The Problem With "Red America" Pt. 1

A more complete title for this could be "the problem with people's attitudes and beliefs in Red America".

Most of you have heard many allusions to Red vs. Blue American countles times by down and a definition of the two exisits that is general enough that I should be able to skip that part and get on to what I have been thinking about lately.

Red America, I grew up there, almost everyone in Texas is from there (with the exception of Austin, which is very much a colony of blue America lost in a sea of deep red). Christian, Conservative "moral" values dominated the governmental and political philosophy in these sections of the country. Values of Blue America...places such as the Northeast and the Bay Area are villified and are hardly considered values at all by those in Red America.

I'll illustrate what I have to say by drawing on where I grew up, the Killeen-Temple area, which is home to Fort Hood, the largest military instillation in the United States.

The prescence of such an instillation in Bell County anchors an unbridled sense of patriotisim and Americanism. Yellow, or red white and blue ribbons are found on the back every other SUV, car and truck. Churches are abundant and almost everyone "goes to church". A vast majority of Bell County residents support George W. Bush, and few would even dare to question the Administration's policy in the Iraq War. The Republican Party holds every major and minor county and municipal office...a single party system dominates and almost every candidate that survives the Republican Primary is pretty much guaranteed little or non-existent opposition in November. In Killeen-Temple it is beyond difficult to find anyone who is a member of the ACLU or the Sierra Club. Liberals and other non-conservatives exist, in small numbers, and in many cases are enconsed deep in the political closet. Which brings me to the first problem that I have noticed with Red American attitudes.

#1 People in Red America, particularly young people, tend to believe things only because their parents or peers believe them.

"I voted for Bush because my parents did". I have heard this statement many times from people back in Bell County as well as students from Red American backgrounds at Texas State. (more to come on this problem when I get the chance)

#2 People in Red America tend to equate holding conservative values and voting Republican with divine truth and religous beliefs.

"If you're a Christian you should be a conservative Republican". Now I'll be the first to point out that Christians in general have good reasons to vote Republican and hold socially conservative values, but it is far from a requirement for being a Christian. I have known strong christians who do not hold conservative political viewpoints, and I have known far too many christians who think that it is a basically sin to vote Democratic. It's not. The assumption that God would vote Republican in a U.S. political election is flawed and a dangerous connection of politics and theology. God sees the flaws in both parties just as he sees the flaws in everything that man has created. Of course I see a similar flaw in the "Jesus is a liberal" doctrine espoused by some on the left, but I am addressing Red America today so I'm not going to get into that. I believe that Jesus's teaching are more populistic (socially conservative, economically liberal) than liberal or conservative. Again that's a topic for another post.

A good example of the problem I see here occured on November 3, the day after election. A dozen or so people from Campus Crusade and I were eating lunch at the Baptist Student Center, which provides free lunch to students on Wendsday. The attitude was generally one of relief and joy at the results of the previous night's election. I announced at the table that I had just heard from my friend that Kerry had conceded to Bush, which was met by a joyful reaction by some to extreme jubulance by one girl. A friend of mine, who I know didn't vote for Bush, is not a conservative, but is a solid and growing Christian, sat there silently. By the time that everyone was leaving he had seemed to lost patience at the Bush love fest happening around him and announced that he had voted for Kerry...after a couple of other friends of mine began to grill him saying things along the line of "how could you vote for Kerry"...he seemed to get fed up and basically shouted for all to hear "I VOTED FOR KERRY" as he and I walked out the door. This was met with a shouted reply from a girl at one of the tables "you shouldn't say that at the BSM". I wanted to reply and say something nasty in response because at this point because I was probably as pissed as my friend even though I had voted for Bush. I saw the sheer shallowness that the heterogenious political climate of Texas (which the exception of Austin) has fostered, and more importiantly, an example of the innappropriate connection between Christian faith and voting Republican. That day was probably the most disgusted that I had been with the entire attitude toward the election...and that's saying alot because I was pretty disgusted for most of the past year at the way both sides acted.


To be contenued...I erased a large part of this by accident