator for Pennsylvania, Rick "German Shepard" Santorum.

Not that I'm letting Bubba off the hook entirely. It shames me greatly that we have huge numbers of pushy, ignorant rednecks and even worse, pushy, ignorant Bible-thumpers who sneer at your ordinary redneck (your President is a good example of the latter) who make the rest of us look like fools. Nor am I backing off my agreement with Digsby that intolerance can't be tolerated, if you will. But I am arguing that we have to see intolerance for itself and quit equating it with the South and Southern culture.