Because there are not enough threads about the South on here lately...

[pamela]

48. Excellent post.

My husband and I live and travel in a motorhome. We spend a lot of time in red states because they are simply more condusive to this lifestyle. Since July we've been in New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and now Kansas, heading back to New Mexico.

In our travels the past four months, there was only ONE time where I felt creeped out by rightwingers. We drove through an area that had several ugly, racist anti-Obama signs and tea party flags. We stopped at a little store that had Fox News blaring and also had a small display of buttons and bumper stickers with some really ugly right wing sentiments. Which of those states I just mentioned do you think I was in? MARYLAND! Yep, blue, blue Maryland.

I remember our first cross-country trip back in 2005, I was actually a little afraid of traveling through the red states. I remember being in a diner in a state that went 60-40 for Bush over Kerry and thinking, "I bet I'm the only person in here who voted for Kerry." Then I looked at the twenty or so other diners and realized that, according to the math, around 12 of them voted for Bush but eight voted for Kerry. And just imagine how cool those eight must be!

Anyway, I could go on and on about what I've realized in traveling throughout this country. The region bashing you see here is mostly pure ignorance. I bet a lot of these bashers would be teabaggers if they had grown up in a red state. Red state progressives are the best, in my opinion, because they are true non-conformists who came to their beliefs by their own thought processes and against all odds. We should be supporting them and applauding them, not bashing the areas they, rightfully, love.