HuffPo hates the South (with maps)

[AggregateDemand]

White southerners do badly. In many years they scored worse in intelligence tests than Northern blacks.

Nothing to do with the HuffPo article. They were interested in chastising the South for teen pregnancy and poverty, which are the consequences of Hispanic immigration (Texas) and the lingering consequences of African-Americans living in areas without industrialization until WWII. Basically, blaming the South for the failure of the federal government to economically rehabilitate African Americans in the plantation belt or create a humane agricultural visa system so Hispanics migrants are not trapped in the US, where the cost of living is oppressive.

If you look at the US ancestry map, you'll see how racist the article really is. If you want to understand why the South genuinely loathes DC, it's because this is where the negative consequences of socio-economic policy manifest themselves most acutely. Border insecurity and ineffective agricultural visa systems ruin Texas. The welfare state continues to exacerbate problems in the plantation belt.

It's funny you should bring up nutrition because it is the crux of the problem. The South needs a proper balanced diet. DC liberals are only interested in serving up more pork lard. Predictably, people get worse.

[pbrower2a]

White southerners do badly. In many years they scored worse in intelligence tests than Northern blacks.

Nothing to do with the HuffPo article. They were interested in chastising the South for teen pregnancy and poverty, which are the consequences of Hispanic immigration (Texas) and the lingering consequences of African-Americans living in areas without industrialization until WWII. Basically, blaming the South for the failure of the federal government to economically rehabilitate African Americans in the plantation belt or create a humane agricultural visa system so Hispanics migrants are not trapped in the US, where the cost of living is oppressive.

Southern states long underinvested in education. Getting the crop out was so much more important than making people able to do something other than farm labor that school schedules were adjusted to fit the needs of growers for labor.

Formal education has one of the strongest negative correlations to teen pregnancy. I doubt that any of us can quantify quality of education, but I assume that the richer the content of education, the less likely one is to have a child as a teenager.

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The South has long been a political and economic sewer. It has had cheap labor as a basis of its alleged prosperity for multiple centuries. An economy that depends upon cheap, raw labor (as in basic agriculture) has little need for educational refinement on a large scale -- except for the elites. Welfare in the South existed in part to allow people to stay on the plantation.

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I have yet to see any effort to reform welfare so that it promotes better nutrition. If we were to have new regulations knocking stuff loaded with high-fructose corn syrup (like sodas and candy) and such pure junk as chips from eligibility for food stamps, then companies like Pepsico and Archer-Daniel-Midlands would scream bloody murder. 
 
Public policy is never simple. There are always unintended consequences to any change. 

[Randy Bobandy]

The South is a pretty awful place all around.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

The South is a pretty awful place all around.

Miles, Duke, Flo and the DeleGAtion would like a word with you.

[Franknburger]

OK, fair enough about the obesity rate.

I'm skeptical, though, of the idea that incomes need to be adjusted for "cost of living" to the advantage of the US. Sure, consumer goods tend to be more expensive (though your two examples are outliers due to supply management and gas taxes). But health care, education, etc., are much more expensive in the States.

If people are getting a good deal from a high-tax, high-service government, then they are likely to continue to want such. If they are getting a good deal from a low-tax, low-service government, then they will want such to continue. Low-tax, high-service governments are impossible not sustainable, and high-tax, low-service governments tend to undergo revolutionary upheavals.

In general the low-tax, low-service governments worldwide are to be found in Third World hell-holes. Such places generally have a few very rich people with others destitute. 

Minor correction to the otherwise good post (check out Cyprus for the attempt to run a low-tax high-service government).

[Del Tachi]

The South's problems are the nation's problems.

Of course, the "non-South" is full of problems, but the kind of people who write for HuffPost do not see them as problems - similarly to how Southerners don't see the kind of issues depicted by these maps as "problems" or they would have eradicated them a long time ago. 

Our current popular culture is very "Yankee-centric" and does not characterize social phenomenon that occur in the North as "problems" but only rather just the "facts of life".  However, the same popular culture derides the South for its "problems" which, in the South, do not seem out-of-place or evenly problematic a lot of the time.

[MaxQue]

The South's problems are the nation's problems.

Of course, the "non-South" is full of problems, but the kind of people who write for HuffPost do not see them as problems - similarly to how Southerners don't see the kind of issues depicted by these maps as "problems" or they would have eradicated them a long time ago. 

Our current popular culture is very "Yankee-centric" and does not characterize social phenomenon that occur in the North as "problems" but only rather just the "facts of life".  However, the same popular culture derides the South for its "problems" which, in the South, do not seem out-of-place or evenly problematic a lot of the time.

So, poverty and teen pregnancies aren't issues, but Southern facts of life?

