However, I was stunned at the enormous outpouring of reminiscences, anecdotes, support, and agreement from the Whiskey & Gunpowder readership, or those who received the article from other sources. To these fine folks who wrote in or spoke up to me personally, I give my heartfelt thanks.

I’d honestly expected to get slammed with tons of mail claiming that I’d oversimplified or romanticized my portrayal of these folks — or that a personal affinity for them was coloring my judgment. But I can count on one hand the number of such responses I got. Of course, I thank these people, too — often as not, their criticisms lead me to new and even more persuasive ways to make my original point…

Along those lines, I want to address one such comment with another personal anecdote I’d forgotten to mention in the first part of this essay series. I offer it in response to the person who suggested that maybe the “rednecks” were more receptive to helping me on those many occasions I’ve ended up stranded on the roadside because I somehow looked or seemed like them — the inverse reason being why the yuppies and soccer moms didn’t stop for me.

This is a good point — one that speaks to both the nature of humans to classify others in relation to their own self-images, and also to people’s natural (or forced by society) tendency toward stereotyping.

But interestingly, the reader’s assertion doesn’t hold water in my own lifetime of experience with “rednecks.” Here’s what I mean…

Image Is Everything — Except When You’re Hitching

The notion that people are generally more likely to assist others who look/seem most like them is probably a sound one. I’m not a psychologist, of course, but I’m sure there are studies that would more or less bear this out. It makes a most basic kind of sense. Oddly enough, though, I’m pretty sure that this is NOT the reason why I’ve been rescued from my own “fuel-ishness” so many times by “rednecks” and ignored by others.

The fact is, I have hardly ever run out of gas while I was out hunting, fishing, shooting, or dirt-biking (and thusly attired more like a stereotypical “redneck”). Rather, I’ve tended to coast to a stop while dressed up and on my way to some special or important occasion. A pair of factors contribute to this: One, I tend not to fuel up until the tank’s almost empty, and two, I tend to cut things close, time-wise, forcing me to gamble on gas when I’m in a hurry…

At the risk of revealing too much about my own inability to grasp one of life’s most basic truths (cars need fuel), I’ve run out of gas on my way to birthday dinners, family events, at least one wedding, at least two job interviews, on my way to or from bars or parties — and before or during an astounding number of dates. I’m telling you, it’s a sickness of mine. It’s even worse because for years, I made my living as a car mechanic! For real.

My point is this: I’ve almost never LOOKED like a “redneck” when I’ve been thumbing for a ride to the nearest gas station. In fact, most times, I must’ve appeared exactly like the bulk of the drivers passing me by — right down to the vehicle I was leaning against at the time. By and large, I’ve drained European imported cars (I’ve owned 12 of them)…

Yet it’d still be the “redneck” who rolled up and said, “Need a lift, son?” Every time.

Another quick one: For years in the late 1980s, my uncle and I would take an annual canoe trip somewhere in West Virginia or Virginia — sometimes quite a ways out in the boonies (like the south branch of the Potomac River). This presented a bit of a logistical problem, since we’d need some way to get one or the other of us back to the car at the put-in point after we pulled out of the river 20 or 30 miles downstream…

How’d we do it?

My uncle would simply flag down a few consecutive cars or trucks on the nearest road. Every time, within just a few minutes, some kind country soul going back up toward our car would offer one of us a ride. Depending on these folks was our M.O. for these trips. We counted on them, and they always came through. It’s called kindness, and most “rednecks” have it in spades.

