___ the south.

[Haereticus]

www.fuckthesouth.com/

[TheBuckeyeBitch]

To be fair, they leave out red Virginia which provided perhaps the most iconic Founding Fathers (Washington, Jefferson, and Madison anyone?) Some of the statistics may also be a bit skewed such as divorce rates, since the Northeast may also have higher rates of cohabitation. But that can alternately be construed as people not marrying until they're damn sure they want to.

I might agree with the message on an emotional level, but have to question its validity on an intellectual one.

Susan "academia spoils the fun of being silly" Wise

[Valvilis]

Actually, most of it I've come across in one way or another via much more legitimate sources. I think the "f" insertions just made it seem a bit less credible. And besides, the founding fathers from Virginia (at least the ones that mattered) were from cities. The cities in Virginia to this day vote democrat. For anyone who was paying attention, it was pretty close in Virginia, and some of the pre-election polls actually gave VA to Kerry.

Even if the exact data seems a bit high or a bit low, that would only be an exageration of the existing trends. If I weren't so god-damned lazy these days, I'd try to find out the actual numbers on all of these. But... meh.

Val "My taxes are going WHERE?!?!" Vilis

[AimePenser]

Regarding murder rates, it should be noted that the real murder meccas are the cities which seem to be ever true blue.

www.safestreetsdc.com/subpages/murdercap.html

[Carolyns almost roommate]

I think that PROVES that democrat-voters are murderous savages who eat babies and hate America. Pray that Jesus will have mercy on their dirty liberal souls.

- Tracy "bored at work and really pissy" K.

[Aimepenser]

Not really, but it does reveal the inaccuracy of:

"And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes."

[Valvilis]

Actually, that's wrong. By then time the top 24 cities are covered, cities drop below the national average of 6.8 per 100,000. These cities taken together make a comparitively small proportion of the US population. And since 15 of the 32 cities mentioned in the above study are in southern states (excluding CA cities, of course, whose inclusion would push it over half), makes the city problem not only evenly spread, but statistically diminished. Every year, southern states still top the charts in state by state murder comparisons, containing large cities or not.

Don't be so quick to give yourself to the data, let it come to you, or you're bound for misuse. The south's role in our murder rate - Southern cities as well as towns and rural - greatly increases our national rate to well beyond what it would be in northern states alone, even those of us that have major cities in the top 10, like say: Detroit. Michigans's overall murder rate is typically less than half that of Louisianna's, and rarely any higher than the national rate, despite how Detroit usually ranks quite high. In fact, with the exception of Maryland and Illinois, the top 12-13 states each year are all in the south, mostly because of the high percentage of thier population made up by city populations. A claim that can't be made for the southern states.

In 1999, 30 states ranked below the national average, one was southern - Arkansas, at 5.6 per capita, compared to the national 5.7. By contrast, 20 ranked at or above and 14 of those were southern states. 1/30 vs 14/20 - no one can claim that there is not a very strong signifigance here.

Besides, cities are probably just filled with people from the south.