The most Unamerican state iyo.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


That's what I mean. I've been to NC, SC, GA, VA and FL

Of all of those, only NC and FL both lack the strong social hierarchy of the others. I imagine that Alabama has it too.

Even MD (outside Baltimore, obviously) has a strange aristocratic layer floating on top.

Outside Baltimore? Id say youd find it more among "old wealthy baltimorons" than in, say, Frederick County, or Hagerstown. You should read "The Amiable Baltimorans" and of course anything by Ann Tylor. Its hard to find those people, theyre tucked up in Ruxton and similar places, and go to carefully selected private schools, and they know each other by what Lacrosse team they played on. JHU is a different world - they inhabited the banks and insurance companies, mainly. And they havent had real political power in Balt in a long time, but then they dont have it in most of the rest of MD either. Of course St Marys County, and Transchoptankia on the eastern shore are very southern but not quite So Car style, Id say.

You should also read "Maryland, a Middle Tempermant"

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Outside Baltimore? Id say youd find it more among "old wealthy baltimorons" than in, say, Frederick County, or Hagerstown. You should read "The Amiable Baltimorans" and of course anything by Ann Tylor. Its hard to find those people, theyre tucked up in Ruxton and similar places, and go to carefully selected private schools, and they know each other by what Lacrosse team they played on. JHU is a different world - they inhabited the banks and insurance companies, mainly. And they havent had real political power in Balt in a long time, but then they dont have it in most of the rest of MD either. Of course St Marys County, and Transchoptankia on the eastern shore are very southern but not quite So Car style, Id say.

You should also read "Maryland, a Middle Tempermant"

I was thinking "just outside Baltimore"

Timonium etc

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

defining the national identity of parts of a country based purely on politics, and contemporary politics at that, is not a very deep approach. Considering the OP seemed to define such depth as "unamerican" I find this profoundly ironic.

If you don't think that politics makes a very real difference in people's lives then you are wrong.

I'm not basing my analysis on history, because the question is on the current state of society. When a country has a much more significant polarization of wealth than other countries (as the US does), then this becomes a (if not the) major factor in comparisons. VT has a much more level society than do surrounding states. The feeling you get from common people is also different, and seems to me to be much more "Canadian" in some undefinable way. This might be a result of the previously mentioned measurements, or it might not.

Either way, the point is that in defining what is "American" it's going to be based on those things about the US which are different from other countries. Similarly, those places in the US where society more resembles much of the rest of the world are going to be labelled "unamerican".

Vermont may have a low Gini ratio, but I very much doubt that California does, even if you confine it to Northern Calif. Id bet some southern states have lower Gini coefficients than some very liberal northern states, so thats going to be different.

Its been noted that the entire "upper North" is more like anglo-Canada in many ways. Im not sure that makes it more like Europe though. Id suggest that NYC, the city of my birth, is a lot more like a European place than almost anywhere in Vermont, though its much less like Anglo Canada. ANd as LordShiva implicitly points out, its damned ethnocentric to define "being more like the rest of the world" as being more like Western Europe or Canada. What parts of the US are more or less like India, or Russia, or Japan?

The fact is that there is an American mainstream in society and culture, which has differences from the rest of the world, and there are deviations from that, in several directions. The implication that most redneck, more conservative, least intellectual is most american,is simply trolling.

Is the Yukon Territory the most Canadian part of Canada, and Ontario the least Canadian, because what sets Canada apart is that its cold and empty? I mean thats the level of logic being used here.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


I was thinking "just outside Baltimore"

Timonium etc

The city limit is arbitrary. Their are (or were in the 80's) real social connections between Roland Park, Guilford, Ruxton, etc.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Vermont may have a low Gini ratio, but I very much doubt that California does, even if you confine it to Northern Calif

Good thing I didn't mention California.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

The implication that most redneck, more conservative, least intellectual is most american,is simply trolling.

Tru Dat hence my counter troll.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


The city limit is arbitrary. Their are (or were in the 80's) real social connections between Roland Park, Guilford, Ruxton, etc.

I guess so. In my mind Homewood campus is just barely inside "the city" (even though it goes on for another couple of miles)

I know the neighbourhoods you mean, and I consider them part of what I meant, though I should have been more precise.

[lord of the mark]

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd
feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.

[Spec]

I still await the day to see lordshira make a serious post reply.

Spec.

[LordShiva]

Hey, I answered the question, didn't I?

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Outside Baltimore? Id say youd find it more among "old wealthy baltimorons" than in, say, Frederick County, or Hagerstown.

Hagerstown westward isn't much like Maryland at all. It's far more like Pennsylvania and / or West Virginia, and was solidly pro-Union back in the Civil War.

[Eroberer]

You might define "UnAmerican" as those who wish to change the US the most. By that definition, California is the only experience I have in that area.

However, it's been the "conservatives" who have more recently proposed a change to the constitution, a program that breaks the 4th Ammendment, a change to the Geneva convention, and had one its members come out as gay, so who knows. It's like something George Orwell would write, all these changes in the name of "conservativism."

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Most un-American state? I'd say it's a tie among the following:

1. Andhra Pradesh
2. Arunachal Pradesh
3. Assam
4. Bihar
5. Chhattisgarh
6. Delhi
7. Goa
8. Gujarat
9. Haryana
10. Himachal Pradesh
11. Jammu and Kashmir
12. Jharkhand
13. Karnataka
14. Kerala
15. Madhya Pradesh
16. Maharashtra
17. Manipur
18. Meghalaya
19. Mizoram
20. Nagaland
21. Orissa
22. Punjab
23. Rajasthan
24. Sikkim
25. Tamil Nadu
26. Tripura
27. Uttaranchal
28. Uttar Pradesh
29. West Bengal

Clearly, you're just pulling these names out of your ass. Everybody knows that only the good ol' USA has states. All the other countries have "Provinces" or "Republics" or "Departments".

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Outside Baltimore? Id say youd find it more among "old wealthy baltimorons" than in, say, Frederick County, or Hagerstown.

Better a Baltimoron than a M*******.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Clearly, you're just pulling these names out of your ass. Everybody knows that only the good ol' USA has states. All the other countries have "Provinces" or "Republics" or "Departments".

No, we call them "states" too