The authors of these articles link this perspective to differing positions on things like gun control. I'm not advocating for either side. I have seen and participated in multiple exchanges here on a variety of issues and I know there's little hope any one here change anyone else's mind or position on controversial issues. Heck, we can't even agree on what's the best tire, or oil. Although there does seem to be a pretty strong consensus on the value of okra. I'm more interested on how different people (or groups) could look at the same events and form two polar-opposite conclusions. Example: Who "Caused" the government shutdown?
I think most people on either side of arguments like these are well-intentioned and convinced that they are right and folks on the other side are misinformed, dishonest, or just plain stupid.
So I'm really interested in the factors that influence our opinions
Yankeedom: Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions.
New Netherland: The Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world when New York was founded, Woodard writes, so it’s no wonder that the region has been a hub of global commerce. It’s also the region most accepting of historically persecuted populations.
The Midlands: Stretching from Quaker territory west through Iowa and into more populated areas of the Midwest, the Midlands are “pluralistic and organized around the middle class.” Government intrusion is unwelcome, and ethnic and ideological purity isn’t a priority.
Tidewater: The coastal regions in the English colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware tend to respect authority and value tradition. Once the most powerful American nation, it began to decline during Westward expansion.
Greater Appalachia: Extending from West Virginia through the Great Smoky Mountains and into Northwest Texas, the descendants of Irish, English and Scottish settlers value individual liberty. Residents are “intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers.”
Deep South: Dixie still traces its roots to the caste system established by masters who tried to duplicate West Indies-style slave society, Woodard writes. The Old South values states’ rights and local control and fights the expansion of federal powers.
El Norte: Southwest Texas and the border region is the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas. Hard work and self-sufficiency are prized values.
The Left Coast: A hybrid, Woodard says, of Appalachian independence and Yankee utopianism loosely defined by the Pacific Ocean on one side and coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas on the other. The independence and innovation required of early explorers continues to manifest in places like Silicon Valley and the tech companies around Seattle.
The Far West: The Great Plains and the Mountain West were built by industry, made necessary by harsh, sometimes inhospitable climates. Far Westerners are intensely libertarian and deeply distrustful of big institutions, whether they are railroads and monopolies or the federal government.
New France: Former French colonies in and around New Orleans and Quebec tend toward consensus and egalitarian, “among the most liberal on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in the economy,” Woodard writes.
First Nation: The few First Nation peoples left — Native Americans who never gave up their land to white settlers — are mainly in the harshly Arctic north of Canada and Alaska. They have sovereignty over their lands, but their population is only around 300,000.
The clashes between the 11 nations play out in every way, from politics to social values. Woodard notes that states with the highest rates of violent deaths are in the Deep South, Tidewater and Greater Appalachia, regions that value independence and self-sufficiency. States with lower rates of violent deaths are in Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Midlands, where government intervention is viewed with less skepticism.
States in the Deep South are much more likely to have stand-your-ground laws than states in the northern “nations.” And more than 95 percent of executions in the United States since 1976 happened in the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater and the Far West. States in Yankeedom and New Netherland have executed a collective total of just one person.
That doesn’t bode well for gun control advocates, Woodard concludes: “With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable that some new alliance could form to tip the balance.”
'utopia' head in the clouds - living in a dream world far away from reality and believing in your own superiority; an entitlement culture of the what is mine is mine, and what is yours should be mine (in whole or in part)
well there is the council of governors that FEMA has the country divided into 10 regions... but that is more for the death camps that they are ginning up ; and indeed it is a Soviet Authoritarian government that has dreamed such an idea up.
I will never live under it. I will be overseas or dead fighting against it.
The government shutdown was caused by narrowly passing a new tax in which a minority support. If bribery through pork deals hadnt been allowed the law wouod have failed. Elected representatives are bound to represent or getthe boot.
even i am surprised in the magnitude by which you've missed the mark. I had an old boss who was fond of saying "You can't fix stupid". When he was right, he was right. Although I'd amend it it to "You can't fix stupid and paranoid schizophrenia's even harder to work with" Isn't that right City? Surely you've been called that before?
Robert Heinlein used this ( or some thing like it ) as a back drop for the novel "Friday"
My favourite Heinlein book Oldog, didn't know it came from this, learn summat new every day.
Paul, how many trite sayings (based on truth) would you like?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. There's none so blind as those that will not see. Opinions are like arseholes everybody has one & they're mostly full of...
