# James Webb, Scots-Irish political culture, Democrats, and gun control

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-webb-scots-irish-political-culture-democrats-and-gun-control/379885>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 10, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-webb-scots-irish-political-culture-democrats-and-gun-control/379885 "2006-11-10T17:11:09Z")\
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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-webb-scots-irish-political-culture-democrats-and-gun-control/379885/1 "2006-11-10T17:11:09Z")

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Our new junior senator from Virginia wrote an article about ethnicity and U.S. politics in 2004, he used these ideas to get elected, check it out-- [http://jameswebb.com/articles/wallstjrnl/scotsirishvote.htm](http://jameswebb.com/articles/wallstjrnl/scotsirishvote.htm)

That was an interesting article, and I think Webb understands quite well what he’s talking about. The main thing I get from it is the Democratic Party can woo the Scots-Irish as long as you don’t fuck with their guns. Number one dealbreaker is gun control, the rest is negotiable. I’m afraid we liberals will have to concede that gun control is a dead issue in America. We have to accept that, like Afghanistan, the USA is just going to be a country where the citizenry is bristling with firearms, and get used to it.

I say this as someone who deeply loathes guns and everything to do with them. The point at which Robert Anton Wilson lost me is when he proposed the Guns ‘n’ Drugs Party – which is like Libertarianism minus the bad economics. I was turned off by the guns part.

But if the Democrats would have a shot at wooing back the Scots-Irish type of voters by dropping gun control, I think they have to either take this deal or wither away. I hate to admit it, I held my nose when I voted for Webb, but I’m afraid he’s right. Andy Jackson was an evil bastard, but he forged the Democratic Party in the first place with Scots-Irish po-white southern highlanders as its core. Maybe the Dems shouldn’t forget their origins.

I say this as the great-granddaughter of Irish Catholic immigrants from Ulster to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some of my Irish-born ancestors who fought in the American Revolution were the first Catholic settlers west of the Alleghenies. Growing up Catholic in northern Ohio was a different world from what Webb describes, but it’s time to put the Protestant Reformation behind us already, heck, I’m not even Christian any more, so what does that old stuff matter? 🙂

Another article for Southern liberals to ponder-- [http://www.alternet.org/story/44085/](http://www.alternet.org/story/44085/)

One thing that got me about it, regarding Claire McCaskill’s success in Missouri–

> [@](#):
>
> Like Webb, she looked rural and Christian Right folks in the eye, asked for their votes, and told them where she stood without trimming the edges off her progressive views. And like Webb, she got more votes from those folks than any chart, graph, poll or wishful thought could have conjured up.

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