Also the BBQ.
Do you agree with Sigma’s premise that residents of southern US states have to choose a particular football team? At the college level, which is usually where the team loyalty exists, nearly every southern US state has an instate rivalry.
I’m glad I found the best response right at the start. Saves me a lot of hassle reading the rest of the thread.
So Eurasia is the best continent because the most people decide to live there? It has the largest area. Ditto for the South.
I’ve found BBQ to be too divisive a matter. People like their style of BBQ. I’ve seen full-on fist fights break out on the subject of vinegar vs mustard based sauce - at which point the Texan speaks up and all HAYLLL breaks loose.
Grandma’s southern style biscuits may not be everyone’s favorites but I haven’t seen anybody turn one down yet.
You should tell that to a Pakistani woman or gay person. I’m sure they’d totally, 100% see your point.
I live in Iowa and have lived in the Midwest my entire life (IA, MN, NE and SD). I used to think the cold was more tolerable than the heat. Then I lost 80 lbs. Now I’m 5’4, 120 lbs and I FREEZE when it’s under 40. I keep my apartment at a nice 75 degrees, and even then I get chilled when the heat isn’t actually on. I’ve also discovered a new-found love for cardigans, and can play Pokémon Go in 90-degree heat no problemo!
I need to move someday. Not necessarily SOUTH south, but someplace a bit more weather-neutral, I suppose.
Just one anecdote, FWIW. When our whole family vacationed in Myrtle Beach, SC, we were warned by our DIL’s sister who then lived in Conway, about 15 miles inland, to never, ever, say anything political in public. And she had been living there for about 15 years.
My sister-in-law got a job at State University in Alabama, so she and my brother moved there over twenty years ago. (She has a Ph.D. in the sciences). While they enjoy some aspects of the deep south, as educated atheists who don’t care for football it has been difficult at times for them. My brother once described a conversation he had with a stranger while standing in line at Lowe’s:
STRANGER: WHOEEEE! The Tide’s gonna be great this year! Gonna be great! Who you like?
BROTHER: Excuse me?
STRANGER: Who you like? Alabama, or Auburn?
BROTHER: Sorry, what do you mean?
STRANGER: Do you like Alabama, or Auburn?
BROTHER: What are we talking about here?
STRANGER: FOOTBALL! Do you like Alabama?
BROTHER: Oh. No, I don’t watch football.
STRANGER: [pause] So you like Auburn, then?
They’re constantly asked about where they go to church (they’ve learned to dodge the question), dealing with “Creationism,” and “Intelligent Design” still has my SIL rolling her eyes, and I’ve been hearing about Judge Roy Moore for years. They had a campaign sign for Obama in their front yard, which local vandals lit on fire, so they replaced it with another one that was promptly torched as well, not to mention the mailbox getting destroyed and garbage thrown in their lawn.
She’s looking to retire soon, and they are talking about moving to a more enlightened part of the country.
Here is California we don’t really have weather, we have climate. A three degree increase over three days is a warming trend. The natives think 40 degrees is bitter cold. And if you want snow you drive to it.
Given that we had 30 inches just before I left New Jersey, that works for me.
If it’s such a horrible place to live then why is the majority of the migration over the last 30-40 years been from the North and East to the South and West?
The South is not located in the South and West.
True dat!
I have been in every state in the Union except Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, and I don’t miss those much. I wore a US Army uniform over my tall white frame when white civilians in south Virginia beat and robbed me. I guess they didn’t like federal troops. 
I’ve been assaulted in Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. I didn’t stay in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama long enough to feel any wrath there.
A robber in San Francisco pulled a knife on me once - he was disappointed I had nothing more than a Confederate dollar in my wallet - but otherwise I’ve not been molested outside the South, even in “bad” areas. (I often walked through Harlem at night, no problem.) Fuck the South. Let them secede. No loss. Give Florida to Cuba.
Pretty sure the South is located in the South. :rolleyes:
But the West isn’t. :rolleyes:
Nobody lives in the North anymore. It’s too crowded.
I wonder if people like the ones in your anecdote feel a sense of loss whenever they move to more urbane parts of the country?
I was in Whole Foods the other day:
STRANGER: Tsk tsk tsk. Cilantro or coriander?
ME: Excuse me?
STRANGER: Is it cilantro or coriander?
ME: Sorry, what do you mean?
STRANGER: What do you call it. Cilantro. Or. Coriander.
ME: What are we talking about here?
STRANGER: The annual herb prominently featured in both Mexican and Indian foods! Do you call it cilantro or coriander?
ME: Oh. Either, I guess.
STRANGER: [pause] So you call it Chinese parsley, then?
I look forward to this exchange in an upcoming Mallard Fillmore.