You can't expect to launch a conversation here with such a concept & hope for immediate consensus.
seek and ye shall find. Start with the white papers out of England on 'Resilience, Transition, and Sustainability'
There are things that are dark and out of the main stream press that you will never see - until it is too late
PS - I had Admirals, Navy Captains; Army Generals and Colonels pay me to be paranoid and play Team Red - for a decade and a half.
you might want to dial back your rhetoric abit. Especially since every damn wicket about the health care legislation I have hit right on the head - from five years ago.
seek and ye shall find and yes F#ck, I F#cking told you so
Cityxslicker well there is the council of governors that FEMA has the country divided into 10 regions... but that is more for the death camps that they are ginning up ; and indeed it is a Soviet Authoritarian government that has dreamed such an idea up.
Relax, by the time they get done with the environmental permitting process we will all be dead of old age
I enjoys me some Heinlein, I would love to see star ship troopers made as the story is written, rather than the slice and dice that they did with Casper Van dean.
I think Pauls post is more fanciful academic mental masturbation. Although any thing is possible, On a historic note the southeast tried to break away from the north in 1860s' the US civil war resulted,
I believe that if it happened now China, or Russia may be provoked into a pre-emptive nuclear strike, out of fear that the arsenal may fall into the wrong hands.
>> looking at the map and thinking about how the us was colonized and expanded over the years, the map sorta follows the cultural trends thru the years of expansion and settlement. it seems as I said earlier supposition. <<
I'm glad you commented its good to hear the thoughts of an intelligent unbiased observer ...
Have you read any Patrick O'Brien?, I have been "sailing" with Aubrey and Maturin for a while, I wish I understood British "puddings" and the currency with Brit pounds gunnies, shillings etc.
Being both retired DOD and a current DC-based federal employee, I am SO glad the NSA is monitoring you.... I just wish someone was monitoring your medication
Tomorrow's of course a holiday but I can't wait to tell my friends at FEMA about this and the death camps. Gotta grab some screen shots because they surely won't believe me otherwise. Friends at DHS may be interested in the traffic as well. Then its time to buy stock in aluminum foil.
So Paul_regan: You hurled a stinkbomb in the President0 thread and then ran. What part of the Tea Party do you agree with? Are you afraid that you might find yourself on the wrong end of a philosophical seesaw?
Any who seek to further divide us prove themselves enemies of American exceptionalism, human freedom. In my view, they are winning. Jerks like Paul who adhere to the Alinsky rules are the tip of the spear.
Wise up Paul. You seem to imagine your resume means anything. If anything, it merely indicates that you imagine your view somehow superior and are likely blind to reality and are part of the problem.
Morality and reverence for our creator must be revived among Americans. Freedom must rule. The federal govt as nanny must die. It's that simple.
Oldog, try David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series for a space version of O'Brian. Good stuff.
There's an article out there on how there are 3 parties in D.C.
The Progressive ( neo-marxist ) left.
The McCain oldsters.
The Tea party conservatives.
The map above has a great deal of validity to it.
If you look at a county breakdown of states ( of the whole country ) into "blue/red" voting patterns, it becomes Obvious that the Blue is where the crime and badness is, and the red is where stuff is made & grown. So within the simplified borders in the map above is a lot of variation.
What a riot! Didn't take long at all for the bible thumper to show up.
The resume wasn't meant to impress, just to show I live in civilization, not in some trailer park or not in Kilgore,Texas. (Wait- that's the same thing)
As soon as you have no argument but a mythical creation story, Blake, you've lost. Again
when you watch a political "discussion" on fox between the left and right it seems to turn in to a shouting match at some point,
Typically when the speaker from the "right" makes a point, the health care mess is a text book example. The speaker for the "left" starts changing the subject, interrupting, blaming others etc.
I have seen TV personalities, AND elected officials do this (on c-span not sound bite reporting but full context, its kinda hard to "spin it" then)
Chuck Schumer of NY is a master of the tactic, Mis direct, talk much say little, move blame, re-direct topic, watched him do it.
What I've noticed in the past several months is that the more conservative states have fought political pressure and have either not budged or have expanded their laws protecting their people, while the more liberal states, as usual, do what their government tells them to, and continually give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.
