Chase, I don't buy your "cultural differences" as the reason behind why the Southerners on this board engage the northerners. Note: I said the "Southerners." I have no real idea why the Northerners enter into these contentious debates and am not going to offer even my opinion on that.

I will admit, there are whqt appear to be cultural differences between the north and the South, but what raises Southern hackles are not cultural differences.

It is that the War was fought on our ground, in our backyards, in our fields, at the expense of our people's lives, at the cost of everything near and dear that our people had in this world, and the devestation was so complete that our people felt its impact, coupled with the impact of Reconstruction across the generations well into the 20th century.

In the cemeteries that dot the Southern countryside and the faded photographs we have in our family albums, those same people still speak to us across all the years since. That makes it personal, Chase, and those reasons are in my opinion - the distinction between why Southerns get feisty on this board and why (for whatever reasons - you supply the words) northerners do.