OBD
Junior Chimp
Posts: 5,570
Political Matrix
E: -5.16, S: -6.26
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« Reply #6 on: May 27, 2020, 12:24:03 PM » |
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speech given via video-call
Hello, friends!
I'm speaking to you today, not as a Kansan or an Oregonian, but as a Frémonter. Some out there say that this movement is exclusive to Frémont and entirely rhetorical - and I'd like to dispel that notion today. While, as a lifelong Oregonian, I cannot speak to the exact intricacies of Kansan culture, I can use the field of statistics and anecdotal reports to build a strong cultural case for Kansan statehood in Frémont.
Religion, especially in the Evangelical South, is a major part of identity and culture today, and it is the first argument I will address.
Upon your screen is an image of what is typically defined as the Bible Belt, or a region historically known for higher adherence to Christianity. Note that it covers the entirety of nearly every Southern state, with a few exceptions. Firstly, Southern Texas and Southern Florida are not included due to a large proportion of Hispanic residents being members of the Catholic Church, which is not generally associated with the Bible Belt or Evangelism. Similarly, the French Catholic Mississippi Delta is also excluded. Excluding these areas from consideration due to external, non-regional influences, the remaining Southern holdouts from the Bible Belt are progressive, urban NoVA, Maryland, and Delaware, and you guessed it, Kansas (save for a small southeastern sliver).
These perhaps more anecdotal observations are backed up with solid numbers, as this map of religiosity in America shows. Kansan religious adherence is uniformly lower than all but two southern states, and the division is stark - while Oklahoma and (to a lesser degree) Missouri are significantly more religious than Kansas, it's neighbors in the Commonwealth, Colorado and Nebraska, have similar levels of religiosity. While one may point to Maryland and Delaware and argue that their relatively low religiosity makes hay of this argument, I'd like to mention that pre-Atlasia Maryland and Delaware have had significant (if perhaps tenuous; I shall not take a position on this issue today) links to the South - Kansas, does not in any way.
If we take a look at what religions Kansans adhere to, rather than how many adhere to religion in general, the general results hold. First off, it's easy to identify the big red elephant in the room - not ye old Republican Party, but the dominance the Southern Baptist Convention holds over Atlasia's Southern region. With the exception of the regions I mentioned earlier, a vast majority of Southern counties are part of this convention, with the exception of West Virginia and Kansas. I find only two Kansan counties that adhere to the Southern Baptist Church, and the state's mix of Catholic dominance and United Methodist dominance more clearly mirror the Frémont state of Nebraska than any of Kansas's Southern neighbors.
Ancestry is also a valid metric, and self-reported ancestry can also reveal the cultural values of survey respondents (e.g. someone identifying as American, despite ancestry tracing back to another non-Native American nation). The above image isn't the most accessible given size, but important conclusions can be drawn from it nonetheless - I'll fill in the blanks. It's pretty clear that a majority of Southern counties have either self-identified 'American' (pale yellow) or black (purple-magenta) ancestry, which isn't surprising given the region's checkered history. You can find exceptions in the usual places. Texas, positioned on the Mexican border, obviously has a large immigrant population - Florida, nearby Cuba and a gateway to South America, is similar. Oklahoma, formerly known as Indian Territory, has a significant concentration of Native Americans. However, Kansas is dominated by those with German ancestry, and just one of her counties has a plurality of the ethnic ancestries that are clearly of Southern export (American and black) - in contrast to Frémont, whose northern states are also near-exclusively German (again, there are exceptions, but they're entirely justifiable - California, Arizona, and New Mexico have higher Mexican ancestry due to their positions on the border, while the Mormon Belt, as usual, is unique from her neighbors).
Before I look to rebut arguments from the Kansas-is-Southern side, I'll make one last reference - to a book - Our Patchwork Nation by Danta Chinni and James Gimpel. An analysis of American communities, the research novel groups American counties into 12 distinct groups, and while this analysis is of course in large part anecdotal, it has it's merits and should certainly be considered. While some community types, such as large cities (Industrial Metropolis) and rich suburbs (Monied Burbs) defy regional classification, others tend to be much more concentrated to regions. For instance, Minority Central counties (aka counties with significant black population) are almost exclusively in the South, while Mormon Outposts (do I really need to define that) are all in Frémont. A majority of Kansan counties are either members of the Tractor Country (pink, rural farming communities)) or Service Worker Outpost (red, working-class communities with an emphasis on tourism) communities, two community types with strong regional concentration - nearly all Tractor Country counties are in Frémont, while a strong majority of Service Worker Centers are in Lincoln. Note that Kansas is home to few Evangelical Epicenters (yellow) or Minority Central (orange) counties, the two community types that occur near-exclusively in the Southern region. When eliminating county types that don't fall neatly into one region or another, this disparity becomes even more evident.
To close, I'll investigate some arguments that the Kansas-is-Southern and Southern Expansionist sides are making, and hopefully refute them. A major argument made by these activists is that Kansas is more closely economically tied with Missouri and Oklahoma, and I will admit that is, for the most part, true - it's factually solid in Kansas City, Wichita, the Southeastern Corner, and even here in Liberal, on the Oklahoma border. However, this argument isn't exceptionally strong. Cross-regional city and community-of-interest splits have always been present in Atlasia, and its precursour in the United States. Under the old 50-state system, the list of split metropolitan areas and communities of interest - from the conservative freedom fighters in Eastern Oregon toiling against the oppression of Portland liberals (I kid, I kid) to the Chicago metropolitan area, which stretched over three states at the time - was long. Switching to regions slightly mitigated this problems, though many cities remain isolated from their suburbs - there's Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and most notably, the Northeastern Corridor, the urbanized stretch of land running on I-95 from Richmond to Boston. It's pretty clear that population centers in the South's North - most notably Wilmington, Baltimore, NoVAk, and Nyman (if you choose to include it) - are connected far more closely with the Lincolnite metropolises of Philadelphia and New York than Nashville, or even cities like Louisville or Raleigh. Interest areas are divided, and will continue to be so barring a vast upheaval of regional - and state - boundaries. Thus, should we really consider them over cultural, or even historical, factors?
There are significant, non-historical arguments for transferring Kansas, and I believe that the South - and my colleagues in Frémont - should listen to the voices of the people attending this demonstration today, both online and in-person. There is significant support for both sides, and the only way to resolve this crisis in a peaceful and democratic manner is by seeking a nonbinding referendum (OOC: run by the GM, with the opportunity for player influence) to occur on the next local election date in Kansas, with both sides to pass legislation agreeing to respect the result. The recent Supreme Court case affirmed that the only legal way to transfer statehood was through Congress, and I'd like to point out to my Southern colleagues that this approach is entirely respectful of the Constitution, as a 'Yes' vote to join Frémont will not automatically transfer the state against the will of the Supreme Court. On both sides, we have talked the talk, now it's time to go to the people and resolve this crisis once and for all, WITHOUT breaking heads.
Thank you for your time, and as always, Gloria Frémontis!
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