Klondike, a diarist at Daily Kos, discusses the “Southern White Guy” phenomenon, which is a way of thinking that precedes the Southern Strategy that Lee Atwater devised for Richard Nixon. His emphasis is on the fact that it’s a mindset, not a geographic identifier, and Southern White Guys can be found in the North. (Probably just about everywhere Fox News is king.)

1. Civil rights are rights, not possessions lent by a benevolent majority to deserving minorities.
2. There are amendments other than the second. They all get the same respect. In the Army they say "we salute the rank, not the man". Well in a constitutional democracy, citizens honor The Law, not the particular statute.
3. We don't all agree on religion and we never will, and because of that it must be kept separate from the one thing that we must work together on - our government.
4. Recognizing that we don't all agree on religion, we can not use the common resources to advance the special interests of any one religion for its own sake at home or abroad. Supporting any of them leads inevitably to childish fighting about fairness and is A Bad Idea.
5. Piety is no more of a qualification for public office than table manners, good grooming or a deep interest in movie trivia.
6. Science is a way of figuring out how the physical world works. It operates according to well accepted principles, and we argue with it on its terms. If your religion conflicts with science, then for the purposes of public policy, your religion is wrong. You are free to disbelieve science in the privacy of your own home.
7. Money doesn't grow on trees, and this principle applies whether you use the money to buy big screen TV for death row prisoners or a really, really, really smart bomb to drop on a mud hut in Anbar province.
8. Our current level and structure of fossil fuel consumption is not working out for us or for anyone else on the planet and must be changed.
9. The military is useful for one thing - protecting us from other countries that have attacked us, or are about to attack us. Everything else in international affairs is the province of diplomats.
10. "Kicking ass" is a tactic, not a strategy. If kicking ass is your strategy then you don't have a strategy and you need to cede control of strategy to someone who has one.
11. The international community is not a bunch of thugs, barbarians and pansies, but groups of people with different interests than ours. We will get the international community we deserve - treat it with contempt and it will act contemptibly.
12. We are a nation of 300 million on a planet of 6 billion. Right now, we're on top, but some day we won't be, and on that day every shitty thing we did when we were on top will come back to haunt us.

Klondike considers Southern White Guy’s view of these principles and sees a major difference:

1. Civil rights are a code phrase for infringing on the natural rights of white people.
2. The right of armed self defense is the basic liberty. All others flow from it.
3. The United States is a Christian nation.
4. The government of a Christian nation should be propounding Christian virtues at home and abroad.
5. Public piety is an indicator of moral fiber and a prerequisite for holding public office.
6. Science is a law of the physical world, but the law of God supercedes it.
7. Tax cuts generate revenue.
8. There's enough oil to last forever.
9. Our country is the best, and our military is the best. No one can beat us, so there's no point considering alternatives - if we set our military to it, it will happen. If our military fails it's undoubtedly domestic betrayal, not inherent weakness or bad policy that caused it.
10. "Kicking ass" is often the simplest way to ensure the national interest is served.
11. Most other countries are primitive failures or decadent has-beens that are based on the wrong religion, jealous of our success, have no interests in common with us, and no perspective worth considering. Most foreigners are going to hell.
12. The United States is the only superpower because God has decreed it and we will stay that way as long as we are more righteous than other nations.

The differences between these two views of life are cultural and nothing less than a cataclysmic event will change the Southern White Guy’s view in a hurry. He also considers it a waste of time for Progressives to court that voting bloc.

The Democratic Party is committed to Governor Dean’s “50 state” strategy, and it’s a prudent policy to follow, as we have seen in the most recent elections since that policy paid us huge dividends not envisioned by the DLC politicians like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville. The US won’t survive as a viable political entity long enough for a strategy of picking off a vulnerable seat here and there to pay off. If we want to take back our country and once again live in a Democracy we must resist the attraction of being “Republican Lite” and speak up for what we hold to be true and meaningful. The vast undecided center voted for Democrats out of revulsion over Republican rule. It is up to us to now show them why we rule better, to keep them votig for Progress.

While the comparisons are humorous and mostly on point, we have to work to prove that our system is better and trust to our hard work to slowly change that troglodytic culture of the Southern White Guy. We have to make those comparisons a snapshot in time and not an ongoing cultural fact.