Cognitive Dissonance and the Deep South

For the last week or so, I have been running around the southeastern US.
The region strikes me as a hotbed of cognitive dissonance. There is a
disconnect between what the locals will tell you is right and where the
facts actually are. After the recent chemical spills related to coal
mining that affected the drinking water in parts of the south, one would
expect that there would be an outcry condemning coal mining. There are
still residents of Charleston WV who will not drink the water weeks
after they have been told the chemicals have been completely flushed
from the system. And yet, these same people will tell you that coal is
the best thing we have for generating energy, and are still staunchly
opposed to any government regulations that might cost the coal companies
money.

This disconnect is not limited to coal. They consistently vote against
their own interests. The south is one of the poorest regions of the
country, and yet they tend to vote for the Republican agenda of cutting
taxes and cutting programs that help the poor. They are usually opposed
to the Affordable Care Act, though it helps them get the health care
they need. They will call it socialized medicine, not realizing that it
is a big boon to private insurers. They insist that Medicare stays as
it is, even though Medicare is a socialized medicine program.

They are opposed to abortion and birth control. This in states where
teen pregnancy is the highest in the land. This in states where poverty
is rampant, and family planning services would do the most good.
Mississipi has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the US and
one of the highest poverty rates.

The region is also called the Bible Belt. Some of the places seem to
have a church on every other corner. They also have a bar or adult
bookstore on every opposite corner. Don't get me wrong, bars and adult
bookstores are good things to have in a well-adjusted society. However,
having so many of them right by so many churches that preach against
them seems a bit hypocritical, especially when many who patronize one
also attend the other.

Someone needs to reach out and try to educate them so they can learn to
use reason.

I miss my wife

Trucking can be lonely. I just came back out from four days at home, and
already I miss my wife. I miss her smile. I miss the way she curls up
with the cat on one side and me on the other. I miss hearing her sleep
next to me. We spend hours on the phone every day just keeping in touch.

Trucking is definitely not for everyone. It takes someone very special
to put up with the long times I am away from home, and it takes a great
deal of patience to be out on the road. There are the stresses of the
job, from dealing with rush hour traffic in three cities over two states
in one day to waiting hours and sometimes days for your trailer to be
loaded or unloaded. Even with everything I must deal with on the road,
she needs to take heroic measures to maintain our home, from dealing
with all the bills because I can't get the mail to calling repair people
when things break. Too many things happen that would be easy if I were
there, but are difficult because I am out driving the truck.

Because she is so wonderful to me, I try to do little things to bring
out that smile I miss so much. One of my hobbies is knitting, and I
am making her a pair of socks.

Signs on the highway

As I travel through the country, I see a lot of billboards advertising
everything. I see ads for television shows and fast food restaurants.
There are signs extolling the virtues of this soft drink, or that beer.
All of this advertising is a common and expected part of the landscape
in 21st century America. However, about every 50 or so miles, I see a
billboard with a religious message.

Of course, thanks to the freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment to the
US constitution, the people placing the billboards have every right to
put their messages up there. I am not saying they should be removed. I
sometimes find them entertaining. I chuckle to myself about the sheer
arrogance that these protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists are
displaying. Once in a while, the sign has a Catholic slant, but by
and large, they display a fundamentalist protestant worldview. They are
attempts at proseletyzing, which is the mandate that these types of
Christians follow. The arrogance comes in when you realize that the
messages on the billboards begin by assuming that the viewer already
believes in the Abrahamic god, and they just need to be told how to find
Jesus. These people forget that 3 in 10 Americans do NOT believe in
their god. Do they really think that all it takes to convince an atheist
or a pagan or a hindu to convert is to say "Jesus Loves You"? I don't
think so.

One variant of the message is the "God Bless America" type of message.
The arrogance shown by these billboards is the assumption that in
order to be a good citizen of the US, one must believe in god. It tends
to relegate any non-christian into second class status. They truly
seem to think that it is not possible to be a good American without a
belief in the Abrahamic deity. They forget that the "In God We Trust"
motto has only been there since the 1950s. The motto that has been there
since the founding of the country is "E Pluribus Unum", or, from many,
one. The pledge of allegiance was written by a baptist minister and did
NOT include the phrase "under god", because he recognized that his
freedom to worship as he believed applied to all people, including those
who had no religious beliefs.

The other variant I frequently see is the anti-abortion billboard. The
arrogance there is the insistence that the bible is absolutely against
abortion. News flash for the fundamentalists: the bible does not mention
abortion. The closest thing it gets is in the old testament where it
speaks of the penalty to be paid when a man assaults a pregnant woman.
The punishment if the woman dies is death by stoning. The punishment
if it only causes a miscarriage is a fine paid to the woman's husband.
Kill a pregnant woman: capital murder. Kill an unborn baby: property
damage. A lot of these billboards provide a toll free number for a young
pregnant woman to call for help. How much help is being provided? You
can bet that the only help will be a free pregnancy test and pressure
to keep the baby or give it up for adoption. None of them would give
real medical and financial assistance to these young women who need it.
None of them would mention abortion except to pressure the young woman
to avoid that at all costs. Nothing would be done to ensure that the
woman makes the right decision for all concerned, and nothing would be
done to help the woman deal with the consequences of her decision.

I feel there is a need to advertise reason. More needs to be done to
show people that there is a better way, that they can think for
themselves. They do not have to rely on an imaginary being to tell them
how to live their lives. They can take responsibility for themselves.