Swap out 'frightened' with 'prospering', and 'fearful' with 'doing just fine and mean to hold what I got', read through #10 again, and you've got Oklahoma in a nutshell. I love it here. Best folks I ever had the honor to call neighbors, and some of the most frustrating (!)
Seven gives me a kind of warm-fuzzy in one big way, because the signaling of virtues is just about the first thing anyone in the Five State Area can spot, from the age of five or so, that gives away whatever game it is you're tryin' to play here, and mostly that sort of thing is just ignored as the virtue-signaler keeps playing it on themselves. Nobody likes to be around nor knows how else to act when somebody they got no business with is spoutin' off, so it isn't really happening. Astonishing, the degree to which a person may be simply absented from a scene without ever moving an inch, around here. Don't encourage them, nothin' to do with us, he'll just move along onaccounta he ain't gettin' the attention he wants. It's actually quite a civilizing trait as an everyday code of etiquette observed by (nearly) all, and I've come to admire it and thrive in it. But damned if it ain't frustratin to try and get past it, when you have a point and you have to make it but first you gotta capture folks' interest in it. If it's not any of their business, why are you bothering them? My grandson is eight years old and he knows better'n to act all high and mighty with folks. Grow up.
Fourth (and I love the serendipity here: a Letterman-list meets the Bill of Rights) folks around here simply assume that government is acting in some best interest, ours or theirs unknown, but that whatever it's up to it's got good reason and can prove it, so don't even go there, son, 'cause you're gonna lose. Probable cause? What's that got to do with anything? Pay your fine and get back to work. You're boring us.
Five is kind of a weird one the way it plays out: people mostly never lay that bet in the first place any more. To assert is to argue, to argue is to make a scene, to make a scene is to incite judgment and gossip and social re-alignment, and one best just not go around overdoin' it with all this assertin' of thangs. 'The Cowboys are gonna nail it Sunday' (Dallas or college gridiron, take your pick) is an appropriate assertion. 'Yes, hello, I'd like to speak with the right officer of the State so I may petition them for redress,' isn't. Who says that? Get real.
Science locates the precise center of a 640-acre field in order to install an irrigation device in the right spot, seems to have somethin' to do with that back-talky computer that operates folks' cars for them, just don't know what it's a-talkin about or else is lyin' about this Global Warning or whatever they're callin' it now, and science was boring in high school. Sports and the opposite sex were a mot more interesting and still are.
Well, from out here in red-state Flyoveria, the big goose-egg that springs to mind for me is that most folks are just plain naive.
Number One, most folks are content to follow the trends and customs handed down from the high courts of social media, and their religion of choice or habit, and the inner culture of their workplaces, focusing (to their enduring and exemplary credit) mainly on family matters all the while, and assume that those who do have access to power must be using it for law and order, and liberty and justice for all, more or less, because those in power belong to the same Party, and we know a lot of them from church. They're good folks down there, they mean well, and they're probably getting it right (more or less, wink-nudge)
Two, conservatives, at least the more well-off ones, and I speak from a neighborhood where I don't know anyone in a hundred miles less well-off than me, and do regard myself as at least a conservative in spirit if not in politics, also have strong authoritarian tendencies, but of an entirely different sort. Call it skipper-ism, or letter-of-the-law-ism, or pay-grade-ism, hierarchalism, whatever you like, but who's in charge is who's in charge and one does as instructed by them, and no back-talk. The trick, for entry into where all this 'liberty and justice for all' are supposed to dwell, is not to allow oneself to be under the thumb of power any more than necessary but when one is, play the part, recite the script, execute one's orders, and if need be, run it by your family attorney or office counsel or brother-in-law who's a partner with the third biggest firm in the state, to make sure. Quiet, folksy, neighbors-wavin' provincial imperialism is alive and well out here, and our State Government run mostly by Southern Baptists and Catholic-school elitists, simply is not interested in what the people's concerns are, unless these seem to align with the Party's. And not unlike New York State, out here where the wind comes sweepin' down the Plains, we only have one Party, too. The Elephant in the Room owns the room, and runs everything.
