What do people mean by "southern" and "Midwestern"? (Kansas City: living, restaurants)

[MoSouthernMan]

Originally Posted by GunnerTHB

I'm game as long as St. Louis goes to Illinois.


Jackass hillbilly influence?

My people (the Scotch-Irish) were building this country long before the forty-eighters showed up. I'm sure they qualify as "jackass hillbillies" in your book. I'm proud of what my ancestors had to overcome and your ranting will never change that.


It's the census, not a reflection of culture.

Onegoal we know you have an agenda. Let it go already.

I wish the city of Stl would go to IL. Then they could go into even more debt since the city loses a lot of money.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by GunnerTHB

Personally I'm hoping that the arrogant liberal crybaby influence gets washed away.

If you aren't happy and this state is such a cesspool of political thought you can always move.

But then he'd have to pay the rapacious taxes levied by the Democrats in his home state. No, he'd rather go to a lower-tax area so that he can keep more of his money but then whine about how everybody else isn't paying "their" fair share. I know this because I currently live 15 miles west of the MN border and deal with these kinds of people from "the cities" all of the time. They come in and gripe about the locals being unsophisticated, gun-toting, truck-driving, bible-thumping farmers stinking of manure. But they never consider loading up their Priuses and Subarus and heading back home, absolutely not.

If we are starting to give away states, I'd give St. Louis to Illinois. Then I'd swap IL, MN, WI, MI, and the Northeast with Canada for Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. I'd let Mexico have southern California back because it is already pretty well a part of Mexico now, let's just make it official. I'd then trade the rest of the West Coast to China in return for them forgiving our debt with them. Berkeley and Eugene would be a perfect fit in Red China and we'd actually get something of value in return for those states. It's a win-win-win!

[RDM66]

Originally Posted by GunnerTHB

Jackass hillbilly influence?

My people (the Scotch-Irish) were building this country long before the forty-eighters showed up. I'm sure they qualify as "jackass hillbillies" in your book. I'm proud of what my ancestors had to overcome and your ranting will never change that.

Fascinating quote. This does explain why you will find a lot of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals distributed across the rural south. These areas are dominated by the "Ulster Scots," or the Scots-Irish, who came to America more than 250 years ago. (My own family was Scots-Irish.) Much of the culture of the south can trace its roots back to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Almost all of the Scots-Irish were Presbyterians when they arrived in America. It's hard to believe, but the Presbyterians used to be like today's hardline fundamentalists sects. The Presbyterian church of today in no way resembles the church that John Knox founded more than 300 years ago.

The Enlightenment changed Presbyterian theology back in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It softened it and made it resemble the wishy-washy Presbyterians that we know today. When this strain of watered-down theology was imported to the U.S., the Scots-Irish here rebelled and they jumped ship. Many of them left in droves to join the Methodist church, which used to be another fundamentalist sect until its theology got watered-down too. After that happened many abandoned the Methodist church and then became Baptists and Evangelicals, which are the theological heirs of John Knox's Presbyterianism. That's how all of those counties turned red on the Baptist map.

Years ago I read a fascinating book on this subject, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, by foremer Sen. James Webb (a Missouri boy from St Joseph, MO). It's practically a field guide to understanding the long-forgotten history that shaped the south.

[STLviaMSP]

^ I was born and raised here. But I'd take you up on that offer in a heartbeat if you throw in Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Austin, Kansas, Nebraska, Alaska, and the west coast from SF to Vancouver.

[tuckessee]

Kentuckian chiming in here again. Y'all crack me up. This STLviaMSP guy's got yall all riled up, and he aint said nothing bout anything cept religion. The South is about a lot more than which pews we sit in on Sunday. Church is a social function for us more than anything, and if you learn a good lesson on the side then that's great. If you prefer Midwestern (ahem) "culture" over Southern culture, that's your prerogative, but don't troll here and try lambasting the last bastion of Johnny Rebs your state has clinging to their heritage out of your inclination and ignorance. Show some respect and have some manners to fellow human beings because here but before the grace of God goes you. The OP asked for the differences in the two cultures and he can take your vindictive approach to this topic as an example of Midwestern urban arrogance and lack of social tact. And btw Johnny Rebel is not an insult, though it seems you 've tried to use it as such

[STLviaMSP]

This pretty much sums it up:

Restore America By Ditching Those Who Drag Us Down - OpEd Eurasia Review



And if the idea of Johnny Reb, a traitorous person fighting for the right to limit the rights of others, isn't insulting, then God help you.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

This pretty much sums it up:

Restore America By Ditching Those Who Drag Us Down - OpEd Eurasia Review

Yep, sounds like an exile from "the cities" for sure, a goofball professor bloviating about George W. Bush, in 2011 to boot.

[STLviaMSP]

Obviously you didn't read the article, as it is a comparison of red states and blue states along a variety of health, educational, and economic metrics. I suggest you study up. He makes a fair point: exactly what do the majority of red states bring to the table except for problems?

[MoSouthernMan]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

Obviously you didn't read the article, as it is a comparison of red states and blue states along a variety of health, educational, and economic metrics. I suggest you study up. He makes a fair point: exactly what do the majority of red states bring to the table except for problems?

