Ever since the War Of Northern Aggression, things just ain't been the same...

Leon?
In the House of Lords these days I believe :)

FTR - I know it was a spelling mistake.
But it was a good one.

:lame:

Major BS meter going off.:rolleyes:

Typical Southerner reaction, hitting things on the head. Bloody violent rednecks. :bolt:

Maybe it is just that Northerners are more willing to eat shit than Southerners? I mean if some asshole bumped into me and called me an asshole, I might well call him an asshole back. Why not?
(and how did they get this experiment approved by the ethics committee?)

For MTP's questions, once, while beating my head against the brick wall that is Radar, I posted the statistics on crime rates in USA, Britain, Australia, Canada and maybe a few others. The stats for assault, robbery, and theft were all fairly similar - differences of up to 50% or so, but the murder rate in the USA was 600 to 800% higher than the others; i.e. 6 to 8 times higher. This was from UN statistical database. My interpretation of these numbers was simply that the relative availability of guns makes it much easier for a dispute to end in killing.

The study here has several components, some good, others pretty lame.
Firstly, they noted that the levels of violent crime in the South are higher, and looked for explanations. They ruled out temperature and slave history, and found that relative poverty was no more than a partial explanation.

Thus, there is a difference without an explanation.

They put forward the hypothesis that there is something in Southern Culture that makes people more likely to behave violently.

So far, so good, IMHO. That some cultures are more disposed toward violence than others is perfectly reasonable and possible. And, the combined images of the honour-duelling "killin' gentleman", and the trigger-happy red-neck, make it seem plausible.

It is an empirical matter whether this is true of any particular culture, though, so they did an experiment, the hallway-bump business.

That experiment strikes me as pretty lame. Maybe it it is just badly described here, but it seems to me that it doesn't get at the real issue very well. An in depth interview asking "what would you do if..." questions might be better.

The proper procedure, and what will probably happen, is to do lots of different experiments - surveys, tests, comparisons, etc. A huge literature will be produced, and after a few decades someone will summarise all this and try and find a clear answer. That is the scientific method.

Let me get them started:

(1) You come home to find a man screwing your sister. Do you:
(a) apologise for interrupting and leave them to it.
(b) go on Dr Phil and wail about how heartbroken you are.
(c) shoot the no-good varmint.
(d) set up the video camera, then join in.

Results:
a = Northerner
b = Mid-westerner
c = Southerner
d = West Coast

e) none of the above

Thank you Zen for those murder-rate stats, but here we all know the UN is a useless tool of, uhm, fascist! No seriously I have heard it.

As for a Southern, both C and D are reasonable answers actually. C - violence, D- insest, both actions we southerns supposedly practice in abundance. Maybe a combination of the 2 would be more precise.
E - shoot the no-good varmit, then set up the video camera before screwing your sister.

Eh. I have lived in the "South" since 1994. Other time was around the US and overseas, I was born and raised in the "North". For every violent redneck in the South I can show you an equally violent person in the North, pick a city any city, Boston, New York, Chicago, how about New Jersey, talk about some one minded people. The whole premise is a bit ridiculous.

You ain't just whistling Dixie, Merc. I agree.

I wonder where the term "Southern Hospitality" was derived? Surely it wasn't meant to be ironic.;)

Don't you mean the War of Northern Self-Defense Against Homicidal Southerners?:D

Is there a connection to that theory about the necessity of being polite in close quarters - I forget the name for it. Something about Northerners needing to be able to get along for an entire winter without strangling each other, all cooped up in the same place. Perhaps Northerners have evolved a way to ignore assholes who bump them in the hallway?

GO FUCK YOURSELF! I WILL BEAT YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN' ASS!!!!

Oh, wait.
I just proved your statement.
Nevermind....

You say potato.
I say Russian vodka.

HAGGIS at CG!

From, and about, the Southern Belles. Maybe that's why the Southern Gentlemen are violent. ;)

Seriously though, there are nut jobs everywhere... and in the Midwest and far north, they even elect them governor.

I just said that because I spent many years there and could site numerous examples. :lol: