I moved south, to Chapel Hill, for graduate school and saw quickly they were still fighting the Civil War, 'down there' as they say -- a stereotype with truth to it. Only later did I comprehend it in its depth and perversion. After many trips to Johnston County, known for its Klan sympathies and backwardness, for my work I saw another layer of lawless rebellion. That they were still fighting the Reformation. As a product of Scots-Irish bigotry and belligerence, I surmised. Because life lacks meaning without hate.
By grace alone you are saved, they say, referencing a Catholic straw man, one who believed you could buy your way into heaven with indulgences. They saw Catholics as idolators, beset by superstition. Catholics did weird shit in their rituals with babies. Queue the QAnon. Order up some Pizza-gate. They make stuff up, embodying a confluence of militancy and a desire to be drones. Henchmen. Brownshirts. Enforcers. They are submissives with a belief in the inevitability and transcendence of violence.
In the sanctity of bullying and strife, essential activities of honor cultures.
In the service of hierarchy and exclusion. Pick a date for the emergence and formation of the Scottish and Scots-Irish mind. Enter the time portal. Stand amazed. Those attitudes persist undiluted and stronger than ever, from determination, orneriness and a need to feud. They have taken over the most powerful country on earth, elected goons and charlatans, and are going to blow it all up. There is no why. As distant, irrelevant, retrograde, anti-Christian and insane as it all seems it drives the events of today.
Meet the rednecks who are about to get us all killed.
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