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Someone earlier made a good comment: TN is not CA or any other " liberal" area. That said, as someone who has lived in Both kinds of areas, the answer is that an area is what you make of it. I have an Aunt in Memphis who is friends with a same sex couple who've been living there all their lives. She is part of a drum circle, takes part in local art workshops, shops at organic grocery stores, has friends who think circuses are representing animal cruelty.. etc etc. Do they live in fear of bible-thumpers? Nope.
Sure-there are people who are religious. But I never had anyone tell me what to do. Nobody ever gave me problems. I just did what I wanted to do and said what I wanted to say. Ironically, my experience in California has been the total opposite. I have to watch what I say, for if it is at all out of line with strict liberal codes, I get a nice tongue-lashing. if you're a liberal person, then you should be intelligent enough to be tolerant of other opinions and different lifestyles. Isn't that the foundation of liberalism? If someone walks up to you and says " Praise the lord!" is that going to ruin your day, or would you see it as someone simply sharing their beliefs?
If you look for the bad... you'll find it. Look for the good... you'll find it.
There is definitely a liberal part of Memphis, like mentioned, with organic food stores, gay clubs, tons of nonprofit charity places, etc. Not to say that people like that are beat down in the streets. But I think there is definitely a sense of not belonging...the strange looks you get from coworkers, the eyerolls, the barrage of questions about your personal life, etc. I think you get a sense of not belonging, whether it's direct and in the open, or just from little hints and looks that people give you.
I totally understand the opposite of that, that occurs in other cities. Extreme-liberalism, where you are almost scared to announce any sort of beliefs to the world for fear of being non-PC, non-liberal, non-right wing.
I need a very liberal-thinking area also. Heard that the tri-cities area of Bristol, Johnson City and Kingsport were more tolerate of diversity. Is this true? LP
Johnson City yes, Kingsport, not so much, Bristol even less but all 3 are know for leaning heavily to the right in the majority when it comes to voting.
More tolerant to diversity: I would say Johnson City because there is not only a gay night club, there is also Punk rock bars, county bars, and poetry reading type night clubs. There is Barn's and Noble, Starbucks, Penera Bread Co, and "Daises dinner" type places and then there is the very expensive, "up scale" type places. These are just an example of different places that are frequented by very different types of people and they all do very well in Johnson City. You will find some diverse things like this in Kingsport, but not at such a variety. Bristol, even less.
I hope that explains why I feel, Johnson City is more liberal. I believe a lot of it has to do with ETSU being down town too.
Knoxville tends to vote in the blue column. Knox County, not so much.
There are food co-ops, a GLBT Softball league, a punk rocker hair salon, a Unitarian Universalist Church, a large university, organic herb markets at the nature center, farmer's markets, live music, hip urban neighborhoods, the whole gamut. There's also a brewpub for all of the Great Thinkers to gather in downtown and discuss Big Issues.
To be honest, Knoxville and Nashville are probably tied for first in the liberal-thinking-ness. Chattanooga would be a second place, and Memphis would be near the bottom, regardless of its Democratic voting stance. It's actually a very conservative city overall.
I don't really equate liberalism with being open-minded; most liberals I know are only "open-minded" as long as you agree with them, and "tolerance" is extended to everyone but conservatives.
That being said, I think Memphis is the most liberal city in Tennessee. Nashville is fairly mixed, and Knoxville--despite the presence of a huge university--is the most conservative of these three cities.
I don't really equate liberalism with being open-minded; most liberals I know are only "open-minded" as long as you agree with them, and "tolerance" is extended to everyone but conservatives.
That being said, I think Memphis is the most liberal city in Tennessee. Nashville is fairly mixed, and Knoxville--despite the presence of a huge university--is the most conservative of these three cities.
I agree with this assessment. Knoxville hasn't elected a Democrat mayor in years, and even then, the Democrats around here tend to be quite conservative. The urban core of Knoxville is predominantly Democrat, but once you leave the urban core the city is decidedly conservative. While the majority of U.T.'s faculty is liberal, the majority of U.T.'s student body is conservative.
There are a few "hip" inner-city liberal strongholds in Knoxville, but they are fairly insignificant in numbers compared to the large swaths of conservative neighborhoods that surround them. I live in one of those "hip" neighborhoods, and in the last election there were just as many Bob Corker yard signs as there were Harold Ford yard signs. Even my gay neighbors were for Corker.
I agree that Memphis is the most liberal city in the state. Some claim that it's not liberal because most Memphians are opposed to gay marriage. Well, there's more to being liberal than gay marriage. A conservative doesn't stand a chance of winning a city-wide election in Memphis. I don't think a liberal has much of a chance in Nashville, either; Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell (Nashville's two most recent mayors) are hardly liberal.
I have heard recently that Fred Thompson is being mentioned as a possible candidate for President in 2008, since he is a true conservative. Since I am not familiar with TN and its past politics can anyone tell me about him and what he did in TN ?
"I don't really equate liberalism with being open-minded; most liberals I know are only "open-minded" as long as you agree with them, and "tolerance" is extended to everyone but conservatives."
I couldn't agree with that statement more. Trust me- I live in what is deemed the "most liberal" city in the country and to me, I fail to see the differences in attitudes between extreme liberals and extreme conservatives.
My experiences with TN was that there wasn't really an extreme conservative or extreme liberal attitude. It was more like people with political and living standard ideals that would lay right down the middle. Honestly, most people I knew didn't really bother themselves a great deal with politics unless it was election time, and only then, people might go out and vote... if they felt like it.
If you mean liberal to mean that you will be around people who like to sit around and hotly debate all the world's issues, then no- unless you are in urban center hot-spots like Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, then you're not going to find that as easily. In the burbs you'll more than likely find people who are more concerned about their lawns, waxing the family car, and occasionally taking trips to Daytona Beach.
Just living their day to day lives... which I must confess sounds rather refreshing after hearing people balk about how absolutely AWFUL everything is in this world... that is of course except for people that agree and act like them. Actually, what bothers me both about extreme conservatism and Liberalism is the fact that so many of these people are so totally unoriginal, cliche', and sometimes boring.
I'd almost rather live next door to Johnny paycheck and talk about firecrackers rather than listen to people banter on and on about churches, Tibet, "family values" and global warming.
Just living their day to day lives... which I must confess sounds rather refreshing after hearing people balk about how absolutely AWFUL everything is in this world... I'd almost rather live next door to Johnny paycheck and talk about firecrackers.
He heh... That's a great outlook on life! You sound like a very normal, well-adjusted person to me.
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What about Fred
