= new reply since forum marked as read
line from SNL 
whereof you speak!
discouraging more visitors and/or settlers is stupid. Selfish, perhaps, but not necessarily stupid.
I've come to love Boston proper. It's pretty densely populated and, in warm weather, I can barely crawl over the tourists to get to the drug store or wherever I have to go in my neighborhood. And don't ask about the lines at the bakeries and restaurants and tourist attractions.
So, while I recommend Boston, both to visit and to move to, you won't hurt my feelings if you ignore that. 
How come so many stay quiet when there is a nice Florida bash going on?
even vote out Governor Skeletor in the last election.
I hope it's not because you were conceived there 
replace the word "kill" with the word "fuck" in all the old movie Westerns:
"OK, Sheriff, we're going to fuck you now. But we're going to fuck you slow."
That's me.
K&R your response! 
I moved back to the south (New Orleans) after my father died so I could be closer to my aging mother in case she needed me. It was a very difficult decision. Although I was born here, it was hard to come back after living in a heavily Democratic area in the mid-Atlantic for 25 years.
Although the City of New Orleans is very blue, the outlying areas are filled mostly with repuke morons. I make fun of the redneck Boudreauxs here all the time. It's my coping mechanism.
that were perpetrated by the western states.
That would really throw our DU friends west of the Mississippi for a loop, wouldn't it?
'McCarthyism' fame). Thanks a lot, Wisconsin!
Wisconsin is positively schizo, I think. On the one hand, Joseph McCarthy. On the other hand, Russ Feingold. Go figure!
It just sounds to me like you haven't read a lot on what conditions were like after the war ended. You're in good company there.
The intent of a great many folks up North was to punish the South after the war for their transgressions. And punished they were. The thing is, the newly freed slaves were punished right along with them. Poverty and misery is the great equalizer. And there's no doubt that a lot of the whites blamed the newly freed slaves for their miserable conditions...after all, that was what the war was fought over and they lost.
Old feelings die hard. It allowed for ill-will between the races to become entrenched more firmly than in other areas of the country. Is it right? Hell no, but it's human nature and doesn't surprise me.
Unfortunately it did here in Philly. In 1944.
My mother was 14 and was starting high school at the time and used to talk about it - the troops on the trolley. The transit company (PTC) went on a wildcat strike because... OH THE HORROR...they were told to hire black bus and trolley drivers.
And so since Philly was a major war-machine entity (with the Naval Shipyard and a giant Quartermaster shop - i.e., the Defense Personnel Supply Center), Roosevelt had the army running the transit.
The white trolley drivers decided to strike when the PTC promoted eight African American employees to driving positions, to start on Tuesday, August 1st. A committee headed by the former president of the PRTEU Union, Frank Carney, trolley operator James Dixon, bus driver Frank Thompson, and El operator James McMenamin convinced the trolley drivers to participate in a work stoppage and that morning a large contingent of white PTC workers called out sick.
Philadelphia was not alone in white resistance to fair employment practices in the 1940s. Racist attitudes toward transit integration led to similar “hate strikes” in Mobile and Detroit, and transit systems from Boston to Portland had similar policies of racial discrimination.
President Roosevelt accused the striking white workers of violating the Smith-Connally Act (an act he had opposed), which made it illegal for workers involved in the war effort to strike, however since the PRTEU was no longer the official representative of the PTC workers, the committee representing the workers claimed they were not violating the law.
On the third day of the strike, Roosevelt authorized the Army to take over the transit system, and Major General Phillip Hayes threatened to conscript any workers who remained on strike. Despite this, over 6,000 of the white PTC workers voted to continue the strike. On August 5th, the President upped the ante and ordered the military to break the strike by force. Five thousand troops were ordered into the city, setting up camp in Fairmount Park. The same day, the leaders of the strike committee were arrested and charged with violating the Smith-Connally Act. After spending a night in jail, McMenamin told the workers to return to work and leave the matter to the courts. He and the other committee leaders were summarily fired when they tried to return to work themselves. The military intervention ended the strike before a week passed, and by September all 8 of the African American workers had begun their new jobs as trolley drivers. By the end of 1945, nearly 1,000 African Americans were employed as drivers with the PTC.
<...>
http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/08/an-anniversary-to-forget-august-1-1944/
This is just sad but we are just barely above the Mason-Dixon line.
Thanks for the info.
by us Fluffians to your north.
and one of my co-workers was a Fluffian who believed Delaware was part of Pennsylvania. It was, once. She was just off by 100 years!
that includes "South Jersey" too.
And northern Delaware is part of Philadelphia too, in that it is where the airport is, and where the major government offices are, where the major networks beam from, where you can see a symphony or major play (OK there's a Delaware Orchestra, but then there is a real orchestra in Philadelphia) - and where the professional sports teams are. Go Phillies! Delaware feels it owns the Phillies too.
Which is why we merged with you (having an 8% sales tax here in the city, so we have to buy our stuff somewhere).
As a Boston native, raised in Blue Broward County South Florida, who raised my family in bright red Northern Arizona and now a resident of happy clappy liberal West LA, thank you sincerely for your post and the column from 2011 which I never saw until now.
I see a glimmer of a future for myself in Metro Atlanta and it terrifies me to go back to another red state.
I'm still terrified but a little less so now. Keep trying to convince me I can be happy in the South.
I would not trade Birmingham for any other place i have ever been. 
...to leave politics in the other room. Sarasota is a mixed bag and have some damn nice people here. I live out from the city lights and it's just wonderful to go out at night and see the stars in all their glory.
One other thing. I lived in Minneapolis for awhile and the "Rush" you feel during the winter while sliding down a street on 2 inches of ice is/was enough to bring me back to Florida/Home.
http://wtvr.com/2014/06/02/virginia-flaggers-erect-second-confederate-flag/
I don't think anyone is saying that the people in the south are all bigots and racists. But you in turn cannot sit there and whine about how unfairly maligned you are, when there is ample evidence to show the continued worship of the Confederacy among a significant proportion of people in Southern States.
It has been 150 years since the end of the Civil War. You might expect some folks to note that event, and some folks to note the continued bigotry. If that is 'non-stop', well, too bad.
The South is beautiful,
and belongs to all of us.
In 2006, my Wife & I moved from Big Blue Northern Minneapolis
to a deep red Southern State in a very rural area.
Bigotry, poverty, and fundamentalism are still big problems,
but the kids are on-line and have Sat TV, and that has broken the monopoly of the Preachers and Parents.
The South is changing....and is ripe for the picking for the Democrats
if they ever let go of Wall Street and start working for The People again.
We found our little piece of heaven here,
and haven't regretted a single day.
If you are open minded and strong in your beliefs,
the South has much to offer from abundant clean water, to pristine and inexpensive land,
not to mention easy Winters, low Property taxes, and LOW CoL.
If you have decided you hate the South,
please don't come here.
We already have enough people like that.