Paul, Texas contains the 4th and 5th largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Kilgore is really close to one of them. And Blake is an engineer whose projects include the B2 stealth bomber. You'd be wise to not run your mouth about people you don't know.
The FEMA "death camps" are, of course, benign refugee camps for times of civil disorder. You know, hurricanes, floods, riots, martial law. Counter revolution.
Historically, or should I say simple observation shows that UN refugee camps are great places to be killed. Not, mind you by the UN directly, ( usually ) but because the enemy forces that are slaughtering civilians outside the camps decide to strike the largest concentration of targets kept "safe" in gun free zones and sometimes "guarded" by 3rd world troops, that have shown a history of abandoning the camp to the enemy. Hey, when the UN forbids you to engage a force attacking your charges, do you "rebel" and fight back? When some General, or the High Command orders a withdraw ( to wisely save your troops in a fight you have no "national Interest" in ) you lose your career, and probably your life, so, damn it, Obey!
This description puts the Dutch in the 3rd world category, but you could argue that Obama has placed the US there too. ( see Benghazi, and the General Officer Purge related to it. )
Friends at DHS may be interested in the traffic as well.
Threats? Seriously? You are going to DENOUNCE us to Big Sister's Bush Created Guardians of The New Normal?
By the way, I come from the crossover of the Midlands and the Far West. The people who provide the bulk of military volunteers since the Spanish American War. Kept making things as Yankeedom destroyed it's industry, produce most of the food on the planet,.......and consider folk from Boston as provincial rubes who have a tiny view of the planet, and worse, utter ignorance of their own provincialism. How we feel about D.C. is pretty obvious, "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."
I now live in Yankeedom. The folk in the Far West are right It's full of busybody loons. I live in a Blue county in the Red part of town, and am enough exurban to have McMansions next door, with trailer parks inside 5 miles.
I found your link & map above an interesting and fairly valid idea. I naturally quibble over some details, but the balkanization of opinion in America is nothing new.
BY going emotional and abandoning rationality for personal attacks, you just tell folk you feel you lost the argument, and don't have a good argument for your point of view at all.
Which is a pity, because you could well have had a valid point to make, but now you are just being a bully, Seriously? You are going to threaten us with denouncement to The Party?
What a riot! Didn't take long at all for the bible thumper to show up.
The resume wasn't meant to impress, just to show I live in civilization, not in some trailer park or not in Kilgore,Texas. (Wait- that's the same thing)
As soon as you have no argument but a mythical creation story, Blake, you've lost. Again
Paul_regan, Sifo is correct that you are nothing but a troll. Your ad hominem attack on Blake shows your lack of character. I will have nothing more to do with you on Badweb. My advice is for you is to leave Badweb and start your own website as your behavior is both childish and sickening. Good luck.
Blake is one of the prime reasons why Badweb exists and you should thank him instead of acting like an @$$.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams
"If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson
me: "Morality and reverence for our creator must be revived among Americans. Freedom must rule. The federal govt as nanny must die. It's that simple."
* RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. Saul Alinsky (Communist radical, author of Rules for Radicals)
Paul Regan:
quote:
What a riot! Didn't take long at all for the bible thumper to show up.
The resume wasn't meant to impress, just to show I live in civilization, not in some trailer park or not in Kilgore,Texas. (Wait- that's the same thing)
As soon as you have no argument but a mythical creation story, Blake, you've lost. Again
Thanks Jeff, Patrick, Tom R. Matt, and Jeff, I really appreciate your support.
Blake, What is most pathetic is that this Troll didn't take the time to find out who you are in relation to Badweb before tromping into his own mudfield. Maybe Froggy can tell us if this Troll was registered here under a different name. I guess all bulletin boards have these Barneys with six shooters ablazin' and all they manage to do is shoot themselves in the foot. It is really sad and counter productive.
I am all fine and dandy with people that don't agree with me - I meet them daily. It does not however mean they are informed to the level that I have been, and it is always my encouragement that they do their own research. I know I will not convince none of the low information zealots and O followers; but for those that are paying attention and feel at many instances that all is not right in DC; I encourage you to find those answers out (hint, they will never come from the media)
as far as personal attacks - grow up - this isnt the play ground and I don't care how big your dad is, and the "your momma" jokes don't work any better now than they did then.
Damn I would love to have Saul Alinsky in the booth and across the table when we get to turn on the screws. I have the feeling that he has never been under a true interrogation.