The Coasts Vs. the "Real" America

I've heard a lot of something that just, let's face it, pisses me off. I heard it again today. That the people from the middle of the country and the south are somehow better, or more "American" (whatever that means) or more "moral" (whatever THAT means) than those of us on the coast. There was apparently even a plot afoot with the Hillary Clinton campaign to attack Barak Obama for being less in touch with "American values" (whatever THOSE are), being from Hawaii.

So, I've decided that, being a West-coast intellectual elitist, (I'm smoking a pipe and drinking tea as I write this, I swear to God) that I would approach these questions in an intellectual and logical fashion.

The first thing that I'd like to approach is education. It kind of tickles me and kind of terrifies me that a group of college-educated intellectuals have convinced working-class people (among whom I count myself) that it is somehow BAD to be a college-educated intellectual. How does that work? If I have a college education (which I don't, I state with neither pride nor shame) and I try to tell you that people with college educations are bad, why the hell would you listen to me? Doesn't that make ME bad, since I have a college education?

So, let's see who has the most education. (All numbers presented in this blog entry are percents, by the way, so they are not based on population, but rather percentage of available population. So 25% of a state with a low population like Alaska is the same as 25% of a state with a high population like New York. Also, all of the statistical "by state" figures that I found included DC, which I will disallow. DC is not a state.)

The five states with the highest percentage of college graduates are Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Virginia and New Hampshire. All coastal states except Colorado. The five states with the lowest percentage of college graduates are West Virginia, my home state of Arkansas, Mississippi, Wyoming and Nevada. All southern states except Wyoming (which still considers itself mid-country) and Nevada. Wait a minute? Who gets Nevada? It's not coastal. The "righteous" people in the middle of the country don't want it because of the modern Sodom of Las Vegas, and it's not southern. Oh, well, it boarders California, so I guess that we'll claim it as part of the west coast.

So the coasts are better educated. Take that for what you will.

So how about more "American"? More "Patriotic"? Well, if you measure patriotism by blind allegiance to Mr. Bush and his agenda, then I would have to say that the south wins. I mean, when I was visiting my folks in Arkansas, every truck stop, every waiting room that I was in that had a TV was tuned to the propaganda of Fox News. So obviously, in the south, there is no God but George W. Bush and Bill O'Reilly is his prophet.

But how about we gauge it by a different yardstick? How about if we judge it by the yardstick of voting? Actually getting off of your ass and going to the polls on election day?

The five states with the highest voter turnout in presidential elections are Minnesota, Maine, Wisconsin, Alaska and Vermont. Three coastal and two middle. NO southern states make that cut. The highest voter turnout in a southern state is Louisiana with 54%. The five states with the lowest voter turnout are Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, Nevada and Georgia. One coast, one middle, two southern and Nevada. Does that mean that college-educated people tend to vote less? Interesting thought. Or maybe the Nevadans are simply too busy gambling to vote. Not sure.

So the south and the middle of the country votes less than the coasts. Is there a better rubric for measuring patriotism? By the way, a note to my loved one in Kansas who frets that no matter WHAT she and the other liberal-minded people in Kansas do, the Republicans will still carry the state… only 54% of Kansas' population tends to vote. A little more than half. I wonder what will happen if all of the liberals, bikers and hippies in Kansas decide to get out and vote, and add their voices to the few liberals who DO vote in your state? I think that you'll change that state from red to blue awfully fast.

Now for the real sticky wicket – "morals".

It's really almost impossible to judge morality, so the yardsticks that I'll be using to measure this will be abortion rates, divorce rates, and teen pregnancy rates.

The states with the five highest abortion rates are New York, Delaware, Florida, Nevada and Rhode Island. All coastal (although the south also claims Florida) except… shit, there's Nevada again. What is WITH this state?

The states with the five lowest abortion rates are South Dakota, West Virginia, Colorado, Kentucky and Idaho. All middle or southern.

So the coasts have a higher abortion rate than the middle of the country and the south.

Before we look at divorce, let's list the states where homosexual marriage is legal, since the conservatives insist that legalizing homosexual marriage presents a threat to heterosexual marriage. If you're gay and you want to get married, go to California, New Jersey, New York or Massachusetts, all coastal states.

So, with that in mind, the five states with the highest rates of divorce are Nevada (no big surprise there, I think), my home state of Arkansas, Alaska, Oklahoma (where the divorces presumably come whistling down the plains), and Wyoming. One coastal, two southern, one middle and… yes… Nevada. So I would say that the biggest threat to heterosexual marriage is being an Arkansan. (I'm not counting Nevada in that because of the number of people from other states who go to Nevada for a "quickie" divorce.)

The five states with the lowest divorce rates are Massachusetts (one of the states where gay marriage is legal has the lowest divorce rate – go figure), Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Illinois, with Iowa and Connecticut tied for fifth lowest. Three coastal, three middle.

So people in the south tend to get divorced the most – the people on the coast tend to get divorced the least.

Teen pregnancy rates are tough. People on the coast tend to be less embarrassed by teen pregnancy than people elsewhere, and therefore more tolerant of it. But let's see what the number say…

The five states with the highest teen pregnancy rates (or, more accurately, teen birth rates) are Texas, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arizona and my home state of Arkansas. What do you know? One list that Nevada didn't make. Yet. Let's check the lowest.

The five states with the lowest teen pregnancy (birth) rates are New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. ALL coastal states. So… does that mean that our girls tend to get pregnant less, or have more abortions? Hard to say, since none of the statistics ..ion tend to line up with the stats on teen birth rate.

My adopted state of Washington tends to fall at or near the middle of every single one of these statistics. God, I love Washington. We should change our slogan to "If you're moderate, you should move here."

So now, with that to chew over, can we please drop this coast vs. middle and south thing once and for all? It doesn't really mean anything, it just serves to further divide an already seriously divided country. Thanks.

Peace.

Randal