[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

And so moonshine had nothing to do with it?

[gov_bean_ counter]

I saw a tee shirt the other day that read...

Paddle harder, I hear banjos.

[msnimje]

Also generational membership in the Democrat Party.

[avg_freeper]

Hatfield: Wanna fight?

McCoy: Hey! Them's fight'n words!

[Brad from Tennessee]

Where I live this is a common illness also known as Joe-Bob Syndrome.

[Tax-chick]

Dixie ping, stainless? Interesting info related to the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

(Doesn’t explain “Devil Anse” Hatfield, though. Didn’t we have a FReeper by that name at some point?)

Iirc, the Ran McCoy family had 14 children, and the Anderson Hatfield family had 18, but it might be the other way around. They’re my idols :-). “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them. He shall not be put to shame when he confronts his enemies in the gate.”

[Apple Blossom]

Ping for tomorrow.

[elhombrelibre]

If it were biological, how would it stop as described? The medical explanation misses a few things, I think.

[lawgirl]

Hatfield here. It was definitely the McCoys! BWAHHAH!!

[Nachoman]

The disease lives on in hundreds of commuters on our nation’s freeways.

[The_Reader_David]

Okay, enough with the hillbilly incest jokes, everyone.

There is a serious side to this:

Consider the reasoning of the left regarding homosexuality: they’re born that way, there may even be a gene that causes it, therefore it’s morally neutral, not a sin.

Apply the same reasoning to the McCoys. Shall we therefore conclude that wrath and murder are not sins because we have identified a genetic condition that predisposes some of us to wrath and murder?

No?

Then why apply that reasoning to sodomy?

[petertare]

Medical condition? Hardly.

I have a source that establishes their muslim background.

Jihadis before jihad.

[Our man in washington]

The book I read on the subject suggested that the Hatfields were the aggressors and the McCoys were the ones on the defensive, for the most part. That said:

1. The writer admitted that he was doing his best guess of the facts and had to deal with a lot of contradictory accounts.

2. The McCoys definitely broke the law on a few occasions, although not as often as the Hatfields.

[alicewonders]

I was born in that area of the country - my people have inhabited that area since the early 1800s. My grandfather used to tell me his great-grandfather came over here from England because they wouldn’t let him grow a beard. My ancestors came here from places like Ireland, England and Scotland to get away from people telling them what to do, they high-tailed it up into the hills because they were independent, hard-headed people.

Hot tempers come naturally to these people (myself included).

[Ciexyz]

Most interesting.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie ping - there’s history in them hills

[deaconjim]

I had a sister who suffered from Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome. It is a terrible disease that caused her to lose her sight, and resulted in 10 brain tumors in about 25 years. Before she died, she was confined to a wheel chair because of tumors on her spine, and could barely speak because of tumors in her vocal cords.

I had never heard of the hot temper issue though. I can understand how that could happen to people, although my sister didn’t have that problem.

On a side note, I have a neighbor who is a McCoy, but so far I’ve never heard of him having a bad temper.

[Daffynition]

Why didn't the Hatfield's build a wall to just keep the McCoy's at bay?

[U S Army EOD]

Perhaps both families were “sick” of living next to each other.

[F.J. Mitchell]

So what about the Hatfields? Were they just unfortunate victims that fate placed within temper tantrum range of the McCoys and forced to defend themselves from their loonie neighbors, or are they sick too?