But enough anecdotes. I’ve got a point or two to make, so I’ll get on with it…

A Rube by Any Other Name

As we explored in Part 1, the term “redneck” is difficult to define. But in order to even approximate “rednecks’” impact on American life, we have to have a working definition of who these people are…

Anyone with two eyes, ears, and half a brain already knows what the term means to the N.Y./L.A. bicoastal hipsters of mainstream political discourse — folks like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, etc. To these guys, their contemporaries, and no doubt a good many of their listeners/viewers, “redneck” seems to apply to just about anyone living in the great flyover interior of our nation, with the possible exception of Chicago…

Of course, this is far too broad a definition. But in my view, it isn’t far from what many in the mainstream media seem to think. Listen to them talk and you can tell. They see anyone who’s not lunching at Elaine’s, summering in the Hamptons, or invited to the Playboy Mansion on weekends as some kind of barefooted rube…

So what is a “redneck”? By almost any definition, “rednecks” are white — and the vast bulk of them are working class (blue-collar). Comparatively, few are college degreed, though some are. In my opinion, based on the overall tenor of the mainstream as best as I can judge, the contemporary American media’s definition of “redneck” also includes:

· Any white male who hunts (around 15-20 million Americans are licensed hunters, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation)…

· Most any white male who owns a pickup truck for personal use (38 million Americans own pickups, per the 2000 Census)…

· Any white NASCAR racing fan of either sex (around 75 million Americans, per the San Francisco Chronicle )…

· Most any white male who owns one or more guns (65-80 million Americans own guns, according to the NRA)…

Of course, not all gun owners are hunters, not all hunters and gun owners are NASCAR fans, and not all stock car enthusiasts are gun owners or hunters — or even pickup owners. But of course, there’s some crossover.

But I’d bet that if someone really wanted to quantify how many “rednecks” there are in the U.S., these four criteria would be common to quite a few of them. Mind you, I’m not trying to define what “redneck” means, just trying to give a sense of how many people fall into the category as invented by contemporary media/political standards, so I can begin to draw some conclusions about their impact on American life…

In light of the above data, I’m confident that the number of Americans that most in the media/political mainstream would consider “rednecks” is at LEAST 75 million. That’s more than 1 in 4 Americans, and more than 1 out of every 3 whites living in the U.S.

Together, these folks represent an incredible economic force, both from a productivity standpoint (more on this later) and a consumer spending one. This is important for a few reasons. Stay with me here…

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been unable to aggregate any conclusive data on the assertion I’m about to make (it would probably take months to compile without shamelessly ripping someone else off), but using good ol’ fashioned seat-o’-the-pants logic, I’d be willing to bet my Harley-Davidson on this:

“Rednecks” spend a far greater percentage of their income on hard goods and big-ticket items (like vehicles and tractors) — especially those that are made in the USA — than their more affluent city-dwelling cousins…

This is vitally important, as you’ll see if you keep reading.

A Tale of 2 Citizens

Here’s my reasoning behind this assertion, illustrated using a fictional (but based on fact) “tale of two citizens” approach. Let’s say you’ve got two cousins: Larry, a stereotypical “redneck,” and Barry, a stereotypical white “urbanite.”

· Larry makes around $40,000 per year as a carpenter to support his family of four. Barry provides for his own wife and two daughters with the $100,000 he pulls down as a political consultant for the Green Party. (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the national average income for a white household was $48,000 in 2004)…

· Larry lives in Fort Ashby, W.Va., where his 1,500-square-foot brick house on 2.6 acres of land (with detached two-car garage and an 8×12-foot shed) cost him $139,000 in 2003. His 6% mortgage is $860, including taxes and insurance. Barry lives in a second-tier neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where his 1,500-square-foot brick rowhouse on one-third of an acre was a bargain at $399,000 in 2003. His total mortgage payment is $2,945, also at 6%…

· Larry’s take-home pay after his modest state and federal taxes amounts to around 78% of his gross income — approximately $31,200 per year, or $2,600 per month. Barry’s take-home pay in his higher tax bracket, but also minus D.C.’s heavy local taxes, amounts to barely 71% of his income — around $5,916 per month…

· Larry sends his two young boys, Bo and Luke, to the local public school. It’s clean, safe, and tests in the top third of schools in the state. Cost: $0. Barry would never send his two daughters, Hillary and Chelsea, to the local public school. It’s disgusting and scored terribly in standardized testing, plus two kids got shot there last year. He sends his girls to a private prep school, Our Lady of the Everlasting Payment, to the tune of $5,000 a year. Each…

