I'm from the south.

[rrneck]

363. I could come up with all kinds of specific examples

but they would be anecdotal (thus fictional) if they referred to people not on DU, and insulting to some of those who are. Any time you try that you get dozens of responses saying, "Not me". Of course, if you are looking for examples of bigotry you could find them in this thread.

Look at it like this. It is simply not possible that conservative republicans, much less the conservatives in the south, are solely responsible for our economic and social problems or the only people that profit from them. The world just doesn't work that way. Now, it's really easy to punch holes in somebody else's ideology but introspection is a lot more difficult.

It's one thing to be a liberal because one recognizes the need for change in the world. It's another to be a liberal because one wants to wrap themselves in liberal orthodoxy and claim they are morally superior to others. And the dirty secret is that we all do some of both.

I will readily claim the label of liberal but it might be more accurate to say that I'm a humanist and a pragmatist. I don't think it will do any good to go to the people of the south or anywhere else and tell them, "We know what's good for the country because, liberal." Orthodoxy won't prove shit and I don't need a political ideology to tell me right from wrong. I think our task, as liberals, is to find a way to make liberalism work in the real world for real people and prove to them that it will work.