Comments on: Late Nite FDL: Southern Fried Civility

By: Quin Hillyer

Quin Hillyer — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:05:54 +0000

This is nonsense. The idea that the South is more violent is just nuts. Go to a football game, for instance, in New York or Philly, and you’ll find far more hostility to visitors and more fisticuffs, surely, than you find if you go to a game in, say, New Orleans or Atlanta. What the moron Bishop did in the Alabama Senate was inexcusable, but it is calumny to assert that it is indicative of a violent tendency endemic to the entire South. Matter of fact, here was my take on the event: http://www.spectator.org/blogg.....811– and I came down hard on Bishop.

By: Logansally

Logansally — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:33:25 +0000

Maybe this is why the South is called the “Bible Belt”. They LOVE the eye-for-an-eye stuff, while ignoring “turn-the-other-cheek.”

By: have skunk

have skunk — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:59:46 +0000

I was born in the north but have lived in the south. I don’t care for southern culture or mentalities. I suspect once gasoline is 10 bucks a gallon, we’ll have the scene set for another shooting civil war in this country — old, long-simmering grievances aired, etc. The seeds have been planted. This post is proof.

By: Pete Bogs

Pete Bogs — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:47:47 +0000

Sen. Barron ought to slap Bishop’s face with a glove and demand satisfaction – pistols at dawn.

By: Harold

Harold — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:08:18 +0000

Mark Twain (I forget where) commented that the South had retained many of the manners and customs of eighteenth century England (and Ireland — see Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, all about dueling) long after nineteenth century England had abandoned them — or tried to. In England, dueling, forced labor, impressment into the army and navy, flogging, the death penalty for minor crimes — all were commonplace until the reforms of the mid-Victorian period. As for dueling, there was a big push to get rid of it in Regency England, and apparently it was quite successful. It didn’t happen here, at least not in the Southern states. (Victorian, Laissez-faire capitalism still lingers on there as well.)

The Mind of the South is a great book that everybody ought to read, I think, who wants to understand America. Like Mark Twain, it paints with a broad brush but is still very powerful, and only slightly outdated (in some of Cash’s remarks about women).

By: rss reader

rss reader — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:05:22 +0000

Fyi, there’s been a tendency of late to cut off the content to RSS Readers. If you “abstract” your posts like this one which ended at

There’s an old study of Southern psychology, The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash that, whatever its other faults, describes the tendency very well: (more…)

I won’t be reading what you post. For efficiency, I read in a RSS reader - exclusively unless I want to comment.

By: Sadie Baker

Sadie Baker — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:32:21 +0000

I’m with you, Son of Liberty.

I read somewhere that the reason the South has always been the most murderous region in America is because we inherited two murder traditions — the Scots-Irish feud and the Cavalier duel, then invented our own, the lynching.

Personally, I’ve always felt that this is part of what makes Southern Progressives the most formidable. We know what people are capable of, yet we do what we do anyway.

By: newtonusr

newtonusr — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:40:14 +0000

newspaperbrat @ 540

newtonusr - I would like to believe the Honorable Al Gore might welcome the opportunity to appear on a FDL book salon at his earliest convenience. What say you?

Given all the givens, I think President Gore could hardly refuse, don’t you?

By: kovie

kovie — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:01:57 +0000

Heh, I once made a brief comment to much the same effect on DailyKos–that there’s a strong and still too dominant yeehah redneck element that pervades the south and holds it back–and it wasn’t long before some southerner shot a FU my way and told me where to stick it. This is clearly still a very sore point for them. Which is ironic–the immediate response to being accused of being stupid hotheads is…to be a stupid hothead. Group therapy, anyone?

By: newspaperbrat

newspaperbrat — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:32:36 +0000

newtonusr – I would like to believe the Honorable Al Gore might welcome the opportunity to appear on a FDL book salon at his earliest convenience. What say you?