Posted on 07/22/2002 12:30:48 PM PDT by Aurelius
I occasionally get some rather rude e-mail from those with a deep-rooted Yankee mentality in regard to my little web site. Usually the writer informs me, rather contemptuously that my web site is all wet, that it stinks, that the War of Northern Aggression was really fought to preserve slavery, that I am totally in error about Abraham Lincoln, who, in the writer's opinion, is really god, and on it goes. 'Those people' never offer historical argument to back up what they say [they can't] but they are quite accomplished at ridiculing others when they, themselves, don't have a clue about the historical accuracy of anything. No doubt many of them are cultural marxists and don't even realize it. But, then, no one has ever accused those with a Yankee mentality of being over-endowed with discernment. Let me say here, that when I refer to the Yankee mindset, I am not offering a blanket condemnation of all Northern folks, else I would also condemn myself. I know lots of good Northerners who would cringe at being thought of as Yankees, and I know some Southerners who, unfortunately, fit perfectly into the Yankee mold. What I am talking about has no connection whatever with where you were born.
I got a rather nice e-mail recently from a Southern-born Yankee type who crudely informed me that "Lincoln was right and J W. Booth, and R. E. Lee and Jeff Davis and the rest of the gang were murderers who all deserved to be hanged." You can really tell that this character did his homework - what historical insight! He then went on to inform me that he was a white man born in the South but was, "thankfully educated in California." Folks, I submit, that anyone today who is thankful for having been 'educated' in California the way this man seems to have been 'educated' is just not the brightest light in the harbor. He then informed me, in his infinite wisdom that I should 'get a life' beyond my web site and 'grow a brain.' He closed his tirade with the statement that Lincoln was the last of the good Republicans, and his parting salutation was 'Long live Bill Clinton.' Usually I don't bother replying to such sanctimonious drivel, but, in this man's case I made an exception. I e-mailed him back and told him that if people such as he didn't like my web site then I must be doing something right. I suppose I should have ended my reply to him with 'Have a nice day' but, for some unknown reason, I didn't bother to.
This individual is a perfect example of the Yankee mindset - smug, self-satisfied, egotistical, and totally ensconced within a sense of their own perfect rightness in all things and on all issues. Anyone daring to disagree with them has to be berated because 'those people' have got it all figured out - after all, their 'teachers' and 'college professors' dutifully informed them that the war was all about slavery and that Lincoln freed all the slaves, and the 'history' professor wouldn't lie - would he? Lincoln must be more astute than Jesus Christ because, after all, Lincoln came along more recently on the evolutionary scale didn't he?
I have had people that checked out my web site and disagreed with something they saw on it. Often they have contacted me and have been courteous enough to voice their opinions in a civil manner. Others have offered constructive criticism, which was all right, because I took it in the spirit in which it was given. I had a black man once that read one of my articles and took exception to it, stating that he was a Christian. I contacted him back, informing him that I was also a Christian and with Christian charity, I sought to correct the misconception that he had. Once he understood where I was coming from we were able to carry on a dialogue with no bad feeling on either side. Some folks will check out the site and come back with genuine questions about something. That's fine. I answer what I can historically [unlike the Yankees, I don't claim to have all the answers about everything] and I often try to pass these folks on to someone else that knows more than I do.
But there is a certain class of Yankees - often well 'educated' that are just so superior to the rest of us 'great unwashed' that they don't even feel the need to attempt courtesy. They howl about us 'rednecks' and what we write and tell us to 'get a life' yet the sum total of their 'life' seems to be wrapped up in demeaning those who dare to disagree with their vaunted opinions.
A while back, Professor Clyde Wilson wrote an excellent article in Southern Partisan magazine called The Yankee Problem in America. In it Professor Wilson took on such Yankee paragons or 'virtue' as Ted Kennedy, the man who never learned to drive over a bridge straight, and St. Hillary Clinton of 'Cattle Futures' fame. Wilson described such people as smug, self-righteous, above the rules the rest of us live by, and completely convinced that they are right in all things - right enough that they deserve the privilege of telling the rest of us how to live - all for 'our own good' of course [and just maybe for their profit.]
There is no place in the Yankee mindset for grace, courtesy, compassion, consideration of the feelings of others, or for any of those Scriptural virtues that have graced and improved our civilization in the past. The Yankee knows only complete self-righteousness and, in that self-righteousness he exhibits a certain perverse pleasure in seeking to trample on the feelings of those who dare to disagree with his elevated opinions. In most cases, the Yankee understanding of accurate history is about an inch deep, and therefore, he becomes little more than a 'useful idiot' that the cultural Marxist professor that 'educated' him can turn loose on the world for the total benefit of the New World Order.
There is not a nickel's worth of difference in the way Washington, Madison and Lincoln viewed the Constitution.
Walt
We value things differently, it's in our mindset. Now before any of you yankees get upset, I'm not necessarily saying one way of thinking is right or wrong, it just is. Yankees seem all fired up to get from place to place, when heck I'll take the backroads. I'm more concerned about the rain and the crops than I am if a new company comes to town 'bringing' jobs (more like importing more yankees). Washington himself saw the truth in 1796 at his farewell address. We're concerned about the same things that you may be, just don't look at in the same way and even with government indoctrination over the past 140 years still won't look at it in the same way.
A few small words ..... Savannah River, Oak Ridge Tenn.
Though, when I was a college kid in Buffalo NY, my manager at TGIFridays was on the COPS they filmed in Buffalo.
" Yes, we'll promise to stay up here and enjoy the pleasures of the confederacy through their wonderful TV travel show seen every Saturday night on FOX....COPS."
Coming from some joker from Noo Yawk City that's a hoot! Fahgedaboudit! Your crime rate is nothing to brag about! Yessir ... Noo Yawk ... the state that does not adhere to the 2nd Amendment, and elected a carpetbagger anti-gun socialist named Hitlery Klintoon to the Senate to boot!
Tarheels from the mountains are a whole world of difference from the people on the coast.
Just get them started on BBQ and this yankee vs southerner thread will seem tame.
Its great for trips, 10 of us going out drinking, golf, the dogs, the hardware store, etc...
I love my minivan. It hit 200,000 miles on Thursday.
Nah, that'll only get you a glimpse of yankeeland's urban crime cesspools on the northeast coast and midwest along with a few shots from the left coast.
What about the 44 dockworkers from Texas, led by a lieutenant, who defended a six-gun earthen fort near the Louisiana border and sent a yankee fleet of over 20 ships steaming back to sea, thus preventing a 15,000 man invasion army from doing to Texas what Sherman did to Georgia and South Carolina?
It was the most one-sided battle of the war with the yankees having every advantage possible, yet those 44 dockworkers defended their homes against overwhelming odds without a single casualty of their own. Now that is true heroism.
Oh, really? Well, I am not the one talking about Yankees, or anyone else, rotting in hell.
You are, though.
Now who takes what seriously?
Wrong. Air-conditioning per se was known to Middle-Easterners (probably Arabs, since they have some of the worst climes) centuries ago. At best Carrier applied the new-fangled mechanical refrigeration techniques to the issue.
(Must I rescind my ASHRAE membership now?)
How about "Nancy"?
I'm sorry. Old joke. Just the first thing that came to mind. Now we get to see if PL has a sense of humor. Anyway, How about MVY? Either that or the Yankeenator.
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