3. The internet as a whole, before or since the emergence of its mobile capabilities, has certainly not made these fine folks around here any the wiser about the laws governing government, even less so their own rights of petition upon it to seek the redress of grievances. (where did I see that?) Here, what that means is basically, call your congressman, call some office if need be and make a formal report, maybe talk it over the with the local paper or somebody and see if they think there's a story (to rival Saturday's upcoming parade and whatnot), certainly call your lawyer if you have one and can afford that hundred dollar fee for some hems and haws and knowingful comments about a judge's predispositions , and then STFU. You've kinda gone overboard a little there anyway, and folks is reluctant to take that kind of thing seriously. (Update: If you haven't made your pitch, 21C-style, in under four seconds.) Don't make a fool of yourself, because we'll have to change the subject to save the moment and then gossip about your mental instabilities and obvious personal issues behind your back. Type-a thang.
Masses are held Sunday mornings, for our (ahem) good friends of the Vatican persuasion who aren't Southern Baptists like us, but it's all good because here in the Christian Nation of Oklahoma, nobody even knows what Black-and-Tan means, and nobody knows anything about Henry the Eighth other'n he was fat and had a lotta wives. Long live King State. Praise Jesus.
#* in Clayton's list is precisely on point and I don't have a thing to add to it. Other than how the ways such a mindset plays out in conservative rural surroundings is a tad different. But I assure you, these fine folks (the younger the more so) have already and long since plugged themselves into a planetary system which requires and acquires much from them, and gives them back more illusion than reality, and no, they didn't read the terms and conditions first, either, before signing on. So they have no clear concept of what it is they're really dealing with, much less how to uphold their own liberties against it, any more than liberals do. Nary a whit. It's just all too complicated, and boring, and pointless, to even try.
Swap out 'frightened' with 'prospering', and 'fearful' with 'doing just fine and mean to hold what I got', read through #10 again, and you've got Oklahoma in a nutshell. I love it here. Best folks I ever had the honor to call neighbors, and some of the most frustrating (!)
(where was I?)
Seven gives me a kind of warm-fuzzy in one big way, because the signaling of virtues is just about the first thing anyone in the Five State Area can spot, from the age of five or so, that gives away whatever game it is you're tryin' to play here, and mostly that sort of thing is just ignored as the virtue-signaler keeps playing it on themselves. Nobody likes to be around nor knows how else to act when somebody they got no business with is spoutin' off, so it isn't really happening. Astonishing, the degree to which a person may be simply absented from a scene without ever moving an inch, around here. Don't encourage them, nothin' to do with us, he'll just move along onaccounta he ain't gettin' the attention he wants. It's actually quite a civilizing trait as an everyday code of etiquette observed by (nearly) all, and I've come to admire it and thrive in it. But damned if it ain't frustratin to try and get past it, when you have a point and you have to make it but first you gotta capture folks' interest in it. If it's not any of their business, why are you bothering them? My grandson is eight years old and he knows better'n to act all high and mighty with folks. Grow up.
Fourth (and I love the serendipity here: a Letterman-list meets the Bill of Rights) folks around here simply assume that government is acting in some best interest, ours or theirs unknown, but that whatever it's up to it's got good reason and can prove it, so don't even go there, son, 'cause you're gonna lose. Probable cause? What's that got to do with anything? Pay your fine and get back to work. You're boring us.
Five is kind of a weird one the way it plays out: people mostly never lay that bet in the first place any more. To assert is to argue, to argue is to make a scene, to make a scene is to incite judgment and gossip and social re-alignment, and one best just not go around overdoin' it with all this assertin' of thangs. 'The Cowboys are gonna nail it Sunday' (Dallas or college gridiron, take your pick) is an appropriate assertion. 'Yes, hello, I'd like to speak with the right officer of the State so I may petition them for redress,' isn't. Who says that? Get real.
