I agree that Dickey has contributed little, if anything, to this thread. Not because he has a different pov, but because he has no real voice, and his main purpose on Mudcat seems to be to stalk and harrass Bobert. Click on his name and read his posted messages. He is a 'knee-jerk' conservative. (Yes, there are knee-jerk conservatives just like there are knee-jerk liberals.) He posts links to, or cuts and pastes selected quotes from articles, usually, but not always, propoganda, or links to statistics that are questionable or taken out of context, and does his best, with some success, to provoke others, myself included, to react with angry, ill-considered words. He is a troll.

Most of his posts on other threads are of the same ilk-they are either links or cut-and-pastes with no indication of actual thoughtfulness or exploration of the topic, or they are challenges aimed at Bobert. He is playing games. He thinks he is playing 'Gotcha.' He is extremely manipulative in the way he posts. And very shallow. Notice how he avoids actually expressing or developing any thoughts or ideas. He is, however, a useful foil to react to and which most of the rest of us have used to continue to explore and discuss a number of very broad and important issues that touch on many aspects of our current society. In the absence of any truly intelligent and thoughtful conservative voice on this thread, we manage to use him well. I suspect there has been no intelligent and thoughtful conservative voice on this thread for the simple reason that truly intelligent and thoughtful philosophical conservatives also see what has happened in this country and don't generally disagree with the observations many of us have made about the socioeconomic realities we now face in the USA. A philosophically conservative individual is not the same creature as an 'I got mine, to hell with the rest of you' political conservative.

Having said all of that, I dislike the use of perjorative stereotypes, including 'redneck.' Being from the much maligned state of West Virginia, now living in North Carolina for the past 20 years, and having suffered myself from the the stereotypes people have of both southerners and West Virginians, I find the hackles on my neck rise at the term 'redneck' or 'southern man', or even 'Boss Hogg', unless they are used in quotes to denote that you are using them as generalizations and recognize them as such.

One of the ways whole socioeconomic classes of people are kept down, is through the manipulative use of stereotypes. I don't think the language of stereotypes serves anyone interested in social justice well.

End of sermon:>)

Janie