In places like Appalachia, a college degree can ostrisize from your family almost analogously as coming out of the closet, or so I've been told by one of my fellow former grad students. It's really that weird and that divided.

There is this weird assumption that rural lands believe the cities are sustained on welfare, when in reality those who live or have lived there know how really really hard it is to make money AND make a living. Poor crappy welfare neighborhoods are something that people try their damndest to avoid, and leave when given the opportunity.

I don't think the rural folk can grasp how gray and diverse the urban life is ... the dynamic of our jobs and our interpersonal relationships that draw on a spectrum of emotions, creeds, aggreements, and disaggreements. Ones religion has about as much to do with daily discourse as ones participation in rec basketball (I guess that's what I miss) Rural folk believe in this "liberal ideology". When historically, it may never have really existed. Liberals are really good at disagreeing amongst themselves and are in general agreement that they are not republicans. Republican minded people seem to like "leaders" and "agenda" and to "get things done" when they are truely seem to be buzz words for lets start a war. It's almost easier for them to have a few ideas, and "cling" to them than to try to wrap their mind around the diversity that is the fictitious "liberal agenda".