Do a majority of our red avatars hate Southerners?

[traininthedistance]

Ugh.  This thread is a ridiculous cavalcade of overgeneralization, paranoia, projection, and abuse of language and logic.

An overwhelming majority of our red avatars hate anyone that doesn't vote like they do, act like they do, live in the same areas that they live in, etc.

Define "hate".  Difficulty: define it in such a way that the converse isn't just as true, if not moreso.  I dare ya.

This thread needs a healthy helping of Mechaman.

In good time sir.

Once I get off of work I'll rant more about the hideous bigotry of the so-called Northern "liberal" class.

The idea that you can claim the "Northern 'liberal' class" to be some monolithic thing, with uniformly those sorts of qualities, is itself a piece of hideous bigotry. 

(Obviously there are plenty of bigots in the North.  And some of them are liberals.  I've always openly admitted as such, and am embarrassed about it whenever it crops up.  But the rather stronger claims being made here are utterly insane and unsupportable and, I would argue, speak to, well, what strikes me as nothing less than anti-Northern bias.)

[traininthedistance]

Ahem

I'm seeing plenty of FF states in the south, as well as some inexcusable anti-Jersey Italophobia.

[traininthedistance]

First, I have to address the preceding post.

I meant no universal assertion here.  In fact, I believe that a lot of liberals in the northern states would be shocked and outraged by the amount of negativity that some of you convey.  However, like you yourself have said, there are a lot of Northerners who are bigots and are self professed liberals.  I didn't mean to assume that all northern liberals were bigots (in fact, I would claim a small minority of those are), just a select class who assumes themselves to be liberals (thus the quotation marks) while exhibiting qualities that are anything but.
That you jumped to such a conclusion suggests that you feel you yourself have some insecurities about the topic at hand.  I however, will take you at your word that you are embarrassed by some of the more negative things said and assumed by others.

Just want to clarify, since the wording of my post doesn't seem to have much allowance made for actual liberals in the North.

I'll admit it's a touchy subject for me, not so much because I'm personally insecure, I'm not (though perhaps I might be on behalf of friends and neighbors that haven't given the subject a whole lot of conscious thought).  It's more that such a charge often enables a basket of pretty bad positions and attitudes (foremost among them my particular bane, anti-intellectualism), and I feel the need to fight against it on those grounds.  I'll try to explain more when I have time/a more functional computer.

(Excellent posts after this, BTW. I think I do agree with the strong majority of what you're saying here, though of course my particular emphases would be different.)