The Goodness that is the United States

Take a moment to look closely at the accompanying map.  It depicts on a county-by-county basis the results of November's Presidential election.  It shows in varying shades of red and blue, the percentage by which President Obama and Mitt Romney carried each county.  The map is both interesting and hopeful in a subtle yet profound way.

The Red (Republican) counties clearly dominate the Blue (Democrat) counties - and deep Red is more prevalent than deep Blue.  Barack Obama won a second term on the backs of high population counties in the East, Midwest and West.

I was reminded of this map last night while watching Paper Clips, a movie about the good people of Whitwell Tennessee. 

The Paper Clip Project grew out of a study of the Holocaust at the Whitwell Middle School.  When a student asked "how big is six million [the number of Jews killed] really," the teachers decided to see if they could collect paper clips - six million of them.  They did and in the process created a Holocaust museum and memorial to the six million Jews and five million others - Catholics, homosexuals, the handicapped who were similarly incinerated.  Eleven million paper clips and an old box car used to transport Jews to the concentration camps.  Whitwell, a town of around 1,500 in what is commonly referred to "fly over country" was changed forever.  

"Fly over country" - Red counties - where the people, in the patronizing words of our President, "cling to their guns and Bibles."  What was supposed to be derision is really a complement.  These are good people; folks who understand goodness and redemption better than many elitists in the Blue states.

The map also reminds me of the people I have met in the small towns in Eastern Oregon. As an avid cyclist, I undertook my first sojourn into these small communities with mild apprehension.  "Rednecks and nabobs" were my expectations. Clad in gaudy Lycra on a bike with skinny tires, I expect to be laughed at...or worse.  

Hardly.  Venturing into the coolness of the only bar and burger joint in town with a couple of friends sweaty and weary after a 100 mile ride, we heard the distinctive click of billiard balls.  Three cowboys were shooting pool.  We swallowed hard and within thirty seconds were greeted warmly and with admiration.  Rural America where people are polite, reserved, hard-working and respectful.

The great essayist and thinker G. K Chesterton understood the differences between those who live in big versus small communities.  "The man who lives in a small community," he wrote, "lives in a much larger world.  He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of man. ... In a large community we can choose our companions.  In a small community our companions are chosen for us."  One must get along.  In a small community, one cannot walk away; one is forced to look inside, deeply inside, and adapt.  Or live in isolation.

The people of Whitwell, Tennessee, in the small towns of Oregon and across the Red counties - the ones who cling to their guns and Bibles - give me hope for and immense pride in America.