Could it also be that Westerners have this love/hate relationship with the Federal government? Could it be the historical relationship of pillaging the lands for Eastern and Midwest industries while leaving the wreckage behind. Maybe it's because the West is tired of having it's resources and lands used and abused with little to show for it except scars and ghost towns. The boom-bust cycles of oil, uranium, coal, shale-oil, gold, molybdenum, and now natural gas.

The best example to explain the love/hate relationship Westerners have with Fed and all things east of the 100th Meridian is best summed up in the following books:

Western Paradox - Bernard DeVoto's contemporary history of the West in the 19th and 20th centuries and all it entails. His Course of Empire is also a must read.

Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey

Cadillac Desert - Marc Reisner

This is the dumbest article I've read this week.  Yeah, hillbilly good ol' boys are gonna start voting for effete, caffe latte sipping elitists.  And they're gonna start wearing dinner jackets and going to cocktail parties sipping tea with their pinkies extended.  Please.  They know full well what the fruity left is gonna do as soon as they get elected.  Eff open skies and prairies.  Communal living anyone?

Westerners are not hillbillies.  I  believe the hillbillies are in Appalachia?  A quick consultation of a map will help set you straight.

As far as your attempt to paint democrats as latte-sipping elitists, that is patently ridiculous.  Both Colorado and Wyoming have democratic governors.  Colorado has a democratic legislature.

I wouldn't want reality to intrude on your fantasy (or vicious, false, and stupid characterizations), but still...it exists.

The Patriot act and other intrusions of the feds into the private lives of citizens are alarming to people of the West.

jwl, I am pretty sure this was the only "article" you have read this week. When the hell have people from New Mexico or Colorado ever been referred to as hillbillies? In the end, your posting is pretty funny, how can anyone get offended by such idiocy?

I honestly think jwl is a performance artist.  So many stupid stereotypes in one post.  It has to be a joke, right?  Right?

singlespeed, thanks for the book reccomendations.  I've been wanting to read more about the west but really don't know where to start.  

I actually love this.

"And they're gonna start wearing dinner jackets and going to cocktail parties sipping tea with their pinkies extended"

And then they're going to wear pants!  Jackets.  What a bunch of homos.

jwl obviously isn't from the West. We don't have hillbilly good ol'boys unless they're Southern redneck Okie transplants.

Blacton...I think you might be on to something about this being the only "article" he/she has read this week. But read is the operative word.

jwl2672-

Speaking of dumb, did you really call westerners, "hillbilly good ol' boys"? We are not speaking of Appalachia. Colorado and New Mexico are full of mountains, not hills. Further, we are talking about the type of folk that belong to both the NRA and the ACLU. If you had really done any reading about the west, you would see that there has traditionally been Democratic governance there, and that the Democratic party has made gains there in the past eight years.

If you want to speak of elitists, let's look at your good old Yankee blue blood, George W. Bush. He and his party believe in the reckless redistribution of wealth from public lands to the wealthy. This includes, by the way, sweetheart deals given to Canadian firms to mine gold in Colorado, thereby bypassing environmental protection (it is hard to fine a company once it pulls out of the state) and sending the profits from the public's land to another country.

Hell, I should go easy on you as you think that people drink tea at cocktail parties (those are for drinking beer and booze, give it a try).

Singlespeed-

God Bless Edward Abbey. Hayduke Lives!

If the Edward Abbeys among us held plenipotentiary power, we would be back to the Pleistocene. No computers, guys and girls! And a few other things, too.

Awe liberal...

The beauty of Abbey is that he gets certain things right when it comes to being out of doors and "in the wild" of America. You truly can't appreciate the flora and fauna of the American West and Southwest if your goddamned ipod is permanently stuck in your ears. Not only that but I'll laugh hard when the mountain lion bites yer head off cause you were too busy rockin' out to Pearl Jam. There's a reason to get out there and enjoy the silence and solitude. Thankfully, 90% of campers don't travel more than 50 feet from their cars. Thank Greg Lowe for the internal frame backpack and the freedom to escape the yahoos back at the trail head.

There is a time and a place for technology in the wild. The problem is, most folks out there with their cell phones and GPS couldn't locate themselves on a map to begin with or their ass for that matter. And Abbey's cranky cantankerous attitude was as much about retaining the natural and wild nature of that landscape and also...I must agree...keeping as many unappreciative idiots out of the back country as possible. If you don't believe me then watch the nature lovers try to pet the buffalo in Yellowstone.

The previous post may have been an exaggeration of middle America but a good natured one.

I'm just pissed that my boy Dubya's face and name have been planted on every single negative article on TNR for the past 2 weeks.  It's incredible - news that's not even applicable to him directly is being published with a giant picture of his face on the top.  What the hell is this crap? For example, how many degrees of separation are there to connect Bush - big business - deals - land grab - libertarians??? Then there's the dignity and bioethics article today.  And a whole host of other articles on TNR.  Now W has never been a fan favorite of TNR but I've been sensing that for the past 2 weeks, TNR has been making it a point to dredge him up and plaster his face on every article to channel hatred or something.

JWL....Well see there you go trying to find out why TNR is dredging up bad things about Bush. But the thing is they don't have to dredge very far. I'd say this particular post is more about the ham-fisted domestic energy policy of the Bush administration as it relates to Western states. That they, Bush and Cheney, assumed that all Westerners would line up for the next energy boom was a gross miscalculation. Hell...even those effete coffee drinking ranchers are getting sick of having their land tore up by gas drilling rigs.

And stop insulting Westerners by saying they're part of middle America. We fought long and hard to get that 100th meridian placed just so and now you want to group them in with those corn-fed folks of Nebraska and Kansas? Them's fightin' words!

Singlespeed: Hey, I like rockin' out to Pearl Jam. I even insulted Eddie Vedder once, inadvertantly, of course. That was in 1996, here in Seattle, a story for another time. I agree about enjoying nature undistracted. Hey, speaking of Pearl Jam and Eddie V., they do a great rendition of Bob Marley's Redemption Song. Anyone interested can google the song name, the band, and Youtube and there you will have it.