UKC

They're all knuckle dragging, ignorant b*stards:

http://www.upworthy.com/old-white-guy-drops-a-monster-speech-on-anti-gay-fo...

Or possibly not.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Good pick - what a very articulate and impassioned commentary.

Wow

There is hope

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Anyone who thinks America is simple must be a bit simple themselves.

What staggers me is that despite the massive diversity of opinion on almost every issue you care to mention they still largely unite under that flag and profess themselves proud to be American.

If you could patent the glue that holds them together you'd make a fortune.

In reply to DaveHK:

I've always felt that this is the strength of the place - in spite of the quite large numbers of loonies, diversity is welcomed. Not a homogeneous society at all and a government that is deliberately designed to be hogtied.

Yes, tons of negatives, but in aggregate, more positives

In reply to pneame:

Agreed. Do you know of anyone who has analysed why it's like that? Or is that maybe too big a question?

In reply to DaveHK:

I'm aware of analysis that contrasts the incredibly civilised, well established and liberal East Coast with the Wild West, frontier mentality of the West - Pinker 'The Better Angels of our Nature' is a good starting point (and the title is a quote from Abe Lincoln.)

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

That in itself sounds like an over-simplification. For example, take New Hampshire - its taxation policies (or rather, lack of them), aren't particularly liberal (in the American sense of the word).

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Yes, please don't project my comments on to Pinker, I was conflating 2 sources one of which I couldn't remember.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

New Hampshire: "Live free or die". Unless you want wine, in which case go to this government owned shop...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Dear god, lots of respect to Dan!!

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Excellent rant!

jcm

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

This is an old one.. good one though...

Alcohols strange.. but so is over 21's still.. but even between county's alcohol laws change quite considerably, well even between towns. I live in a dry town, 1.6 miles away has bars.. then for a mile, which is 2 towns, you can drink, then I hit haddonfield and its dry again...

In reply to IainRUK:

Always easy to see quirks and oddities from the outside. I don't doubt that a group of American commentators could find an equal number of weirdos, extremists and odd laws when looking at Europe (as a population of similar size to the US)

The strangest US alcohol law that I know of concerns the Jack Daniels distillery which is in a dry county.

As my gran used to say: "There's a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us, so it doesn't behove any of us to talk about the rest of us!"

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


This was quite interesting and touched on the matter (though mostly about Republicans specifically):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041xdgt