Strong NorCal bias on this forum. Does anyone actually prefer SoCal? (Los Angeles: 2014, depreciation)

[blueskywalker]

Originally Posted by LuvSouthOC

Watch other classics like the Buckley and Gore Vidal debate...talk about entertaining! I have watched and read Noam Chomsky voraciously and even the communist-touted Howard Zinn (ugh). Christopher Hitchens thankfully came along (and his brother Peter, who is also interesting, but admittedly less so and he never appears outside of the UK) and brought some fresh and wonderful debates. I even enjoyed the earlier Crossfire episodes when Buchanan was there with the brilliant Michael Kinsley. Today I love Dave Murray and Milo for amazing discussion, albeit discussion that is more inflammatory in nature, but that is the result of the environment we are in. Civility is gone (but not present in the Buckley and Chomsky exchange on Vietnam either).

I see we're on opposite ends of the spectrum but who cares right? Aren't these great to watch?! Good evidence of a great cultural decline! And yeah, Michael Kinsley was (I should say is. Although i think he has parkinson's disease) brilliant and really interesting to watch and listen to.

[blueskywalker]

Originally Posted by Bert_from_back_East

If Orange County is considered "VERY conservative" by Bay Area standards, then I can't help but assume that many folks in the Bay Area are truly out-of-touch with present-day American values, ideals and norms, making them somewhat of an island unto themselves in the United States.

Maybe it's the geography of the region? I don't know. But through some of the responses on this thread, I've been able to pick on a superiority complex of Bay Area residents and general divisiveness that seems to be used to disconnect themselves with the rest of California and the US at large.

It's actually pretty alarming.

Respectfully, you kinda started the division bert and seem to have a superiority complex of your own. Yes? Yes.
And i'm wondering how old you are and to what degree you are aware of the history of California. it seems to me that if you were more informed re; the history of California, you wouldn't be so baffled about this issue.

And the SoCal vs NorCal is no big thing ... kinda sorta like the yankee / redsox thing. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

Also, you seem to have a somewhat inflated notion of your overview / perceptions of the state. I don't know how long you've been out here but you may want to just hang back a bit and keep watching and learning and not be so gung ho to classify and generalize.

Peace.

[HappyinCali]

Originally Posted by blueskywalker

Respectfully, you kinda started the division bert and seem to have a superiority complex of your own. Yes? Yes.
And i'm wondering how old you are and to what degree you are aware of the history of California. it seems to me that if you were more informed re; the history of California, you wouldn't be so baffled about this issue.

And the SoCal vs NorCal is no big thing ... kinda sorta like the yankee / redsox thing. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

Also, you seem to have a somewhat inflated notion of your overview / perceptions of the state. I don't know how long you've been out here but you may want to just hang back a bit and keep watching and learning and not be so gung ho to classify and generalize.

Peace.

Even if he is not familiar with the history, he should at least read grapes of Wrath and see what pre-war SoCal was all about. Grapes of Wrath captured perfectly what the political climate back then was and the mood set by Col. Harrison Gray Otis and HArry Chandler.

[LuvSouthOC]

Originally Posted by blueskywalker

I see we're on opposite ends of the spectrum but yeah and who cares right? Aren't these great to watch?! Good evidence of a great cultural decline! And yeah, Michael Kinsley was (I should say is. Although i think he has parkinson's disease) brilliant and really interesting to watch and listen to.

Don't be so sure about our being on opposite ends of a spectrum when the reality is that much is fluid and seldom do issues fall on the ends but rather in between the staked out positions of two parties (at least here in the United States). If there is one thing I hate, it's this notion of purity in philosophy insofar as these ridiculous parties in the United States are concerned: one pandering in race and victimology and the other in sometimes fake patriotism, moribund tradition and invasive religion.

[blueskywalker]

Originally Posted by LuvSouthOC

Don't be so sure about our being on opposite ends of a spectrum when the reality is that much is fluid and seldom do issues fall on the ends but rather in between the staked out positions of two parties (at least here in the United States). If there is one thing I hate, it's this notion of purity in philosophy insofar as these ridiculous parties in the United States are concerned: one pandering in race and victimology and the other in sometimes fake patriotism, tradition and religion.

