Redneck is a term that became popular in the early twentieth century used to describe a poor, uneducated, and agricultural white person of the American South. The term redneck is often used negatively as to describe a class difference amongst the whites in the antebellum and post antebellum South. Keeping in mind with the Southern racist ideology of the time that blacks are inferior to whites, rednecks were looked down upon, however they did have an advantage as a “poor white man will always be a white man.” While adversaries hurled the term redneck at them in derision, these people themselves received it with pride, often sporting red neckties as a sort of perverse badge of honor.

Long live the South — it’s where I was born and raised. Now? I’m stuck in merry old England for the last two years, and will probably be over here another year or two. But then, it’s back to Mississippi and once there, I ain’t stepping foot out of the South again!

Top Ten Signs You’re a Redneck

1. You keep the Hatfield and McCoy branches of your family tree in separate file cabinets.

2. Your last family reunion was videotaped for later broadcast on Cops.

3. You’ve spent years puzzling over Bo and Luke Duke’s family tree.

4. The banjo kid from Deliverance appears in all your family photos.

5. Your most precious family heirloom is the shotgun used at your grandparents’ wedding.

6. You were once kicked out of a Family History Center for spilling beer on the microfiche.

7. Your family history has a foreword by Larry the Cable Guy.

8. Your father’s gravestone came with a gun rack and an electronic singing fish.

9. Leading cause of death in your family: “Bit by a gator, then taken off by a twister.”

10. To save time, under “Bride’s Parents” on your marriage certificate the clerk wrote “Ditto.”

Missing the Good Old Days

When I was born Harry Truman was President and King George still sat on the throne in England. There were less than 3 billion people in the world and less than 140 million in America. Practically everything we had in our homes was made in America.

Not all of it was good. Gay people hid in the closet, blacks were discriminated against real bad and women (although treated with more respect back then) were treated like second class citizens and treated like they were to stupid to have an opinion.

What I miss about back then is common sense. Republicans like Barry Goldwater set the standard for Conservatives and the GOP loved America as much as the democrats and were willing to work “across party lines” for the common good. Back then toys meant board games and bikes, not sex toys and devices. And watching a show meant heading down to the local theater, not staring at wild gay video chat websites all night.

There was no need for a tea party revolt because Corporate America and rich folks paid a lot of taxes and we had good schools and highways and bridges and dams and nothing was crumbling or falling down.

Now damn near everything in my house is made in China or Mexico or Honduras or somewhere. The manufacturing has been moved overseas along with almost all the good paying middle class jobs and somehow the Republicans (those people masquerading as Republicans) have convinced everyone it’s the Democrats fault. It’s not the Democrats who shipped all the jobs overseas. It’s not the Democrats who voted to reduce corporate taxes down to damn near nothing. The so called Republicans did that. The GOP is no longer grand. It’s just old. Conservative values have been replaced by fanatical religious fanaticism, and the billionaires tell Congress what to do and they do it.

We are twice as big as we were when I was little. We need twice as many jobs, schools, hospitals. Bigger and better highways and rails. We can’t reduce government to what it was in 1950. Anybody who thinks we can is stupid. We have twice as many people. The government has grown with the demands of the population. It is not some left wing conspiracy. We need more efficient government, less waste, less pork barrel spending, less gazillion dollar planes. More common sense.

It is no longer “what’s the best thing for the country”. It’s what’s the best thing for the political donors. Congress is so busy keeping their jobs they no longer do their jobs. Social Security cap is nothing more than a huge tax break for the rich. Make it fair again and Social Securities problems disappear overnight. Make the rich pay what they used to pay when Eisenhower was President and we can afford to build something without borrowing the money. Our military families won’t need food stamps. Our middle class (what’s left of it) will get a tax break instead of the super rich. Who do you think needs a tax break more?

Now I don’t care if you vote for Trump or Hillary. It’s America and it’s up to you to decide what’s best. But something needs to be done pretty soon. We need some common sense back in Congress. We need people who love America making decisions not corporate whores. We need some real republicans with real conservative values to work with the democrats for the good of the country. Not special interest groups.

We need schools that have heat in the winter and cooling in the warm weather. We need teachers who are smart and know how to teach and want to help young people learn. We need to make sure all our kids get enough to eat. Need to quit worrying about Syria and all that crap and start taking an interest in America’s problems.