General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy are conservatives so obsessed with cowboys?
I don't get it. Bush was obsessed with cowboys, Reagan was obsessed with cowboys, Nixon was obsessed with cowboys, Trump supporters are obsessed with cowboys. Shit, Bush was so obsessed with cowboys that he lived on a fucking ranch and cleared brush like it was some bizarre lifestyle.
Everything I've ever read and seen about cowboys, cowboy culture and the wild west seems like that was no way to live. So what is the draw?
Skittles
(153,174 posts)they're PATHETIC
TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,208 posts)Last edited Sun Nov 10, 2019, 11:58 AM - Edit history (2)
and sheep were nervous.
alwaysinasnit
(5,070 posts)struggle4progress
(118,320 posts)mahina
(17,691 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,847 posts)This was in the 1950's on the Mississippi coast. Jimmie Rodgers was from Meridian, Mississippi, I think. Rodgers was my dad's music teacher's cousin and the teacher got Jimmie to come to the music class and teach them a lesson on the guitar. My dad says he was a very nice man, although he seemed like he wasn't in good health. I don't know if Rodgers came down to visit family or if he was playing at one of the nightclubs in Biloxi. Anyway, I thought it was a cool memory to have about a legend.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)White, heterosexual, cisgendered promoters of patriarchy vs. everyone else.
TDale313
(7,820 posts)I dont need no stinking government or society... just leave me to my own devices and dont fence me in. Its a romantic image. Most of them would last about two seconds without the infrastructure the system they rail so hard against created, but they love the myth.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)They love the image, not the reality.
JHB
(37,161 posts)RainCaster
(10,908 posts)I like how that ended.
Gak
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)My reaction exactly!
LuvNewcastle
(16,847 posts)A New York city slicker putting on a cowboy hat. And his base eats that shit up. Looks like he's going back to his family's roots in the pimping business.
Beartracks
(12,821 posts)... lived in a world of little moral ambiguity (e.g. good guys with guns were ALWAYS good guys). But this is the cowboy of the western GENRE of books and movies (especially classic, "old west" story-telling), not necessarily actual, historical cowboys.
So, the macho, rugged, go-it-alone, hero archetype is appealing to a lot of people, and I would guess conservatives have a greater affinity for that mythic combination of qualities, especially the "rugged individual" aspect (read: we don't need government!) and the "good guy with gun" aspect (for obvious reasons).
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rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)is locked up by another bad guy, Gene Hackman, while two other bad guys, Eastwood and Freeman try to avenge a prostitute for money.
At the same time theres the dime novel guy trying to benefit from it all.
There are many novels and movies. But I think until the Italian dramas was the cowboy was the good one, or at least there was one hero.
Dirty Socialist
(3,252 posts)He said real cowboys are DEMOCRATS. RANCH OWNERS are Republicans.
Beartracks
(12,821 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)And they ***GASP*** read a lot of books and are Democrats.
mahina
(17,691 posts)One at a time of course
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safeinOhio
(32,713 posts)tblue37
(65,474 posts)unc70
(6,117 posts)Print the myth
ck4829
(35,079 posts)The old western movies - White men on the frontier, the tip of the spear for manifest destiny itself, who carried a gun with them at all times and were supposed to be some lawman/vigilante hybrid who kept law and order in the frontier
Reality - Cowboys came in all colors, checked their guns when they went into town, and were laborers who drove cattle
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,847 posts)Beautiful movie. And Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were the most awesome cowboys I've ever seen.
Solomon
(12,319 posts)A despised criminal if he shot a man in the back. It was a strict code.
Today police shoot unarmed people in the back and get paid vacations for it.
rampartc
(5,432 posts)is simple. break it, you end up on boot hill.
one version, as told to young ron howard by john wayne
...
"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."
the code in any form is simple. here is eastwood enlightening eli Wallach
.
"there are 2 kinds of people in the world, tuco, those who have loaded revolvers, and those who dig. you dig."
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Cowboy gear was common, Hank Williams, even Winchester Patsy Cline, et al. 'cons often like the '50's.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Cowboys are not and never were not gunslingers or individualists. They had to work together as a team to manage the herd. You get a sort of sense of reality in the old TV series "Raw Hide." For the most part there is a lot of gun play portrayed. Many of the towns in the west had gun check laws.
There were a few "rugged individualists" mountain men and trappers, but those guys didn't build this country. It was built by people coming together to get things done, from raising a barn to butchering a hog.
onethatcares
(16,178 posts)have you ever tried to get a horse down your moms' basement stairs?
Mike Nelson
(9,961 posts)... guns, guns, guns... women were pretty maids to be had, or sexy saloon hostesses to have you. White ruled. Gays were invisible. No social security programs. And, more guns!
maxrandb
(15,345 posts)malaise
(269,144 posts)and John Wayne as this larger than live hero explain a lot of it