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Small-Town America: Our Last Hope?

By: Ausonius (Diary)  |  August 23rd, 2012 at 05:35 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Delphos, Ohio was founded in the mid-19th century by a German Catholic priest, and boasts a large number of Catholics descended from German immigrants.   Other religions have their churches there also, but the skyline is dominated – much like medieval cities during an era of faith – by the Catholic church of the parish of Saint John the Evangelist.

Recently a young sailor named John Bemis, originally from this parish,  died in San Diego where he was stationed, and his funeral was to be held at Saint John’s.  A supposedly Baptist church from Kansas threatened to hold a protest in Delphos: the group believes America is being punished directly by Divinity for tolerating homosexuality.

See:

http://www.ohiolibertycoalition.org/westboro-baptist-church-threatening-to-protest-funeral-in-delphos-ohio-on-tuesday/

And:

http://www.delphosherald.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8912:john-keith-bemis&catid=39:deaths&Itemid=59

Fortunately the word spread throughout Delphos, whose population is just below 7,000.  To block any such desecration of the sailor’s funeral, 700 people ringed the church, 10% of the population!

See:

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=4038154224658&set=a.1328737370930.2047493.1005826025&type=1&theater

The Westboro group never showed up!

Delphos has lost population in the last 30 years, like many small towns.  Factories have shut down and their buildings have been bulldozed.  One of the growth “industries” right now is nursing homes.

Despite these changes, Delphos survives, and its people remain the type who refuse government assistance, who organize things on their own, and who come together to help each other.  We know that this has become “typical” of “small-town America,” and people debate how much of this spirit survives in the “anonymous” big cities, especially those with leftist voters, who might prefer to do nothing about a problem until a government bureaucrat shows up…even if the bureaucrat never shows up.

If Conservative America must shrug after November, possibly outnumbered by the class-warrior government leeches, the wealthy-but-guilt-ridden leftist  suburbanites, the idle poor, and the fatally foolish, then such places as Delphos would be the area to gather and to re-group for the future.

COMMENTS

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  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    … without ceding the intellectual superiority of conservative principles.

  • Ausonius

    in such smaller populated areas than e.g. in the slums of large cities.

    I know former Ohioans in San Francisco who hate their current situation there, but are unable to return: their complaints about the rampant immorality and the ridiculous Leftism are legion.

    • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

      But large parts of my life in both rural (a mile out of a smaller VT village) and rather large, rather inner city (see screen name) climes, as a screeching–if young–liberal in the former and as a fiery conservative in the latter, have led me, sadly, to far more encounters with rural/suburban conservatives who cannot easily admit the hypothetical possibility of a conservative life meaningfully engaged in “the slums of large cities” than those of the inverse category. That inability to conceive of such possibilities is an indicator of too small a view of “the movement” in an increasingly urban world.

      If you have a few days free, ask the mods for my email (I don’t have a public address)–I’d sincerely like to show you the South Bronx through conservative eyes.

      • Ausonius

        I do not find it inconceivable at all that Conservatism can exist in poor areas, and in fact in earlier days it was much more common there.

        In various cities of the midwest and elsewhere, the blue/Dem areas are at times economically contradictory, with richer suburbs joining lower-class urban areas.

        Ohio, which went for MAObama, is instructive: rural counties with small towns stay Republican, while the major cities had enough votes to turn Ohio “blue” in 2008.

        See:

        http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/results.htm

        I wonder if the sailor were buried from an urban parish, whether people would have ringed the church to thwart the protesters. I am skeptical, but perhaps it could happen there also…depending.

        • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

          sorry

        • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

          Here’s how it was done in small-town Brooklyn a couple years ago:

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0cAGrrGaQk&feature=related

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    could look like this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjwUeQGiQQI

    Didn’t want to embed it as the dimension options are too large–but this a march pulled together in fairly short order by churches affected by and in support of the 17-year case instigated by our church and now responsible for over 60 smaller churches being able to temporarily rent city space.

    Not quite sure Westboro would want to go this far under the radar, actually!

  • merrie7137

    I’d like to see more people of good conscience stand up to those idiots. I’d also like to see the Baptist church sue them for use of the name “baptist” or more vigorously disassociate themselves from this hate group.