I hope you weren't calling me a Yankee. My parents may be from Northern Missouri but both sides of my family were from Virginia before the Civil War. Both sides fought for the South. I grew up just south of Richmond, Virginia too. I may be descended from people who wanted to ceceed from the Union on issues of State's Rights but I am an American and proud of it. That doesn't make me a Yankee. I know my Southern Heritage but dividing up the territory of the United States was/is a mistake.

It is true that Yankees today are very different than Southerners today and we can trace our beliefs and attitudes to the political differences in our country between men like Thomas Jefferson (conservative/small federal government - the basic man is good and can take care of himself) and Alexander Hamilton (liberal/big federal government - the basic man is incompetent and needs the government to take of him.)

I know this may seem an oversimplification but it is the basis of what became the Republican and Democratic parties as we know them today. It is what we fought England for, is it what we fought the Civil War over and what we continue to debate to this day.

George Washington warned of a few things before he died but the two that stick out in my mind are "Avoid permanent political parties" and "Avoid foreign entanglements."

My beliefs about government, society, food, driving, accent etc. are Southern. Sorry about the rant.