Natural Liberty In The Bible Belt Analysis

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Alternative Assignment Option Nomocracy in Politics
In Natural Liberty in the Bible Belt: An Explanation of Conservative Voting Patterns in Southern Appalachia, Barry A. Vann discusses how the voting patterns of people in Appalachia may have explanations as far back as their ancestors in Ireland. The people of southern Appalachia have had a history of voting for the politician who promises to not enact policies that pit ethnic groups against each other. Many people credit this voting trend to the Appalachians’ need to cling to God and guns. Barry A. Vann makes the argument that “the ethnic roots of the people who call these two sub-regions home have played roles in creating distinctive voting patterns between them.”
Many Appalachians have a strong resistance to a big, centralized government and tend to want to give more power to individual states rather than giving power to a strong federal government. Barry A. Vann offers that …show more content…

Ethnic regions all around the world are home to a multitude of races and they should not be classified solely on race. Vann states, “Because of the simplistic way in which the federal government defines “cultural diversity,” which is based more on racial characteristics such as African-American or black, white, Asian, Native American, and Hispanics, than it is by ways of life, Americans are led to believe that all members of a particular racial group share the same culture.” In saying this, he means that ethnic regions are defined by much more than their racial heritage, they are also defined by the core ethnic values that are the cornerstone of their culture. Voters in different regions tend to vote more closely based on political party and core values, rather than voting as much on race as some people would