= new reply since forum marked as read
But just remember, there's always safe havens, including right here on DU. 
Oh, those crazy kidders!
Overview
Dubbed “savagely funny” (The New York Times) and “wickedly entertaining” (San Francisco Chronicle), acclaimed travel writer Chuck Thompson embarks on a controversial road trip to prove that both sides might be better off if the South were to secede once and for all.“He’s a travel writer like Anthony Bourdain is a food writer,” writes The Oregonian about Chuck Thompson. In Better Off Without ’Em, the biggest book of his career, Thompson offers a heavily researched, serious inquiry into national divides that is unabashedly controversial, often uproarious, and always thought-provoking.
By crunching numbers, interviewing experts, and traveling the not-so-former Confederacy, Thompson—an openly disgruntled liberal Northwesterner—makes a compelling case for Southern secession. Along the way, he interacts with possum-hunting conservatives, trailer park lifers, prayer warriors, and other regional trendsetters, showing that the South’s perverse church-driven morality, politics, and personality never have and never will define the region as a fully committed part of the United States. Better Off Without ’Em is a deliberately provocative book whose insight, humor, fierce and fearless politics, and sheer nerve will spark a national debate that is perhaps long overdue.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/better-off-without-em-chuck-thompson/1111396353
One - he uses a LOT of humor!
Two - he highlights the things that we DO have in common - but shows how different the approach is.
And don't think he lets the North East off the hook.
He starts out explaining how the new country of Cascadia would be - and pretty much throws every other region/new country under the bus in the process! 
If you like Bill Maher's sense of humor -you'll enjoy the book.
Now - with the author being from the North West - I'd love for (and have emailed/encouraged him) to write one - Better Off Without You'se - why New Britain should be Turned Loose As It's Own Country. I can't WAIT to read what he has to write about those of us who like me have spent the majority of their lives in New York/NJ/CT. :lmao:
And most important - at the end - he sits down with the Southern Educational Elite and asks THEM how THEY would feel about secession - and they resoundingly answer "Nope. Not good." And they point out with the high economic growth in some areas of the region - it would actually be bad for the North.
Read this and read The Great Reset: How the Post-Crash Economy Will Change the Way We Live and Work by Richard Florida. Florida's is a warning signal about how we have to come out fighting post 2008 economic disaster . . . add this book in - and you'll appreciate the strengths of the South -and be alarmed about the one weakness - education. Note - Florida shows that not only does the North East have potential to boom again - but so does the South East. Pretty much all of I-95 is important to our economic growth - that means both North and South of the Mason Dixon line that road crosses.
Truly - do NOT judge this book by it's cover.
If you had only picked SharpChevy or FearsomFord why you might have found more luv.
King Penguin vs Chrysler Gear Reduction starter. Sound alike?
Seriously a Mopar Fan who can't take some good natured ribbing about that dang starter.
Have a Six Pack and relax
