Why are you attacking me? Take it up with Newsweek magazine, which I believe is still a liberal publication.
I'm not "attacking" you. But I am taking issue with the slant that the article put on their article and that you chose to put in your header: "Parts of the country with strong economic growth. Conspicuously absent are any 'blue' states." And since their change of ownership, new editor, and widespread replacement of their writers, who knows what Newsweek is any more? I don't--I haven't read it for a long time now.
But I did take issue with that slant. Here, for example, are lists of states by median and per capita income. The top spots are dominated by blue states, the bottom spots are dominated by red states:
en.wikipedia.org
That isn't just a "stereotype," Kate. Some red states are pretty wealthy, many aren't. Alaska is pretty wealthy, measured per capita--that is because they essentially have nationalized their energy natural resources, taxed it heavily, and give some of the money to their residents. And they have had a Congressman and a Senator who have been among the biggest purveyors of pork in Congress over the past couple of decades in Don Young and Ted Stevens, and have managed over that time to get more money per capita than the great majority of Congressional delegations. Good Republican conservatives in Alaska. Is it rude of me to point this out? If so, is there a more polite way of doing it? I am not trying to get on your case specifically here, but yeah, I was trying to point out that that article was simplifying things in silly, unhelpful ways.
Here is one list of rankings of state educational system:
statemaster.com
The top states are dominated by blue states, the bottom by red states. Not that any one list actually means very much, and I just pulled it out from google. I am pretty sure I could find plenty of lists that would support it, though, if I bothered to look.
You think I have stereotyped the south--but that is part of what I was arguing against in that post. I have lived in the south or in Appalachia very close to the south for half of my life, including the Deep South (North Carolina--specifically Durham-Chapel Hill, one of the areas that the article claimed was "red"). I'm not a stranger to it, I know southerners pretty well, and I know a lot of the problems of the south. The article said "Be prepared to wear red" as though the places that it mentioned were all "red" areas. I was pointing out that that simply wasn't true, that there were some very blue areas listed there, however the state as a whole may have voted in recent elections (and, as I said earlier, VA and NC have a mixed record, they are both trending at least purple, and in another decade they may be blue states).
I don't think I'm clinging to stereotypes at all, I think you are being defensive here. And I do not mean to offend you when I say that. |
