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  Posted By: tider @ 05/23/2008 6:41:40 AM

  You should be writing an article called, "What's Wrong with Chicago?" instead of an article that is essentially.
  "What's Wrong with the South?" How could a "church" flourish with 15,000 members while spouting race-baiting garbage? How could 39 people be shot in Chicago in one weekend (virtually all black) unless northern culture has completely broken down? The fault lies not in your southern stars, but in yourselves.
  Reading your repeated insults, "Coarse" Southernism, ""Vulgar" Southernism, just lets me know what a fire-breathing racist you are, Michael Hirsh, but you are the most pitiful kind of racist, the self-hating kind bred by a perverse self-hating white liberal "culture." If you want to know what northern "culture" is, then take a look at
  MTV, or HBO, or the FX channel, all vulgar and enemies of anything commonly decent. I can smell the stench of your cultural rot, Michael Hirsh, and the flies are buzzing.

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  Posted By: thyphenw @ 05/19/2008 4:30:28 PM

  The primary claim in this article is that the United States is becoming more Southern and evangelical in its perspective. The article continues to claim that this fact has been invasive in our political and social fabric ever increasingly.
  
  I have lived and worked on the West Coast, the Northeast, and the Southeast. In my personal experience, I have witnessed a definitive evangelical tidal wave. I read an article in The New York Times several years ago that better and more factually argues this point than Mr. Hirsch. This movement really began in the fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal movements in the ???tent churches??? all over the country during the early years of the twentieth century. They began in poor rural areas where wayward preachers could gain a foothold with their tainted religious beliefs not justified by thousands of years of Christian development. People in these areas were craving to find solace, strength, and a reason to live. They found their crutch in someone who seemingly promised them hope in their hopeless lives. Over the decades, these belief systems and off shoots of the Christian faith grew and the people who believed in these new ideas became wealthy. Now as a result of the influence gained in sheer numbers of people and their personal wealth, these fundamentalists and their ideals have taken over the very political, religious and social perspectives we have today.
  
  I completely disagree with Mr. Hirsch???s claims of these ideals being an influence of Southerners alone. His article is not only partially incorrect but insulting and arrogant. It seemingly claims that only enlightened people live in and are from the Northeast and the rest of the country is barbaric since its very inception. Not only is the article ambiguous but it is also ludicrous. The article seems more of a personal tirade had at an evening cocktail party with a bunch of "wanna-bes" that he happened to remember the next day. His sad decision to publicize it makes him look ridiculous as an author. The frightening reality is that he is a highly regarded writer for Newsweek Magazine. His claims are biased and untrustworthy. It is as if his article is written to underhandedly sell the reader on some idea in order to gain political influence for who he wants to be President of the United States. Thus his argument is incredible and does more to harm him and his claims than to persuade anyone who is critically reading it.
  
  Mr. Hirsch should realize his kind of "intellectualism" is exactly why the world continues to battle. He draws lines in the sand rather than keeping an open mind and dialogue with others. It is a laughable idea that only those who remain in New England are open minded and intellectual worst of all the elite society. No matter how many college degrees you earn, Mr. Hirsch, you will never earn the right to speak down to hundreds of millions of people.
  
  David Sanchez
  
  

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  Posted By: cethsouth @ 05/02/2008 10:24:11 AM

  Another elitist easterner lamenting an old southern stereotype. I'm a Tennessean and spend a great deal of time in New York, especially Long Island. Since Mr. Hirsh obviously took a great deal of time and care writing about southern stereotypes, I'd like to spend a small amount of time describing actual observations from the "enlightened" northeast. Almost everytime I'd venture out into local businesses, invariably there would be a patron being rude, and sometimes, downright abusive, to the clerk or even another patron. The arguments that ensued were filled with four letter words and were loud, uncivilized, ridiculous, and embarrassing. The impatient patron would then get into their Mercedes and finally go. I've lived in Tennessee all my life and have not had to endure such a spectacle in public at any time. Our values and upbringing do not generally permit rudeness, being impolite, disrespectful, boasting, or making a public spectacle of yourself. My southern values do not repect any person that is pretentious and unsubstantial while persuming to pass judgement - especially when that indiviual stereotypes us all. I submit, with all due respect to Mr. Hirsh, that it is the cities that have devolved into a culturally decadent and uncivil tone. To stand there and pretend to be sophisticated when you can't even maintain civil discourse illustrates the point. This article does a disservice to the fair people who live in rual or suburban setttings. All southerners know that northeasterners repeatedly mistake pretense for substance, and polish for intelligence. Being ill-mannered, impolite, selfish and disrespectful seems to be the norm in northeastern culture. How did their culture develop in this way? Maybe Mr. Hirsh can analyze this degeneration and "enlighten" himself and his neighbors to take a look in the mirror before presuming to assess a culture that he knows far less about.