· Larry’s new Ford F-150 pickup cost $27, 500. His wife’s ’01 Jeep Cherokee Sport cost $12,000 used. They put a good chunk down, so the combined payment on them both is $579 a month. And because they live in the country, where traffic is light and vehicle theft and vandalism virtually nonexistent, and where they have a driveway and garage in which to park, full coverage on both their vehicles is just $960 per year. Barry and his wife have just one car (it’s all they can park on the street outside their house), a new Volvo XC90. It cost $46,000. They financed almost all of it, though, for a payment of $768 a month. And because they live in a high-traffic, high-theft “transitional” neighborhood, it costs $1,700 per year to insure…

· Larry’s wife Linda buys groceries, toiletries, and sundries at Save-a-Bundle in town for around $220 a month. Barry’s wife Bridget spends over $400 a month on their groceries at the neighborhood Uber-Fresh Farms Gourmet Grocery within walking distance of their house. She would go someplace cheaper, but she’s afraid of losing their parking space in front of the house…

· Larry gets his morning coffee at the Main Street Diner on the square in town. It costs 75 cents — an even $4 gets him eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast, too. Barry waits 20 minutes in line every morning to give that same $4 to the clerk behind the counter at Starbucks for a cup of latte, grande, mochaccino something or other, and a whole lot of marketing, too. He doesn’t eat breakfast…

So let’s see here: Larry started with $2,600 a month, and after mortgage, car payments, insurance, and a hearty breakfast every day, he’s got $781 left for utilities or entertainment or to save, invest — or even to buy some new “toys” for himself and his boys (by far the most important thing he could do, as you’ll discover in a minute). That’s more than 30% of his income to do whatever he wants with.

Barry, on the other hand, who makes 2.5 times as much money, has only $748 left over every month. Not only is this less money in absolute terms, it’s a far smaller percentage of his actual income — a mere 12.6%!

The Tangible Benefits of “Redneck” Living

Bottom line: Even though he’s a lowly “redneck” and despised by the enlightened bicoastal media, Larry can afford to fill his home and garage with a few luxuries — some sporting equipment, a new Harley motorcycle, a John Deere tractor, maybe even a made-in-the-U.S.A. Ranger bass boat to take his boys fishing in. Barry, on the other hand, not only couldn’t afford these kinds of things, he couldn’t even keep them anywhere if he bought them!

My point is twofold:

First, that American “rednecks” are pumping a huge amount of money into our economy by buying second vehicles, motorcycles, tractors, trailers, bass boats, fishing gear, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, power tools, guns, ammo, and on and on and on — tangible hard goods that translate into jobs for American citizens in the critical manufacturing sector. Second, a lot of far-richer-on-paper “urbanites” are shoveling their money into not only exorbitant taxes, but also the coffers of mortgage companies, insurance firms, and purveyors of overpriced consumables.

Sure, there are jobs supported by these spending streams, too — retail, clerical, and loan processing, mostly. But keep this in mind: Nobody’s “making” anything with money given to mortgage companies as interest or to insurance companies as premiums. No one builds any tangible assets anywhere in America when an urbanite signs a mortgage on an overpriced house or pays through the nose to insure an overpriced car…

And as any Austrian School economist will tell you, a strong manufacturing and industrial sector is the key to real, lasting economic stability. This is something America used to do better than anyone — yet now we’re faltering in this slave-wage, outsourced world.

See what I’m getting at when I say the “rednecks” wield a huge amount of economic clout? Their disposable income often goes into tangible hard goods that keep American industries healthy, prosperous, and providing jobs. Their overlooked, taken-for-granted contribution to our economy is its very lifeblood. I shudder to think what would happen to our nation’s bottom line if Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, or any of the other bicoastal media pundits got their wish…

An America without the “rednecks” they see as “white trash,” instead of the great drivers of our economy.

And in the final installment of this series, I’ll show you exactly why America would REALLY be screwed without our glorious “rednecks.” Stay tuned…

Seeing the dollars — and the sense,

Jim Amrhein
Contributing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
September 15, 2006

Rednecks, White Trash, and Blue Collars, Part 2 was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.