O.K.
But i am so very, very far to the "left".
I imagine we could have an intelligent and civil debate about of couple of your statements.
Speaking of pandering ... i actually think it may be one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders is not so very popular with African Americans (but i'm just a white gal so i gotta be careful). So far i haven't seen much pandering from him (and god forbid, he said "ghetto" as if that matters one iota re; how positively [in theory anyway] his approach would affect "minorities"!) but it seems he's in somewhat of a bind because of the degree to which what's her face (groan) is pandering .... big time.
That's an off the top of my head comment so take it with a grain of salt and we best not hijack this thread.

[blueskywalker]

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

Even if he is not familiar with the history, he should at least read grapes of Wrath and see what pre-war SoCal was all about. Grapes of Wrath captured perfectly what the political climate back then was and the mood set by Col. Harrison Gray Otis and HArry Chandler.

Yeah, there are all sorts of way to learn about the history of California. Reading "Grapes of Wrath" is a most excellent way!
And CA (past and present) is complex and nuanced. To reduce it to cliches, norcal vs socal, etc., etc. is just silly.

[boulder2015]

"And the SoCal vs NorCal is no big thing ... kinda sorta like the yankee / redsox thing. I wouldn't take it too seriously."

-well put. It is hardly "alarming". Sunni vs shia is alarming, sherman vs. Lee is alarming, ukraine vs russia is alarming. La vs sf? Not a big deal outside of att park and dodger stadium...

[Majami]

Originally Posted by blueskywalker

Also, you seem to have a somewhat inflated notion of your overview / perceptions of the state. I don't know how long you've been out here but you may want to just hang back a bit and keep watching and learning and not be so gung ho to classify and generalize.

Peace.

He's a transplant, and is searching for reasons to love his new found home, in his case the OC. He said it himself earlier in the thread. Nothing remotely surprising about it, one brief visit to San Francisco will make it hard for him to reasonably convince himself he'd like it less than SoCal let alone to have a conversation with other people about it.

As to the political climate, OC and San Diego were known as 'conservative bastions' since I can recall. It's probably narrowed now as LA slowly seeps into OC, ever so slowly, but there has always been antagonism between LA and OC, mostly from the side of OC residents who viewed LA as poor,ghetto, and full of immigrants. It's very similar to the relationship between Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County.

One small excerpt from my life, when I lived in LA, I met two kids who were my students (I was a TA) at UCLA. They were dating if I recall correctly. At the beginning, they were nice, clean-cut kids from suburban America but at one point there was a sudden transformation of tattoos, piercings, colored hair. It was them in unison. So I asked and they told me something to the effect they wanted to challenge the conservative perceptions back in their own neighborhood of OC, as a kind of protest.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by boulder2015

"And the SoCal vs NorCal is no big thing ... kinda sorta like the yankee / redsox thing. I wouldn't take it too seriously."

-well put. It is hardly "alarming". Sunni vs shia is alarming, sherman vs. Lee is alarming, ukraine vs russia is alarming. La vs sf? Not a big deal outside of att park and dodger stadium...

You got it right.

[RosieSD]

Originally Posted by BeauCharles

I actually see more of a coastal vs. inland bias in the forums. If its more than 40 miles inland its dismissed as a barely habitable wasteland.

This is so true. But, I'd say that anything that is more than 20 miles inland is dismissed on the San Diego forum. Some people even dismiss anything east of I-5 on the SD forums. Which is really unfortunate, because once you get beyond the coastal area in San Diego, and actually in most of Southern California, you'll find less congestion, lower housing prices, a slower lifestyle, and beautiful scenery.

I like where I live in Southern California (I'm in East County San Diego in a semi-rural area). But I'm not unusual. *Most* people have a strong bias for the place where they live; that's not a California thing - it's just human nature. Otherwise, we'd all pick up and move.