A New Civil War?
Someone asked if we devolve into a new civil war, where would the boundaries be. Just a quick glance at the 2016 Electoral Map and you can easily see we are most definitely a divided nation. However, those Red & Blue distinctions are present within each state. I am one of those East Coast liberals that people in Red States tend to ignore. Instead of highlighting our differences, I want to highlight our similarities.
Stereotypes were once the backbone of American humor, now they are cause for arguments over Thanksgiving Dinner. If you walked into a say a butcher shop in my hometown, and you saw me there in my white butcher’s jacket with a tie-dyed T-shirt underneath and a red bandana instead of a white butcher’s cap or a hair net, I would look the part of an East Coast liberal. If when I greeted you I said, “Hey, dude, what can I get you man? You might even chuckle and think to yourself, yep East Coast hippie.
Similarly, if I pulled into an Exxon station in Valdosta, Ga. and the attendant had a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek and toothpick sticking out I too might chuckle and think, “Wow It’s Goober Pyle’s gas station. We would both have cause to chuckle. I know my appearance fits the hippie stereotype. I have long hair in a ponytail and a beard. However, we have to quit stopping at the stereotypes and dig down to the real person.
One of the stereotypes I would like to debunk is that because I am a liberal hippie, I am not religious. Do I go to church every Sunday, no. Do I tithe, no I do not. Do I ever go to church, that too is a no. However, that does not mean I do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ. It’s just that, as a young man when I was a churchgoer, I also knew which couples in those pews were having affairs with each other. Something I bet each church going reader can identify with.
The problem with religions is they all make the same claim, “we are the one true path to God”. Obviously, that cannot be true. Trying to compare the various religions to determine which is correct would be like trying to compare which is better, chocolate or vanilla. You simply can’t because some people like one and others like the other. However, none of us living gets to know the truth.
In each little town I have visited over my sixty plus years, Sunday’s have been the same. It is in some small towns the only day there are traffic jams. Little town roads jammed with Methodist going up town, Catholics going downtown, Baptist to the West and Episcopalians to the East, all going one place — to church, to pray. Here’s the big difference between me, and at least some churchgoers, I say prayers of thanks to God multiple times a day.
For instance, we all get worried when our child or spouse is late. Our worry increases if we hear on the radio that there was a fatal traffic accident on their route home. When I know they are safe, I say a silent prayer of simply, “Thanks, Lord.” Who is more faithful to the Lord, the philanderer or me?
In 2008, Barack Obama made the mistake of saying people in Red States cling to their bibles and guns. It was the wrong way to highlight our differences. Taking on the topic of guns, the reader might be thinking, this writer doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun. You would be wrong.
The first gun I shot was a 20 gauge shot gun while on a rat hunt in the dump for Berlin, Maryland. One of many small Maryland Eastern Shore towns where rat hunting, was encouraged. I have also fired a .22 gauge long rifle, and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. I even owned a 12 gauge full bore shotgun for duck hunting. I no longer hunt for one big reason, wild game tastes awful to me. However, I am not interested in ending regulated hunting. I am interested in reasonable and more importantly, enforceable gun laws.
East Coast liberals and Midwest conservatives have a lot in common. The one thing we both don’t like is our opinions being misrepresented in the media. We can individually change this by simply opening dialogues with neighbors whom we politically disagree.
