I don't usually like joe Manchin but...

[Staph]

28. Thank you!

I am so fucking tired of defending my people to the smug folk of Democratic Underground! The coal miners have always been employed by outsiders, who pay minimal wages for a dangerous, deadly job, that ends up destroying the land we love.

In the 1960s, Johnson's War on Poverty sent more outsiders into the state, who told us how backward and ignorant we were. Yes, there were good results, like the Appalachian Regional Commission, that helped to build highways to some of the more remote sections of the state.

The only reason outsider Jay Rockefeller got elected was that he paid his dues. He started as a VISTA volunteer in the coal fields, before running for the state House of Delegates. He still maintains a residence in West Virginia, long after retiring from public office.

And so now you outsiders want to tell us how to run our state, how to elect Democrats. We're the state that voted for Hubert Humphrey (against Richard Nixon), for Jimmy Carter - twice!, for Michael Dukakis, for Bill Clinton - twice!. Our state economy has fallen to shreds while outsiders extract our minerals and take the profits, our people are in drowning in drug overdoses due to Big Pharma dumping opioids in every little town (the town of Kermit - population 392 -- had a pharmacy that received shipments of over nine million hydrocodone pills in two years!).

So, yeah, West Virginia has problems. But those problems are not going to be solved by you assholes calling us dumb and racist and ignorant. Back off!

(SJMULE -- this rant was not intended for you! Your question of the chicken or egg set me off, after all of the rude and condescending remarks above.)