Well Democrat states like MI, CA, NY, NJ all have unemployment problems.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

Obviously you didn't read the article, as it is a comparison of red states and blue states along a variety of health, educational, and economic metrics. I suggest you study up. He makes a fair point: exactly what do the majority of red states bring to the table except for problems?

I did read the article and the biggest impression I got was that want the 10 minutes of my life back. Here's what that idiot said:

1. America sucks (first two paragraphs)

2. Ranting about the Iraq War during the Bush era (third paragraph), despite this being written in 2011 when Obama had been ensconced in power for over two years.

3. A straw man and race-baiting argument where he says that somebody states that America would rank better in some statistics (which he fails to even mention) if there were no minorities included in the calculations.

Boy, we're off to a great start here.

4. Insulting conservatives by calling them "regressives."

5. Finally, he attempts to talk about some actual statistic- "healthiest states." Okay, what metrics is he looking at? Oh wait, he does not tell us other than it is a "21 factor metric." I think this needs a big [citation needed] flag right there because he could be looking at any ridiculous metric such as "number of home-provided school lunches seized by cafeteria staff" in that study.

6. He then goes on and talks about the obesity rate, which is actually quantifiable. Wow, we're halfway through the article before he actually talks about a potentially meaningful metric. The states he lists are Mississippi, West Virginia, Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Missouri. I see a very blue state and two swing states in that list. How about the least obese states? Hawaii, Utah, Florida, Montana, Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Colorado. Last time I checked there are few states redder than Utah, Montana, and Arizona. (Jan Brewer ring a bell?) Florida as we all know and I bet this guy also rants about, was the deciding state to vote for Bush in the 2000 election. Hardly a sweep for the liberals, especially when the only blue states in that list which are larger than a few counties are Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Colorado.

7. Infant mortality- this is a very complicated metric to compute and full of confounding factors such as geography. For example, needing to fly somebody in preterm labor out of the bayou in Louisiana to the nearest hospital with a helicopter isn't going to end up as well if you were in NYC in the same situation and can spit and hit five hospitals. Also the willingness or unwillingness to abort fetuses with known lethal anomalies has a large input on this as well- if a baby dies in utero at 20 weeks it is not counted, if it is born and dies 20 minutes after birth, it is counted. Even then the list of the better states includes Utah and Alaska (they don't get much redder than those) and Iowa.

8. Crime rate- this didn't help his argument any as the lowest crime rate per capita states are Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Rhode Island, Utah, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, North Dakota, and Maine. That's six red states (among the reddest of the red states) and four tiny blue states with a small population and few or no large cities. Large cities is where crime occurs and why states like MO (most of the population is in KC and STL) are on the "bad" list. I wonder how those large cities vote- blue or red. Hmmm...

9. Median gross family income- this means nothing meaningful as it is absolutely NOT corrected for cost of living. Sure, somebody in New Jersey might have a larger gross income than somebody in Mississippi, but they also are paying far, far more for things such as housing and taxes in NJ than in MS. That $4000/month mortgage on a two-bedroom house in NJ would cost maybe a fourth of that in MS. So really you would expect the median income to be far *higher* in NJ than it really is

10. Bankruptcies- again pretty well split on the good list. You can also argue that there would have been far more in the blue states as well but Obama bailed a bunch of folks in these states out with the "underwater home loans" programs.

11. Poverty rate- this dovetails in with the median gross family income since the poverty level is defined as a certain percentile of income. If you have inflated the cost of living massively in your state, people will get paid slightly more as a result. They will not be considered impoverished even though their actual standard of living is worse than a "poorer" person in a much lower cost of living area. Again, a crap metric.

12. Education- the "good" list is again full of red states such as MT, WY, NE, UT, AK, and IA.

13. Occupational fatalities- this essentially states "which states have people who are doing actual productive physical work instead of just pushing pencils?" It's awfully hard to die at work when all you do is shuffle around paper in a meaningless fashion.

14. Divorce rates- of course divorce rates are lower in states where marriage rates are lower. Duh.

15. Church attendance- he talks about that as if it is a bad thing. Of course it is, for a pseudo-intellectual academic for whom state worship is the One True Religion.

16. A bunch of additional insults hurled at conservatives.

Okay, so looking at that, we note that the red states aren't the craphole he stated (even using his often biased/confounded/meaningless metrics.) There is also a big lack of a certain kind of statistic- namely that of anything which deals with economic activity! How about looking at that:

- What are the states with the lowest unemployment rates? In order, ND, NE, SD, VT, IA, UT, HI, and OK. All of those have unemployment rates under 5% and only two are blue states. How about the poor performers? In order, NV, MS, IL, RI, NC, NJ, CA, DC, and MI. One red state, and several very, very blue states.

- What about state-level debt per capita? In order, MT, VT, NY, NH, NJ, DE, CT, RI, AK, and worst of all, MA. The best performing states are KS, MN, AL, NV, AZ, NE, AR, TX, GA, and the best performer, TN. Sounds like a lot of very blue states are in trouble and the red states are OK. Funny.

I could go on but your goofball professor makes far too easy of a target.