Sioux Couty. Explain this place to me.

it's in the northwest corner, second county from the top. it voted over 80% for *. It voted 77% for Dole. It voted over 50% for BAUER in the caucus. It even voted over 65% for Goldwater. Why is this place so hardcore right wing?

they were mostly german,swedes, and english ,very conserative and didn`t like the federal government. very easy to sway with the -social spendig,high taxing,commie democrats. but none of them turned down fdr "social handouts". my grand father was very anti-government,anti one world,and anti business,this was in the late 20`s and early 30`s...

The Dutch reformed. A part of my family has been in Orange City - county seat - for many years. All the Democrats are smart enough to get the heck out of there. The R's stick around. The place is scary. No bars and no lawn mowing on Sundays. No minorities either, unless you count the Germans. I have always considered it one step away from a little fascist state up there. I also note that it is the conservative right-wing part of northwest Iowa that has the lowest percentage of union households in the state along with the lowest wages and the highest unemployment rates in Iowa.

It is also home to State Senator Ken Veenstra who called gays "people against nature" and in "violation of natural law". He then went on to "out" a closeted gay Democratic State Senator. How dispicable.

Wish I could explain more, but they are beyond explanation.

Dutch reformed. Religion has way too much power there. My boyfriend's parents live in Orange City. (Apparently not all the Ds are smart enough to get the heck out :))

Orange City is a text-book case of what happens in a town where being phony gets rewarded. The attitude there is, "All that matters is what others think of me." This is a result of religion.

I live in Eastern Iowa and had to go to my niece's graduation at Northwestern College there. Very conservative, very Christian college. Needless to say, I felt quite out of place there. Didn't have my car so couldn't display my DU bumper sticker, but that might have been fun. On the way saw I several anti-abortion signs in fields along the road. But, on the plus side, I got to stop at the Blue Bunny Ice Cream store in LeMars on the way home!

is plunging headfirst into the 1950's.

The people there really ascribe to the wackiest of conservative (bordering on fascist) beliefs. Even as a kid, I felt something wasn't quite right with the attitudes of many of the people there.

I read somewhere that the town Sheldon, Iowa (also in the NW corner) was named after someone in the Bush family, who settled there a long time ago.

So maybe one of the Bush ancestors put a hex on the place, dooming it into neo-fascist tendencies ever since?

I spent 2 years in NW Iowa attending college. Thankfully I transferred out so I can see a different schools name on my diploma. I would tell everyone what a bunch of kooks these folks were but I felt like nobody believed me. I even married a gal from up there. She is in a difficult position on this question. She agrees with me but often thinks I go overboard on these matters and defends them. I can't go further without starting a civil war in my house but thank you for pointing out what I have known for years.

went to HS in... *shudder* Sibley... a town more chock full of assholes, you'll be hard pressed to find. even in texas. (just kidding, texans. more or less.)

it took me a long time away from there to realize that not all of iowa is that bad. from the dutch calvinist/social-darwinist sorts to my own german crypto-fascist missouri-synod lutherans... there's gotta be something wrong with the water.

actually, i think it was more the result of all the bible beating. nothing like being a fundamentalist lutheran. like a whole congregation of opus dei members, without the genuflecting.

Sibley truly is a horrible place. I have lived in many different states and places and in all my travels I haver NEVER come across a place quite like Sibley. We have lived in Iowa for almost 9 years now. We lived in Sibley for the first year. Once we became more familiar with the area we moved away from sibley........FAST. I use to work at the creamery there, for 6 1/2 years.
Now I only need venture into sibley to visit my mother in-law, other than that I stay as far away as I can.