What Is The Worst Town In Nebraska? (Hartington: new home, high school)

[ehenningsen]

I am going to have a poll for Cedar county residants asking them what they think of jews, and I'll post it here for you and everyone else...

This poll will not be scientific, and only after it is closed will I reveal the location where the poll was taken, and will post the results..

[Ga.Peach]

We are becoming so divided . it is sad and frustrating to see what has become of this nation .

You cannot be a christian and hate jews . You can be a christian and peacefully shun evil . Some christians do evil things and some jews do evil things . The ones who do evil are not real christians or real jews .

[ehenningsen]

No offense to anybody here, but I can understand someone's frustration if they experienced this, but I honestly really have a hard time believing that people in one county is far different than people from another county..

From my experience, people in the smaller towns are extremely hospitable and friendly, although they tend to be very opinionated (remeber folks, experience alone)..

But never had I ever experienced nazi-esque behaviors in small towns and usually when this type of behavior occurs it's not because of a set-mentality of a whole group, it is much more isolated to an individual who has been through the rungs of society and turns very sour...

And so, I sympathesize with with Amy99 for experiencing this behavior, but labeling a whole county or state, or even town as a definete nazi-type (without using the word nazi), is rather reckless and actually pretty damaging to the reputation of a group of people...

And this is a very valid reason that I believe in some type of (watching what you say) speech...

I will not discredit Amy99's experience, however I will definetely take everything she says with a grain of salt because the mentality of a group is usually far less threatening than the potentials of the mentality of an individual..

With that said, I am sorry Amy99 that you have all of this anger and hostility of thought to the residents of Cedar County, and for some reason believe that the county is somehow far more evil than anywhere else. for that I sympathise with Amy99... But for so much anger and hostility coming from one person and never heard anything else from any other source, I would be reckless to not take it with a grain of salt...

[Amy99]

Originally Posted by ehenningsen

I am going to have a poll for Cedar county residants asking them what they think of jews, and I'll post it here for you and everyone else...

This poll will not be scientific, and only after it is closed will I reveal the location where the poll was taken, and will post the results..

I wish I never wrote anything about this at at all.
I'm removing myself from this thread.

[Chris19]

I have a friend who is from Cedar County and have visited her on a number of occasions there from South Dakota. I find the people to be friendly and they mean well. Being sincere and friendly can go a long ways. Granted, there are a few grumps and closed-minded people there as in any other place large and small. When one would move to the area, one has to come with the right attitude and acclimate as much as they can to the area. Coming from a town of 2000+ in SD, I can understand some of the clickiness of smaller towns, some of it is due to being close-knit and fearful of major changes and anything outside of the comfort zone.

I can remember when I was younger, a pickup going slower pulled over to let us through when my family was heading to Colorado. Others in the area wave. Nice acts like these speak well for the people. If one treats people with respect instead of taking them for granted, they will often get treated with respect in return.

[ostargazer]

You can be a christian and peacefully shun evil

So does that make members of the Kansas Westboro Baptist Church 'christian' ??




Personally, I think if the American socio-economic condition matched that of the middle/far east... we'd be seeing just as widespread a problem of violent acts of religious 'jihad' here... as over there. Third world status... here we come...

http://www.timellsworth.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/huckabee2.jpg (broken link)

[Chris19]

I would not consider the Kansas Westboro Baptist Church Christians who peacefully shun evil. From my understanding, they are people who protest at funerals of servicemen and servicewomen, which their protests during a sad time for the families of servicepeople is very sick and disgraceful. They have a right to their views but are not peaceful at showing their views, especially when protesting at funerals. Being Christian and peacefully shun evil is possible it is basically being respectful of other people but standing firm on your values. A person does not have to be a fundamentalist or a right-wing Republican to do this. I know of many progressive-minded Democrats and Independents along with Republicans who are Christians that peacefully shun evil.

As in any religion (including Islam, Christianity, Judiaism, etc.), there is always going to be a few who go too far with their religious views and lack peace and understanding when handling their religious views and like to use extremes to get their point across. The few extremists make the entire religion or group look bad in the eyes of others and casts an unfair shadow on the majority who are reasonable and moderate in action and thought. Most people have religious views and convey it peacefully. In my area of the Midwest, people have and were brought up with Christian values but are not of the extremist type and the ones of other religions are peaceful also.

I think that most Nebraskans are very reasonable people who follow Christian vaules and put them into good practice. The Nebraskans that I know, including the friend in Cedar County and others in Omaha area and elsewhere, peacefully shun evil and are good natured people. I have had positive impressions of Nebraskans when they come to South Dakota and when I visit or pass through there.

[ColeSD]

I signed up for this account specifically because of this thread.
I lived in an unnamed Cedar County town for a good year, and though this has nothing to do with religion, I tend to believe everything Amy99 is saying.

I'm white, my wife's Mexican: we were constantly referred to with derogatory terms, and my son was actually asked in school things like "are you legal" and "do you speak English" and with all due respect, Chris, we did come with an open mind, and we are both from small towns ourselves.

After the unnamed town (it's that small where I don't want to embarrass anybody), we moved to Hartington for a couple of years, and found it to be a totally different animal from the unnamed town, but it was only just a few miles away.

We're now back in South Dakota.

This is my two cents: it's hard to believe there's things like prejudice in the world when you've never experienced it. Of course there is prejudice everywhere, but when a town is very very small, and you are a target, it gets to be much.

And to add two more cents: I found the people who were NOT Christian to be twenty times nicer than everybody else, but I honestly think it has nothing to do with their actual religious beliefs. I think it's just because all the members of the church were in a sort of clique, like Chris said, BUT, when that clique ALSO has obvious racist tendencies.

And I would bet a million dollars that I can guess which town Amy is talking about.

I wish the rest of the county was like Hartington.

[ehenningsen]

I'm sorry that you had to experience that Cole..

You did the right thing and just left, what else could be done?

The reason I was taking Amy99's info carefully was because of all the anger she was expressing in this thread.

There aren't too many places like that, but it sounds like the place your referring to is..

What a sad sad town you guys are talking about..

[Katarina Witt]

I can vouch for a great many members of my extended family in NE being quite anti-Semitic. I keep reminding myself that it's just them, not a representation of the entire city/state. And I agree, in a small town it would be very difficult to "just ignore it".

And just to add that this can happen anywhere, a few years ago there was some blatant, up close and personal anti-Semitism in the chi-chi Denver mountain suburb of Evergreen. It's very sad that some people have to do that sort of thing to build themselves up, in their minds anyway.