Republican Small Town Values

P Z Myers' view of what Republicans really mean by "Small Town Values".

The ones the Republicans are worshipping seem to be the narrow insularity verging on xenophobia, the judgmental meddling in other people's affairs, the backward-looking reverence for the good old days (which actually weren't that good), the worship of ignorance, the easy way authority can personally intrude on people's lives without oversight, except by a coterie of good old boys. They seem to overlook the schools in neglect, the churches sprouting everywhere like poisonous mushrooms, the alcoholism, the spousal abuse, the kids who just want to get through high school and flee to a city where something is happening, the elderly piling up and outnumbering the young and being shuffled off to cheap complexes, the despair of people caught in dead-end menial jobs with few prospects for going beyond. That's also small town America, and when I hear a Republican singing the praises of small towns, I have visions of a walmartized wasteland where everyone goes to church. It's not good.