I pit middle america

The BBQ Pit
21

You know, I agree with your basic point, that listing “good” vs “bad” people from one place or on one side verses another place or side is silly and pointless, but I find it interesting that your list of “bad” folks that “Middle America produced” was quite lacking in, well, actual Americans, y’know? (And WTF does Hiroshima have to do with anything? The Genesis of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Pearl Harbor, not Middle America.) However much assistance America may have offered the dictators in question, they are still the products of their culture and as such the blame for the people they became can hardly be laid at the feet of middle America. Surely you’d have done better listing, say, Charles Whitman, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, Reverend Jim Jones, Ted Bundy and their ilk?

22

First of all–who or what, exactly, is “Middle America”? There’s no way the OP could possibly mean to say anything meaningful about absolutely everyone–or every square cm–between the Bosnywash Corridor and the San Fran-LA axis.

Is the city of Chicago part of “Middle America”? How about Cleveland? Or Detroit? The hippie haven of Yellow Springs, Ohio? The artists’ colony of Savannah, Georgia? Believe it or not, that huge flyover area between the coasts isn’t one huge homogenous mass.

Neither are the coasts. Lots of people in blue states voted red, and there’s most probably no state that’s free of the prudery or messed-up priorities you’re upset about.

So who, or what, exactly, is the target of your ire, here?

23

Okay, so if we can choose events selectively, how about these 3 incidents that demonstrate Middle American hospitality?

  1. Teena Brandon (the subject of the film “Boys Don’t Cry”) - murdered in Falls City, Nebraska December, 1993.

  2. Matthew Shephard - beaten to death near Laramie Wyoming, October, 1998.

  3. James Byrd - murdered by being dragged 2 miles behind a pickup truck in June, 1998 in Jasper Texas.

24

All of which were quite newsworthy, indicating that they are unusual events.

25

I think it demonstrates the astounding intolerance that Middle America has for anyone who is different.

26

Lemme see, Oklahoma was the first territory to allow women to voted. Kansas went to war with itself before the Civil War to fight slavery. Middle America has a huge number of nonconformists (that is to say Mormons). Middle America produced artists like Grandma Moses and Ansel Adams.

Meanwhile in advanced countries like France is imposing a dress code on school students.

Nope, I don’t see where your idea really holds up.