Posted on 11/23/2001 5:25:09 AM PST by LarryLied
Despite the "friendly" Sunbelt's purported ease and opportunity, the "unfriendly" North continues by far to have the best quality of life.The United Way now reports that Minnesota (of which I am genetically half a native, which may undermine the good data here) is the best state, in economic well-being, education, health, civic engagement, safety and the environment. Having visited this Midwest Finland, I am not surprised. And I find New Hampshire's Number 2 rating apt, too, having inhabited that rocky realm of rectitude, responsibility and (usually) reasonableness for four years.
Ditto the others in the top 10: Connecticut (even with Hartford!); Massachusetts; Vermont; Maine; Wisconsin; Iowa; New Jersey, and, yes, even Rhode Island, hardly a state at all!
Meanwhile, the bottom 10 are all in the Sunbelt, the worst New Mexico, and then Louisiana.
Maybe it's mostly the weather. The North's bracing and wildly variable climate energizes people and encourages planning and careful citizenship. And it's probably better for you, because cold is bad for bugs. Even the post-war wave of air-conditioning hasn't let previously soporific Southern schools, offices and factories overcome the North's paradoxical climatic advantage.
And Northerners tend to be less mobile, and so less likely to slide into that appalling anomie in which the American Dream is pursued by folks wandering the roads in search of pots of gold that turn out to be tin, and leaving no forwarding address. But then, it is easier to wander about where the weather is warm. Thus the pervasive trailer parks in the Sunbelt, and enough social problems to make you ask if the Sunbelt's growing national power is a good thing. (Don't show this to my Tennessee relatives.)
At least in the North the only Gore counties were the urban counties (which were unfortunately unough to swing their respective states), there were two huge swaths going through the South that went for Gore both urban and rural. So I wouldn't say the South is more conservative, just that the North has bigger cities.
are you sure this wasn't done by the UN? damned yankees! they must be jealous of the diamondbacks taking the world series!!
eat poo-poo and expire!
Now I can understand that.
They don't appear to be the brightest bulbs on the marquis...
But then again, I am "not welcomed" after all.
What is it that the "transplants" are doing to speed the degradation, and how are long-time residents attempting to fight them?
You have made my point for me. I know exactly why the war was fought. And it wasn't for any of the reasons the Northerners have posted on this thread today. I don't have any trouble with Northerners, until they misrepresent history and suggest that I should ignore their fabrications. 150 years later in retrospect I can see the value of the preservation of the union.....but in 1861, living in the South, I would have fought to defend my home against the invaders. And if you were honest, I think you would fight to defend your home too.
Just remember, most of us could really could care less. That is okay with me, so why did you post to me? I didn't comment to you.
I won't depend on the wolves too much then. Maybe I'll have to count on United Way to keep the people out of NM. It's one of the last places left where it's not always freezing where you can still enjoy a lot of open space and uncrowded towns.
I've never claimed that we entered the war to free the slaves. We entered the war to preserve the union. The South seceded to preserve slavery though as evidenced by South Carolina's Declaration of Secession, therefore there cause was not just and they lost. A fringe benefit was that the Radical Republicans got there wish to end slavery in the process.
However, those who actually lived in the South know most Southerners didn't own slaves...and that most Southerners were fighting to defend their homes.
That's what makes it such a tragedy. 650,000 people died because a few Southern elitists wanted to continue the filthy lucre cash cow of slavery.
The North was the invading force, the South was in the defensive position.
What was that Fort Sumter thing about then? You guys thought you could whoop us, you couldn't.
They can't accept that so they have convinced themselves they had a higher cause than raping and pillaging the South.
So that's why we invaded to get a few rapes and pillages in? That's ridiculous.
If the South was the drag on the Union L-D says, the Union should have just cast the South loose...but they didn't.
The South tried to walk away from a contract with no terms of separation, that's rebellion. Ain't gonna happen.
If the war was to free the slaves, Lincoln would have freed them all at once...but he didn't.
Lincoln didn't have power over the few areas where there slaves left in the North like he did in the South due to the South's rebellion.
So I have come full circle and find I agree with you...they were meddlin'.....but please don't stir them up with the truth, they can't handle it.
You poor boys. You weren't able to keep getting that free money from slavery. I feel sorry for you.
Another fine example of that "Southern Hospitality". What part of "discussion forum" do you not understand?
You think Presidential Executive Proclamations are only valid against states in rebellion? Where do you read that in the Constitution? Oh, I forgot, Lincoln suspended the Constitution during the War...you may be right.
He didn't because it was not a matter of principle as you Northerners like to claim, it was a matter of economics, for both the North and the South. And it was Lincoln's way of punishing the South. Oh baloney. The North was a more powerful industrialized area as proven by the Civil War. Keeping down the South didn't prop up the North.
Again you have made my point for me. The North was industralized. The farms that they had were small farms. Owning slaves was not profitable in the North. However, it was very profitable for northern ship owners to import and sell the slaves to the South. Because the South was more agrarian and the crops raised in the South were more condusive to large tract farming, ie. plantations, it was more economically feasible for slaves to be used in the South. Thus there was an economic factor is why slavery persisted in the South rather than in the North...thus it was an economic punishment against the South to free the slaves there (in fact taking "property" without compensation) and not freeing the slaves in the North.
Thanks, that makes me feel better. And if it makes you feel better, I have no intention of moving to the land of Lincoln.
Most Southerners are good people and I like them a lot. But Free Republic seems to attract a large contingent of them that are self-righteous hypocrits and blame their problems on everyone else and want to somehow claim that a slavery filled pre-1861 South was utopia. I was using the term "Southern Hospitalitist" sarcastically to show their hypocrisy.
Anyway, we did have a wonderful Thanksgiving with some of my family. Hope you did as well,
patent
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