This article by far exemplifies what life was/is like in the "true" west of the United States. Especially in the 70's and earlier. The importance of survival in wilderness surroundings tends to make folk more tolerant of other peoples lifestyle choices.

If big city liberal snobs could get past their own hubris they would recognize Palin as a good thing. Unfortunately, these liberals love their ideology for it's own sake and have become the closed minded bigots they accuse the conservatives and so called "red necks" of being. Misrepresenting liberal opponents is the only weapon liberals seem to have.

See my post below yours. People you know: good. People you don't know: bad. This is the common rural attitude.

That still equals intolerance, since there are far more people you don't know than people you do know. Accepting people as individuals doesn't mean acceptance of groups.

Wow Nerd,

You think just like your boy Barry...you think you're more intelligent than those who aren't smart enough to live in the cosmopolitan cities. Coming from the midwest to Westchester County (yes, that Westchester) in NY I have seen it firsthand. Individuals, groups, doesn't matter. They want you to know they are smarter than you and are determined to prove it. Hubris is an understatement. People in the heartland are just as intelligent, only smart enough not to rub your nose in it. I think he said it best when he thought no one from the swing state of PA was listening..."In trying times, they cling to their guns and religion with antipathy for others who are not like them". That exemplifies your statement exactly, but you know that already. You're smart, right? You just keep getting your ass kicked by the heartland every four years...

WHO, I humbly ask you, was responsible for repossessing all American farms in the 1980's? Was it aging hippy liberals? Really? Cause I thought all that pristine and quintessentially American landscape went to greedy republican bankers who sold it all to those humongo republican supporters, Archer Daniels Midland - the factory sweatshop of corporate farming.

Ooops! Then it all flew away to China. Like those poisonous tomatoes? Good. Cause McCain sure likes globalization.

Well I don't live in the cosmopolitian areas. And I'm not that smart, I'm just a questioning sort. Seems like you have problems getting along with individuals like me, not to mention 'cosompolitian' folks.

Sorry, but you simply can't say that because people often get along as individuals in the rural areas that they are tolerant of people in general or unbigoted. The author mentions a few dozen or so people who appeared to get along in his little neighborhood in Alaska, but he doesn't know anything about the people who couldn't get along in his neighborhood or live there.

He doesn't know who was beaten up, harrassed out of their homes, or ignored as pariahs, because those people likely left. He only knows his rose colored view, but he doesn't know the views of other people. His personal experiences simply can't tell the whole truth, because it is so limited.

Warm, fuzzy memories from childhood or personal experiences cannot tell you how things really are or were. Nobody tells you everything, especially if they do something bad. If some of the gentlemen in the author's neighborhood went out one night and beat up a black guy, or raped and killed a hippie girl, or burned down somebody's house, or in other ways harrassed somebody they didn't like, what makes you think he would have known about it?

In fact, even if such crimes had occured and been reported to the local police, it's very possible the author would have never known about it. Because many small towns either have no newspapers or they simply don't report on such things. And please don't tell me about the 'grapevine'--local gossips have a way of shutting up on precisely those things it would really be interesting to know.

The importance of survival in wilderness surroundings tends to make folk more tolerant of other peoples lifestyle choices.

Gee whiz, what happened to that non-liberal, non-snobby, non-big city, "true west" Dick Cheney? Because he and George Bush allowed their campaigns to be run on intolerance.

Intolerance for women who want to have the right to choose for themselves.

Intolerance for gays and gay marriage - unless you happen to be named Mary Cheney (where is that tolerant true westerner Dick Cheney when people who do neocon bidding - like Ann Coulter - call political candidates on the other side "faggots" and "total fag"?)

Intolerance for people from the east coast. Or from urban areas. I'm from the east coast and have lived in urban areas. I don't drive a BMW, don't drink wine, don't eat brie. Oh, and I'm not a "Jewish intellectual" either. I'm not even sure what snobbiness consists of. People behaving badly? They're all over the place.

Intolerance for people whose beliefs are not conservative. You know, those "feminazis" and "elites" and "anti-Americans" who "side with terrorists" when they question anything the GOP says or does.

Like those horrible whiny FDNY firefighters (union members!) who were angelic heroes on 9/11 but who were cast as blackguards when they appeared in front of the 9/11 commission and rightly called out Rudolph Giuliani for the sweetheart deal he made with Motorola for untested radios which did not work. And for putting the NYC Department of Emergency Management inside the WTC despite FDNY, NYPD, the FBI and the Secret Service's urging that he not do that since WTC had already been a terrorist target and the mastermind sheik claimed they would try to bring it down "next time." And for pointing out that nobody had been advised that summer "Bin Laden Determined to Attack US" ... not even those who ran and protected the only city that had been successfully bombed by middle eastern terrorists.

So many villians out there for true west guys like you and Dick Cheney. So many snobs, elites, liberals, urban types, uppity feminazis, gay agenda- pushers. It's a wonder you haven't figured out a final solution to rid yourselves of the rest of us.

I grew up in the NYC and in Jersey area in the 80's-90's. Not everyone is a WASP, elitist, liberal, and Ivy League educated. Since when did being educated and liberal become such negatives? I grew up in very ethnically diverse neighborhoods: Ukranian, Polish, Italian, Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Domincan Republic, etc. This was the extent I knew differences. I did not see divisions between people based on ideas/lifestyles. I haven't lived outside of major cities (only visited) so I can not compare what it's like to live in a small town, but they seem less diverse culturally than in cities.

You ask: Since when did being educated and liberal become such negatives?

It began when people began believing "educated" meant "intelligent" and when people began believing Marxism means Liberalism.

Are you happy under the regime of the Idiot Boy King? Do you think that you are better off now than you were 8 years ago?

For the life of me, I cannot understand why half of this country is not happy unless they can vilify the other half. Republicans want to label all those Americans who are not republicans as "unpatriotic." Or as "Marxists."

Are you serious? Or is this just an annoying ploy to stop the conversation? Is it a technique designed to throw people off the main point (which is always going to be how bad the republicans have screwed up)? Because really, if this is what you believe, then I'm sorry - but that is just laughable.

Another thing - fundamentalists want to link religion and government. Pastors tell their parishoners how to vote and lobby the government. Last year, they wanted all Americans to call America "a Christian Nation," even though you'd have to live in a cave not to know that not all Americans are Christians. This is clearly a violation of the founding fathers intent in the Constitution - and you learned that right before Thanksgiving, in the first grade. So, what do you call that? Is that an attempt by republicans to brainwash Americans into a government inspired bigotry against everyone who isn't a fundamentalist? Is that religion by government? Is it fascism?

And you have the nerve to call liberals "Marxists?" You don't even have any respect for the United States Constitution and the ideals our founding fathers fought and died for.

Really, what IS it with republicans? They seem to refuse to listen to reason and just spout the catch phrases of the most uninspired politicians. They hate other people, I am beginning to believe. They just can't have enough names to call everyone else who thinks differently from them. They just can't seem to open their ears long enough to listen to reason. And they spout whatever lame catch phrases (like "All liberals are Marxists") their "leaders" tell them to spout.

It has become impossible to have real discourse with these people. THere can be no real exchange of ideas here because all anyone will get back is ignorant name calling and scatter-shot idiocy.

Your post is chock full of assumptions about me and my post which in a nutshell castigate me as being whimsical with some name calling that a leader of mine within a church claiming that we live in a Christian nation told me to say.

Wow, and you don't think you have underestimated me?