why do most red states have low incomes levels while

[pstokely]

most of the blue states have high income levels?

[sasquatch]

1. Because they're apathetic sheep and do what they're told without...

questioning it. Let's take the south for example. The south has "Right to work states" so you can't have a union so the boss pay's you next to nothing and treats you the same. Henceforth wealth is concentrated to the rich and the poor can go straight to hell. "Middle Class expansion?" "Fuck that we've got non-white people to hate" and that's how it is and will be for another 30 years I'm afraid.

[Rocinante]

2. Very astute observation

now I must check with the straw boss to see if I can reply. Yippee! He says since I'm a red neck Southerner go for it.

[rucky]

7. Ya think they might be red because we don't respect them?

n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Income level correlates with education.

The more educated/intelligent you are, the less likely you are to be politically or socially conservative. QED.

[Rocinante]

4. Please give me something to go on here

this is too good to ignore.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Don't have statistics available, BUT...

education broadens one's awareness of the world, and makes one aware of ways of thinking that are not one's own. Knowledge leads, if not always to understanding, in most cases at least to tolerance. Something that most politically/socially conservative people have in common: relatively lower levels of education, greater group insularity (dividing the world into "us vs. them", with a disdainful or hostile view of those seen as "deviants", "outsiders", etc), spurning of rational intellectual enquiry in favour of "tradition" and "common sense"; and the list goes on. I'm sure you've probably noticed at least some of this.

[Rocinante]

9. Well

that can be said of any little pocket in the USA. The original post, in a roundabout way tried to make the South into the ignorance capital of the country. I've traveled all over the country, and I must tell you ignorance, poverty, conservatism, liberalism, hostile views of deviants or outsiders, and common sense aren't owned by any one region of our country.
Of course education broadens one's awareness of the world, but it may also enforce the traditions of the world that person came from.

[ClintonTyree]

10. I think if you check statistics..............

you'll find southern schools at the bottom of the pack nationwide. Coincidence? My hypothesis in a nutshell, they like to keep them ignorant and maleable in the south. Before you jump all over me, I LIVE in the south. South central Florida, and it doesn't get any more red-neck than this place. It seems to me that the school systems are designed to ensure failure and unpreparedness of the students. Just my $0.02.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Yeah, BUT...

red states vs. blue states: blue states tend to be much more urbanised (or have a higher percentage of their population living in urban areas). Ex: NY, CA, IL, MA...eight million in NYC alone, another 8M in metro area; LA & SF metro combined probably something on the order of 10-12M; Chicago, 5M in the metro area...and I think you'll find that higher education/income and urban living correlate to a large degree. Most of the "red" states are more rural, agricultural areas...more "backward", to be perfectly impolite. (I live in GA, and the entire state is more or less a redneck backwater outside of Atlanta and Savannah.)

[Hieronymus]

8. Tuesday morning on

Washington Journal a man called from Shreveport stating that Muslims have never contributed anything to the world, EVER.
We, who read, know better. The man he directed this idiocy at corrected him, thank God.
:dunce:

[Maine Mary]

12. I heard that guy.

Whatta knucklehead. The scary thing is that he wasn't the only one. Did you hear the one who said he "didn't know much about Muslims and didn't want to know either" implying that they are ALL terrorists. Even if that were the case, I would think it'd be all the more important to learn as much as possible. He seemed MAD at the guest just because he had written a book about Islam. Oh yeah, like sticking our heads in the sand is going to solve anything. :eyes:

Also shocking were how many people who beleived God and Allah were two different deities.

I wish I had payed closer attention to where those jokers were calling from. I'm willing to bet they were mostly from red States.

[Booberdawg]

5. I'd like to see some evidence of income levels in red and blue

states first

[ScreamingMeemie]

11. Me too. I'm in a blue state.

It ain't raining cash on my house yet, and there sure do seem to be a lot of for sale signs going up lately...and a heck of a lot of us get paid by the hour....

[tarkus]

14. People in industrialized areas are more aware of what is going on...

The poor workers that live in the cities are more left wing than the poor farmers in the country, but they live fairly close to their reactionary bosses. The bosses raise the income levels of the area but dont affect the vote.