In
Torquemadog's thread about Kansas Senator Pat Roberts,
The Leaking Bush asks "...please help me believe again that kansas isn't in fact the most well disguised black hole in our universe!"
As a Kansan who has been participating in liberal blogs for a while, all I have to say to this request is: No.
It's not that I'm unaware that Kansas is The Punchline State (tm). The state's reputation is something I have to deal with every day, just as I have to deal with the frightened, closed-minded conservatives I share the state with. But as a progressive I am often astonished at the hatred, intolerance and stereotypes blurted out by so-called tolerant lefties. They have decided that Kansas has no liberals, no progressives working towards improvement, nothing worthwhile, and in fact the state is the reason our country is in the mess we find ourselves in today.
One of Torquemadog's poll options was that everyone in Kansas should be ashamed of themselves for electing Roberts. As of right now, 53% of people voting agree. Other comments in the thread include accusations that all college-educated Kansans "check their intellect at the door" and vote Republican, the state hasn't progressed in the last 75 years, and the oblgatory "something's wrong with Kansas". These comments are nothing new. There's hardly a day where someone doesn't lay the problems of an entire country at Kansas' feet.
Roberts is not simply the fault of a single state. His brand of politics has little to do with Kansas; he was simply born here. Republicans are almost always guaranteed two valuable seats in the Senate thanks to Kansas, and as a result, Kansas Senators are often powerful people within their party.
Pat Roberts is a lying, unethical pawn of the Republicans. Obviously, I didn't vote for Roberts, even though he had no Democratic opposition in 2002. Roberts is not the senator from my district and he doesn't represent me on any level. Why should I be attacked for what Roberts has done when I oppose everything the man stands for? Even though I'm not in Roberts' district, I've let his office know many times how I feel about his actions, especially with the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I've been pointedly ignored by his staffers. Right now, there's not enough liberals to worry about, so all Roberts has to do is pretend I don't exist.
And he does it so well.
Something you need to remember is the conservativism you see in Roberts is not isolated to just Kansas or only red states. The reductionist notion that Kansas is at fault for much of the country's problems is assuredly comforting; how nice it is to claim the problems are nowhere near you, they're in far-off, mythical, podunk Kansas, and therefore someone else's problem. But just take a gander at our own Federal government. Roberts and Brownback are just two small tokens in the game of political corruption. You're sticking your head in the sand if you think someone from your state isn't also part of the game.
And if I'm guilty by association for Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback even though I didn't vote for them and don't support them, doesn't it follow that you're all at fault for Bush?
Thanks to blogs, mostly DK, I've been more active in politics in the last two years than I have ever been in my life. I always felt the progressive pool was big enough for anyone who wanted to jump in. But, you know, maybe that's a mistake. I'm like everyone else, I don't want to have to worry and fret and think about the government full-time. It would be so easy for me to just give up, knowing my state's going to vote red. Instead I've been talking, writing, participating and calling, trying to improve things, trying to make a difference.
When I see the way many of you have already judged me because of where I live, though, I wonder how worthwhile anything I do is. It's as though Kansans aren't welcome here because we've been designated the enemy. Kansas isn't good enough to save, is it? It's ruined beyond repair and the only purpose it can now serve is as a bad example.
It's tiring enough to fight against the conservative bigotry in Kansas; I don't have the energy to fight the bigotry on liberal blogs, too. Why should I spend my days trying to explain why a state matters when you've already made up your mind that it doesn't?
That's why I say to those who ask me to defend Kansas: No. Not anymore.