Ticket 2 Ride

Across the U.S. it certainly feels like there is a heady competition underway: the race to the bottom. The bottom of the ranking. Crime, housing, discrimination, educational achievement, healthcare, taxes, sustainability, affordability, wellness, retirement – there is a ranking for everything.

I live in Kansas, America. Except for a few months, I’ve spent my life here. Kansas is the butt of many jokes throughout the years: flat, backward, regressive, boring, etc.

Much of this criticism is well-deserved, self-inflicted. That’s true of every state. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Kansas, the flyover state once was lampooned because passengers on airlines couldn’t legally drink while in Kansas airspace. The Attorney General at the time, Vern Miller, a former county sheriff, made it known that would seek to have that law enforced. He was also known to lead drug raids in hopes of catching hippies with their bag of weed, for a front-page photo op. He had his eye on, and spies operating on the too-liberal University of Kansas, where depravity and communism were running rampant among impressionable young minds.

By the way, marijuana is still illegal in all forms and for all purposes. Have a medical need, too bad. Forget about recreational use, even though border states offer it up, and benefit from the tax revenues. Kansas minds will remain clear and only fogged by alt-right ideology.

Topeka, Kansas was there Brown vs. the Board of Education landmark case originated. Kansas entered the Union as a Free State, but paid dearly for it. William Quantrill and his gang burned the city of Lawrence and murdered over 200 men and boys in the name of pro-slavery interests. Quantrill’s gang operated across the border in Missouri, a slave state, forever setting in motion hatred between Kansas and Missouri, although battles later were confined to athletics.

Truman Capote’s mostly nonfiction story of the murder of the Clutter farm family in 1959, took place in rural Holcomb, Kansas. Four brutal, cold-blooded murders. Perry Smith and Richard Hickock were arrested, tried and found guilty of the murders. They were sentenced and executed by hanging in 1965, the last year anyone has been executed in Kansas. Capote spent time in Kansas, along with his friend Harper Lee, researching the case and interviewing Smith and Hickock in prison. The resulting book, In Cold Blood, was a best seller and turned into a film directed by Richard Brooks, and starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe. Those murders sent chills throughout the country.

Until the 1980s, Kansas had a complicated set of laws governing the sale and consumption of alcohol. At age 18, purchasing and consuming 3.2 percent beer was legal. At age 21, you could buy and consume stronger alcoholic beverages. You could buy it at liquor stores, but to drink at a bar or restaurant, one needed to join their “club“ to do so. I don’t believe this arrangement was legal in all counties in the state. It was a fucked up mess to figure out, thankfully the liquor laws have been modernized since then.

Kansas as I said, refuses to allow cannabis for medical purposes, and Kansas is one of a few states that also refuses to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government will pay for the first eight years of an expanded program. Nearly two-thirds of Kansans want the Legislature to allow both of these issues, but the majority of the Legislature is controlled by the Koch brothers and their stranglehold over public policy, including immigration, public education, views on LGBTQ+, tax policy, abortion, teaching of American history and race. Expanded Medicaid would provide needed healthcare for another 150,000 Low-income Kansans, many of those seniors who can’t pay for long-term care (assisted and skilled nursing services).

Like many surrounding states, young people are leaving Kansas. Reasons include employment, lifestyle, recreation, public policies and diversity.

According to the Kansas Reflector: Outbound statistics for the state of Kansas have hovered between 55% and approximately 60% since 2014. Kansas places 11th in the number of outbound moves compared with other states and sixth when state populations are factored in.”

Kansas rarely ranks near the top or bottom on most ranking of various issues, usually in the 20s. In some things, Kansas is strong, but some of our deficiencies are clearly due to poor leadership. Trying to take the state back to the 1950s won’t do it, and more authoritarian public policy is what drives people out of the state. That may be their goal.

In the past two decades, the population of the state has grown slightly, although the growth has been to urban areas, not surprisingly. Rural areas show the largest declines. Reasons given are lack of childcare, internet access, healthcare, and housing. These are not just Kansas problems, small town America is dying. The exceptions are clusters of industry like oil and meat packing, and large agricultural operations where migrant workers are needed to perform difficult and unpleasant work.

And not all Kansas are the same. There is definitely a conservative bent, but not all Republicans are far-right, anti-science, book-burning, evangelical-Christians. Many Republicans are moderate but vote R as a default. Kansas as a moderate-Democrat as governor, who defeated Trumpian Kris Kobach, who is now the attorney general. As I said earlier, most Kansans are in favor of expanding Medicaid and protecting abortion rights, even though their elected officials have different priorities and refuse to recognize the views of their constituents.

We can do better.

I love my state. I’ve chosen to spend my life here. But I don’t like many things that it was, and continues to be. First, Kansas is not as flat as the Earth. That’s a joke. Most of Kansas is relatively flat, but not completely. The Prairie has majestic vistas, and parts of the state are lush and have breath-taking landscape, but Kansas is no Colorado or California, which are available for visiting.

Midwestern people in general are hospitable and genuine, charitable and grounded in their beliefs. Although somewhat conservative, few are like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church (“God Hates Gays”).

Gambling, you asked? You can certainly do it here. Concealed carry, yes ma’am. However, Kansas residents must drive across the state line to get their medical or recreational needs met, if you know what I mean.

Thankfully, airline passengers can still get a stiff drink when flying over Kansas. Cheers.