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I love New England's windy country roads, lush forests, nice reserved people, no adult store/strip club billboards, casual skiing, Atlantic Ocean, small community churches and not Megachurches, puritan values with liberal tolerance, and quaint New England towns with Main Streets still intact.
I just don't understand why Texans, Southerners and the Sarah Palins of America complain all the time about the "liberal" New Englanders. You can't drive half a mile in a Texas city without seeing a sleazy adult store billboard, a gaudy car dealership, a strip mall parking lot thrice the size of the mall, and a megachurch with a shopping mall inside it.
I think for a lot of people its that snobbish, judgmental attitude that some display that turns them off from the "liberals" or Northeasterners more so than their political beliefs. And your last two sentences exemplifies that type of attitude many do not appreciate. I'm not from TX, the South, or support Palin in anyway but the constant rehashing of Southern stereotypes by close minded northerners gets old after a while.
That's nice that you love New England but what purpose does it serve to put down another region to express your love for your home region? I just don't get that "I love where I live and everywhere else sucks" mentality so many people on here have. I guess putting down other regions and its people must make some feel better about themselves and where they live.
I think for a lot of people its that snobbish, judgmental attitude that some display that turns them off from the "liberals" or Northeasterners more so than their political beliefs. And your last two sentences exemplifies that type of attitude many do not appreciate. I'm not from TX, the South, or support Palin in anyway but the constant rehashing of Southern stereotypes by close minded northerners gets old after a while.
That's nice that you love New England but what purpose does it serve to put down another region to express your love for your home region? I just don't get that "I love where I live and everywhere else sucks" mentality so many people on here have. I guess putting down other regions and its people must make some feel better about themselves and where they live.
New England is not my home region. I'm from Chicago and live there. I just happened to have also lived in both Texas (Houston and Dallas) and MA/RI in my life.
My opinions about Texas and New England are not founded on close-minded stereotypes, but a varied personal experience. If they sound judgmental or snobbish to you, I assure you it's a reaction to the widespread ignorance and insular arrogance I had observed on a daily basis in Texas towards the rest of the country, but particularly against this imaginary New England Liberal boogie man.
New England is not my home region. I'm from Chicago and live there. I just happened to have also lived in both Texas (Houston and Dallas) and MA/RI in my life.
My opinions about Texas and New England are not founded on close-minded stereotypes, but a varied personal experience.
Saying you can't travel a 1/2 mile w/o running into those things you listed is an exaggeration. People see what they want to see imo and many times that stereotypes to justify/reinforce their point of view.
And either way what I said still stands. You came here to express your love for New England but had to put down an entire region for god knows what reason and that is what I don't get. There is nothing wrong with admiring and loving where you live but why do you have to put down another region while doing so?
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If they sound judgmental or snobbish to you, I assure you it's a reaction to the widespread ignorance and insular arrogance I had observed on a daily basis in Texas towards the rest of the country, but particularly against this imaginary New England Liberal boogie man.
I wonder what prompted those reactions, it could have been the way you came off but you might not have realized it. Either way some people in the Northeast do the same thing that some people in Texas do when it comes to complaining about other parts of the country, its the same difference and the people aren't any better in that respect in either place.
Saying you can't travel a 1/2 mile w/o running into those things you listed is an exaggeration. People see what they want to see imo and many times that stereotypes to justify/reinforce their point of view.
You obviously haven't been to Houston.
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Originally Posted by sav858
There is nothing wrong with admiring and loving where you live but why do you have to put down another region while doing so?
Yes, Churchill was a great man, but Hitler wasn't too bad either. Happy now? Sometimes making a direct contrast is necessary, and we can't just be silent and PC all the time of the things we find distasteful.
Houston isn't the only place in TX, its a big state.
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Yes, Churchill was a great man, but Hitler wasn't too bad either. Happy now? Sometimes making a direct contrast is necessary, and we can't just remain silent and PC all the time.
Why was the direct contrast necessary? For you to express your love for New England why is it necessary to put down TX or anywhere else for that matter?
I guess some people never learn manners and tact. There was no good reason for you to attack another region of the US to express your admiration for NE and its as simple as that. Go ahead and justify your actions anyway you want but it doesn't change anything.
I love New England's windy country roads, lush forests, nice reserved people, no adult store/strip club billboards, casual skiing, Atlantic Ocean, small community churches and not Megachurches, puritan values with liberal tolerance, and quaint New England towns with Main Streets still intact.
I just don't understand why Texans, Southerners and the Sarah Palins of America complain all the time about the "liberal" New Englanders. You can't drive half a mile in a Texas city without seeing a sleazy adult store billboard, a gaudy car dealership, a strip mall parking lot thrice the size of the mall, and a megachurch with a shopping mall inside it.
I'm not remotely liberal, at least not in the modern-day America sense, but I have to agree with much of what you said.
Yes, there's some okay little towns outside of New England, but increasingly, more and more of them are becoming little suburbs... even if they're no where near a big city. Small towns all across America have become generic carbon copies of each other.
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. The older part of town is abandoned for some spot that used to be on the outskirts. Often, it's a new highway "by-pass" that triggers the development. Wal-Mart is the first to go in, and everyone else follows.
The little downtown areas struggle to survive. Many of them try to resort to being touristy or artsy, but there's not enough demand for all small towns to be like that, so they continue to fall into disrepair. More and more small towns have the exact same problems large cities have with sprawl.
I live in a larger mid-western city where there's hundreds of empty buildings in the older parts of town, yet the morons keep building new ones further and further out. Ridiculous. Especially in this age of uncertain gas prices.
New England is only place I've seen (at least on a large scale) where people appreciate the older buildings, and find use in them. The rest of us abandon those kind of buildings, and leave them for the poor people or local die-hards to deal with.
I used to find myself complaining about New England. It's easy to do if all you see of the place is what's on TV. After visiting there, I don't complain anymore.
I like it a lot.
No, I love it. I'd live there in a heartbeat if I had the chance, even if I'm not terribly bothered by Sarah Palin.
I certainly wouldn't miss the local interstates where you could drive off the road at any given point and hit a billboard. Yes, probably one of "those" billboards... or even one of the corresponding establishments.
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