Newsflash: EVERY region is stereotyped and insulted on this board

[PurityOfEssence]

It's not the best characteristic of people who should be cosmopolitan and broadminded, but it's the truth. Southerners have had their collective noses out of joint throughout the three plus years I've frequented the place, and often rightly so.

Lest we get all self-righteous with our own personal causes, those other areas have been consistently derided too.

For the record: people who are liberal or progressive in places like the rural south or other "red" strongholds get more general respect from me than ones who live in more tolerant climes. It's easy being a leftie in San Francisco; it's tough in the Bible Belt.

Having said that, though, Berkeley and other leftist enclaves are held up to ridicule by the moderates and those smarting from the snotty snipes of the various cultural poo-poohers, and nobody's got a lock on victimhood or innocence.

For the record, I was born in the Midwest, and grew up in New England (spending summers with my Grandparents in the conservative South) until we moved to San Diego when I entered High School. I spent a decade in Berkeley and have been in Los Angeles for the past 15 plus years. I've got family in the deep South, and have had the luck to spend time in various parts of the country.

Dismissing people from "West by-god Virginia", as my Grandmother called it, is not going to help anything. To portray people of different political and religious affiliations as inferior is tiresome and silly. Cowards and second rate intellects categorize people by sex, preference, race and religion because they need to feel superior to people and are unable to really cut it on their own; hence, they use a convenient way of dismissing vast tracts of mankind by definition.

A little rage at unthinking people is understandable as the country is being swept with xenophobic ignorance, but in the end, it makes one no better and no different. Beyond all that, it's not going to bring anyone to the cause. Conservatism is the philosophy of "me", and its adherents thrive on conformity; Liberalism is the philosophy of "us", so WE NEED TO BE MORE TOLERANT.

And as for the more vocal yokels here: judge not lest ye be judged. If you've never been exasperated with your klannish kin, or have never disparaged the citified elites or lefty bohos, go ahead and pipe up. If, on the other hand, you've thrown some mud or indulged yourself in feeling put-upon, then realize that everyone else has taken hits too, and back off on the bellyaching.

Keep it in perspective, and remember: we all get our asses kicked by simplistic category, so nobody's got the blank-check trump card of victimhood.

Dammit.