![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Today on Facebook I stumbled across a community called SoundOff McPherson where people from my hometown discuss political issues.
It makes me really glad I don't live there anymore. At what point did the easygoing kids I went to school with turn into insular, reactionary right wingers? I almost hate using that term because it makes me sound like I'm exactly the kind of liberal I hate who equates right wing with evil. Truthfully, I can tolerate people of dissenting political opinion as long as they show that they're capable of arguing intelligently. But my hometown friends, they're over there spouting stuff that's only about one degree removed from Birther rhetoric. I feel bad for the handful of liberal/centerist types I see in there whose every comment brings them about twenty flames from the right wing side.
I love the town where I grew up, but it's always contained this undercurrent of meanness and small-mindedness. That probably sounds like I think small town folk are stupid. They're not. No, I'm talking about a certain local culture that seems to take pride in ignorance and stand-offishness. That's something that can exist in the heart of a city as easily it can in the heart of wheat fields. McPherson just seems to have it so strongly for a town where incomes are higher than average for a town of its size.
What's sad is I'm thinking about joining the community because whoever runs it really is trying to engage the townsfolk in meaningful political dialogue and is putting some very intriguing and under-reported news articles on the table. *sigh* It's my town and I love it. I've just learned it's easier to love it from a distance.
It makes me really glad I don't live there anymore. At what point did the easygoing kids I went to school with turn into insular, reactionary right wingers? I almost hate using that term because it makes me sound like I'm exactly the kind of liberal I hate who equates right wing with evil. Truthfully, I can tolerate people of dissenting political opinion as long as they show that they're capable of arguing intelligently. But my hometown friends, they're over there spouting stuff that's only about one degree removed from Birther rhetoric. I feel bad for the handful of liberal/centerist types I see in there whose every comment brings them about twenty flames from the right wing side.
I love the town where I grew up, but it's always contained this undercurrent of meanness and small-mindedness. That probably sounds like I think small town folk are stupid. They're not. No, I'm talking about a certain local culture that seems to take pride in ignorance and stand-offishness. That's something that can exist in the heart of a city as easily it can in the heart of wheat fields. McPherson just seems to have it so strongly for a town where incomes are higher than average for a town of its size.
What's sad is I'm thinking about joining the community because whoever runs it really is trying to engage the townsfolk in meaningful political dialogue and is putting some very intriguing and under-reported news articles on the table. *sigh* It's my town and I love it. I've just learned it's easier to love it from a distance.
