Yup. The American way!

Northerners, it is important to realize that a bunch of stuff that people drag into this constant pointless regionalism are either completely irrelevant or broad strokes of the brush. There’s nothing more frustrating than being a Texan and having to put up with someone thinking of them with the stereotype of the traditional Appalacian cousin fucker (which, btw, is also an unfair stereotype. close knit rural communities have always had a more inbred population, especially before modern transportation, but that is just as true in rural Iowa or South Dakota). Likewise, NASCAR is an odd little sport, roughly as monotonous to watch on TV as baseball is, but it doesn’t prove that people who watch it are somehow stupid (likewise, it is not exactly a southern exclusive sport).

I think, in the end, it boils down to this:

Northerners think that Southerners think that they are more patriotic than the Northerners, and wrap themselves up in the flag.

Southerners think that Northerners think that they are smarter than the Southerners, and arrogantly dismiss them as ignorant yokals.

In the end, it is a bunch of people who think they know what everyone else thinks and never stops to ask or have a meaningful dialogue.

Having spent most of my life in either Louisiana or Minnesota, I have a bunch of sympathy for both sides.

RSixidor, Jagermeister and other defenders of southern pride: if nothing else, it is useful to not dismiss this a some limousine liberal, but realize that this is a common, perhaps-less-than-informed-but-not-elitist view of the southern USA not just from the north but also much of the rest of the world. George W Bush has done a lot to reinforce this, but so has every movie ever made that features a rich white selfish businessman such as an oil baron or a poor white racist ignorant asshole (often a sheriff). While it is based on very real people and very real problems (I’m sure it is difficult trying to fund public schools in the Dallas area and deal with immigrants and language issues, but I’m going to look at someone growing up black and poor in rural Mississippi and say that you have it pretty good), the stereotype as a whole is completely unfair. That said, most stereotypes are unfair. Massacheussets is dominated by blue collar catholic familymen and factory workers just trying to have energy after their shift to catch their kids peewee football game, yet the red states never get tired of trying to paint them as gentrified wealth drinking scotch at Harvard alumni parties and turtleneck wearing homosexuals having wine and cheese at art openings and reading Karl Marx to each other. Stereotypes suck. Small town Virginia looks a lot like small town Vermont and Atlanta looks a lot like Madison.

As to socialism: it’s all a sliding scale. Yeah, Obama’s plan is more socialist than Bush/McCain’s, but most things are. Of course, that depends on whether tax and spend is more socialist than borrow and spend. Some would argue that the most socialist president of them all would be Ronald Reagan, since he increased government spending more than any other president. What neither Obama nor McCain seem to have the political will to do was to tell the American people the truth: that we will have to either curtail all our monetary desires, or increase our taxes.

As for secession, it wouldn’t hurt my feeling one bit. It would be interesting to see just where the lines would be drawn.

You know, sometimes I’ve wondered if there was a real movement for secession, if it wouldn’t be split three ways. (maybe five if Texas and Alaska secessionist parties got their way).

How about the northwest?

On top of that, the school system gets pressured into having individuals who speak both languages, and of course there’s no one out there worried about all the Africans, Asians, and whatever else who have to learn by immersion. How the hell are they supposed to learn if half of the teachers speak more Spanish than English, all the curriculum is in English, and half of their class mates barely know English (or grammatical Spanish, for that matter).

I have to admit, as far as the school system goes, it’s apparently not as simple as I thought.

Then let it be about Tennessee. Not about the South.

It is so full of win it’s not even funny. I was born and raised in TN and all these stupid fucks around me piss me off on a daily basis . Ther’e so fucking slackjawed and ignorant. FUCK! AGH!!

Yes you are because that image said so. Deal with it.

The bailout was an absolutely horrendous, nonsensical, and completely avoidable (if the right steps had been taken, which both parties pushed for at one time or another, at least in part).

The problem with bilingual classes (at least in Dallas) is that they don’t work. The administration hangs on to bad teachers just because they can speak Spanish, and the students who speak the same language are worse off than those who had to learn English by immersion (immersion works damnit), and the ones who speak only English are WAY worse off than they would be in an English only class.

Recently the Dallas Independent School District had a lay off of 600+ teachers, and then two weeks later put out ads for bilingual teachers (and some other specialties, like science).

The whole point of the layoff was because the damned administration made a clerical error accounting for $64 MILLION. So the teachers end up paying for this?? More importantly, the STUDENTS PAY?! That’s not right. I don’t understand why the TEA hasn’t come to run this show yet, because obviously the guys doing it look like the products of their own work.

And I think teaching religion is just fine, as long as it’s kept separate from science. I know there are some creationists who don’t want their children to be taught things like evolution, but they can decide specifically what they don’t want their children to learn at school.
As for the completely Spanish language classes, I think that’s nonsense. Bilingual on the other hand, makes perfect sense.
But yea, just like you said, if the community can decide individually there should be no problem.

And again, Obama’s tax plan works just fine in so many other countries, why not in America? If you consider the fact, that there are ridiculously rich people in this country, some who own more money than small countries – isn’t it worth a try. You really can’t say, that any president has already tried it and that it failed miserably or anything. Especially now after that horrendous bailout.

I’m cool with the somewhat socialist aspects of public services. I think schools should be more affordable, but I don’t think the government should have as much control over schools as they do.

I feel that schools should be built by their community and should teach what that community wants their kids to learn, alongside a basic country wide required curriculum. (neither barring or requiring religious instruction, but requiring scientifically proven curriculum alongside whatever the local community wants).

The problem with this comes when we get to larger cities, such as my hometown Dallas. We have an extreme mix of people here. Some would want purely scientific theories taught, some would want purely religious doctrine taught, some would want bilingual or completely Spanish language classes (this already exists some places here).

As for redistribution of wealth . . . I’m not really for it, of course its already in effect. Sort of. Wealthy people already fall into a higher percentage tax rate, but there’s also more ability for wealthy individuals to find ways out of paying those taxes (some of it is temporary, some kinds of investments, charity stuff, exemptions of some sort, etc). A lot of not-so-wealthy people have some of these options as well, but don’t take them.

The big argument I’ve heard is that this will balloon the middle class, instead of helping to grow the middle class to the upper class (I don’t have the exact numbers and years, but ~10% went from middle class to upper class in recent years. That’s progress).

I read this (heh…yeah, I can read!) and can only think…jeez…this guy missed his Xanax dosage or perhaps its intravenous in this case…regardless they need to up the dose. It seems typical that everyone seems to think that the Civil war was about slavery…and that Lincoln was a great prez. He wasn’t bad. But he wanted all the slaves out of the country. The South was pissed over Lincoln wanting to remove states rights. Look it up, its all there. Nowadays everyone still thinks that the south is “poor” and the north is “rich”. Not true. In Texas alone you can account for a rather large portion of the national wealth…oil, coal, gas, and a large proportion of the US refining capability. But of course, we shouldn’t be able to do this as we are “slack jawed” and “stupid fucks”.

Personally, I say let them keep that attitude about us. I have no problem with them thinking that way…perhaps that will keep them from coming down here and ruining our fun.

You’ll never find a bigger capitalist than me but 90% of health-related medical advances come from university labs, and are announced in university-published journals.

Drug companies almost entirely research drugs for depression and cosmetic purposes. When the next plague hits its not going to be the guys who make baldness and weight-loss pills saving us.