Science locates the precise center of a 640-acre field in order to install an irrigation device in the right spot, seems to have somethin' to do with that back-talky computer that operates folks' cars for them, just don't know what it's a-talkin about or else is lyin' about this Global Warning or whatever they're callin' it now, and science was boring in high school. Sports and the opposite sex were a mot more interesting and still are.
Well, from out here in red-state Flyoveria, the big goose-egg that springs to mind for me is that most folks are just plain naive.
Number One, most folks are content to follow the trends and customs handed down from the high courts of social media, and their religion of choice or habit, and the inner culture of their workplaces, focusing (to their enduring and exemplary credit) mainly on family matters all the while, and assume that those who do have access to power must be using it for law and order, and liberty and justice for all, more or less, because those in power belong to the same Party, and we know a lot of them from church. They're good folks down there, they mean well, and they're probably getting it right (more or less, wink-nudge)
Two, conservatives, at least the more well-off ones, and I speak from a neighborhood where I don't know anyone in a hundred miles less well-off than me, and do regard myself as at least a conservative in spirit if not in politics, also have strong authoritarian tendencies, but of an entirely different sort. Call it skipper-ism, or letter-of-the-law-ism, or pay-grade-ism, hierarchalism, whatever you like, but who's in charge is who's in charge and one does as instructed by them, and no back-talk. The trick, for entry into where all this 'liberty and justice for all' are supposed to dwell, is not to allow oneself to be under the thumb of power any more than necessary but when one is, play the part, recite the script, execute one's orders, and if need be, run it by your family attorney or office counsel or brother-in-law who's a partner with the third biggest firm in the state, to make sure. Quiet, folksy, neighbors-wavin' provincial imperialism is alive and well out here, and our State Government run mostly by Southern Baptists and Catholic-school elitists, simply is not interested in what the people's concerns are, unless these seem to align with the Party's. And not unlike New York State, out here where the wind comes sweepin' down the Plains, we only have one Party, too. The Elephant in the Room owns the room, and runs everything.
3. The internet as a whole, before or since the emergence of its mobile capabilities, has certainly not made these fine folks around here any the wiser about the laws governing government, even less so their own rights of petition upon it to seek the redress of grievances. (where did I see that?) Here, what that means is basically, call your congressman, call some office if need be and make a formal report, maybe talk it over the with the local paper or somebody and see if they think there's a story (to rival Saturday's upcoming parade and whatnot), certainly call your lawyer if you have one and can afford that hundred dollar fee for some hems and haws and knowingful comments about a judge's predispositions , and then STFU. You've kinda gone overboard a little there anyway, and folks is reluctant to take that kind of thing seriously. (Update: If you haven't made your pitch, 21C-style, in under four seconds.) Don't make a fool of yourself, because we'll have to change the subject to save the moment and then gossip about your mental instabilities and obvious personal issues behind your back. Type-a thang.
(continued)
Proposed anthem for the Christian Nation of Oklahoma:
Ya don't tug on Superman's cape,
ya don't spit into the wind,
you don't pull..the mask off th, ol' Lone Ranger,
an ya don't mess aroun' with Them.
[J Croce]
(hands on hearts, gazing flagsward)
For They are, after all, The Law.
Masses are held Sunday mornings, for our (ahem) good friends of the Vatican persuasion who aren't Southern Baptists like us, but it's all good because here in the Christian Nation of Oklahoma, nobody even knows what Black-and-Tan means, and nobody knows anything about Henry the Eighth other'n he was fat and had a lotta wives. Long live King State. Praise Jesus.
#* in Clayton's list is precisely on point and I don't have a thing to add to it. Other than how the ways such a mindset plays out in conservative rural surroundings is a tad different. But I assure you, these fine folks (the younger the more so) have already and long since plugged themselves into a planetary system which requires and acquires much from them, and gives them back more illusion than reality, and no, they didn't read the terms and conditions first, either, before signing on. So they have no clear concept of what it is they're really dealing with, much less how to uphold their own liberties against it, any more than liberals do. Nary a whit. It's just all too complicated, and boring, and pointless, to even try.