BIBLE BELTER | 2005-04-14
Blog readers have decided to agree that Bob is very, very smart.
If I say I am not very, very smart it is like a man who is seven feet tall saying that he is really short. If a seven foot tall man says that, he is not being modest, he is being absurd.
So when I say something, it usually means a bit more than I say.
When I say I am a Bible Belter, people naturally think I am trying to be just a guy like everybody else. When I tell you that I am from Pontiac, South Carolina, I am happy if it gives you a smile. Ole Bob is just showing he's a country boy.
That's nice, but you're missing the point.
Your smile when I say I am from Pontiac makes me feel a bit lonely, because you don't understand that there is something profound here that I am trying to say.
A good friend of mine, who through no fault of his own is now a professor, came into the graduate economics program at the University of Virginia a year after I did. He first met me at the cocktail party for new students. The first thing he heard about me was, "Whitaker is cutting everybody down again."
Whitaker was this unapologetic South Carolina racist who only took two or three sentences to make all the anti-racists look like fools. One after another the people who had qualified to enter one of the best graduate programs in America went up to use their devastating anti-racist arguments against Whitaker.
Whitaker cut every one of them to pieces, quickly, with common-sense arguments. My friend was kind enough to say that that was the first thing he heard about me.
I remember when I was at another party and a liberal Jewish professor decided to take me on. One of my economics professors stopped him by saying,
"He'll beat you, you know. He'll make you look like a fool."
They ARE fools. And I AM a very smart man.
So when I say I am a Bible Belter I am not being modest. When I say I am from Pontiac, South Carolina, I am not trying to be Just Folks.
When I say I am from Pontiac, South Carolina, I am not just saying that I have my feet on the ground. I am saying I have roots a mile deep.
When I say I am a Bible Belter I am not saying that I am a Good Old Boy. What I mean is that I could sit down with any of our forefathers who spoke in terms of the Old Testament or, before them, those who spoke in terms of the Wodenist Faith, and they would understand me perfectly and I would understand them perfectly.
I am from the Bible Belt. I am in sync with thousands of years of my people's history.
The so-called intellectuals follow "the literature," the latest articles, in their field of study. To me, they are weeds. My roots are a mile deep.
The friend I mentioned above made a very profound remark to me. I kept telling people I was a Bible Belter and from Pontiac, SC and I made fun of myself.
But one day he said to me, "Bob, you are the most conceited person I have ever met." I was astonished. How could Good Ole Bob be conceited?
He said, "You REALLY don't give a damn what people think of you. A lot of people say they don't but you REALLY don't. You are dead sure you are right, and I agree with you, you ARE right. But you can't get more conceited than that."
That sent my mind reeling. He really understood me.
I am conceited beyond the imagination of most people. I consider all the "intellectuals" to be pretentious morons.
That is an understatement. I consider them less than that.
I stand above them like a tower. I am a genius man with roots a mile deep.
How could anybody get more conceited than that?