Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas

There is a stereotype that northeastern liberals who live in a major metropolis (and yes, DC qualifies) sneer at the South, evangelical Christians, and hell, anyone with "working class values". In addition to this stereotype, the "disaffected" hold a general contempt for the North, liberals and the urbane. The consequences of this are that they discard out of hand values they identify with those groups without critical analysis.

This problem led to the election of George Bush, and thus resolving it is important. In order to be able to reach out to them, first one must understand them. Jeff Foxworthy and Tim Allen don't provide meaningful insights, and the genre of books that refer to them as a foreign nation only feed the stereotypes on both sides. "Publius", the author of Legal Fiction, is a Southerner and a Baptist, and is currently a law clerk. His comments below (having gone to law school, being a liberal, and thus understanding "us", being from the South and thus understanding "them") I have found fascinating.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF YANKOPHOBIA - Why Republicans want People to Hate Northeastern Latte Drinkers	1/22/04
THE COSTS OF DOING WHAT'S RIGHT - The Tragedy of Democrats and the South<	1/29/04
VEBLEN AND BLUE-COLLAR REPUBLICANS	2/7/04
BLUE COLLAR REPUBLICANS - Democrats Deserve Some Blame Too	2/8/04
UNDERSTANDING THE SOUTHERN PSYCHE - It's the Inferiority Complex, Stupid.	2/12/04
ANOTHER INTELLIGENCE FAILURE? - Gauging American Evangelicals	2/28/04

NOTE: Obviously to make comment about a population is to deal in stereotypes. This is inevitable; the utility of a stereotype is that is the instantiation of learning from experience. The danger is the tendency to create invidious stereotypes to self-aggrandize, and to fail to allow people belonging to that group to transcend the stereotype.