I think I finally understood GOP platform!

[Del Tachi]

The South's problems are the nation's problems.

Of course, the "non-South" is full of problems, but the kind of people who write for HuffPost do not see them as problems - similarly to how Southerners don't see the kind of issues depicted by these maps as "problems" or they would have eradicated them a long time ago. 

Our current popular culture is very "Yankee-centric" and does not characterize social phenomenon that occur in the North as "problems" but only rather just the "facts of life".  However, the same popular culture derides the South for its "problems" which, in the South, do not seem out-of-place or evenly problematic a lot of the time.

So, poverty and teen pregnancies aren't issues, but Southern facts of life?

I think I finally understood GOP platform!

My point was that there is a certain amount of social conditioning that goes on in both the North and South that desensitizes people to certain social issues.  Moreover, it is a somewhat interesting to pose the question of "by what criteria do we judge certain social phenomenon as 'problems' while others are simply the result of 'human nature' or 'bound to happen'".

Gentrification displacing racial minorities and other forms of housing discrimination continue to be huge problems in the Urban North, yet the writers and readers of publications such as the HuffPost are quick to sweep these issues under the rug of "it can't be helped", "its good in the long-run" or "who even cares"?

[MaxQue]

Because gentrification is a more complicated problem? Can someone argue than poverty or teen pregnancy are good things?

For gentrification, the issue is than some people (including those Huff people) see it as good. Personaly, I think we must reach the right balance. Gentrification pushes poor people out off their house, but it brings a much needed revitalisation to nearly-derelict neighborhoods. The better neighborhoods I saw, were the ones with a mixed (race, income) population.

It's a circle. Poor artists go in a derelict neighborhood because it's cheap, it becomes trendy, it gentrify, artists must leave because it's too expense, rince, repeat elsewhere. There is no easy solutions, and many would require heavy government involvement in urban planning, which is a big NO in USA.

[Del Tachi]

But the main issues that I raised remain standing.

Why is gentrification seen as "good" by liberal elites and high-rates of tobacco usage or teenage pregnancy seen as "bad"?  This dilemma becomes extremely perplexing once one considers that the constant strain that gentrification puts on the urban working class contributes, probably in no small part, to the viscous cycle of generational poverty we see among urban racial minorities.

The only reason that gentrification is seen as "good" is because yuppies "like it" and stand to benefit from it whereas teenage pregnancy, gang violence, and urban poverty seem alien to a world seen through lily-White glasses.

Likewise, the yuppies at HuffPost are completely aghast at the "derelict" conditions present in the American South.  However, Southerners see issues such as high obesity, teenage pregnancy, and high school dropout rates through the same lens that that the yuppie sees gentrification or any other problem plaguing the urban North (i.e., traffic congestion, high costs of living, low rates of religious adherence) - not as spirit-crushing social ills, but only as ever-present parts of the social background.


Also, where do you get the idea that gentrification is a more complicated problem than teenage pregnancy or generational poverty?  Complicated only in the sense that its "solution" would prove undesirable to you? 

[MaxQue]

Also, where do you get the idea that gentrification is a more complicated problem than teenage pregnancy or generational poverty?  Complicated only in the sense that its "solution" would prove undesirable to you? 

Complicated in the sense than finding a solution isn't an easy task. You have a solution, Del Tachi? And, no, I'm not corcerned at all by gentrification, I live in a rural city (through we have housing issues, because regional economy (gold extraction) is going well due to the crisises and housing isn't built quick enough for people moving in).

[Del Tachi]

Also, where do you get the idea that gentrification is a more complicated problem than teenage pregnancy or generational poverty?  Complicated only in the sense that its "solution" would prove undesirable to you? 

Complicated in the sense than finding a solution isn't an easy task. You have a solution, Del Tachi? And, no, I'm not corcerned at all by gentrification, I live in a rural city (through we have housing issues, because regional economy (gold extraction) is going well due to the crisises and housing isn't built quick enough for people moving in).

I never said I would offer a solution.

And I would challenge the assumption that teenage pregnancy and generational poverty are not "complicated" issues.  All issues are complicated or else they would be solved by now.   

[MaxQue]

Also, where do you get the idea that gentrification is a more complicated problem than teenage pregnancy or generational poverty?  Complicated only in the sense that its "solution" would prove undesirable to you? 

Complicated in the sense than finding a solution isn't an easy task. You have a solution, Del Tachi? And, no, I'm not corcerned at all by gentrification, I live in a rural city (through we have housing issues, because regional economy (gold extraction) is going well due to the crisises and housing isn't built quick enough for people moving in).

I never said I would offer a solution.

And I would challenge the assumption that teenage pregnancy and generational poverty are not "complicated" issues.  All issues are complicated or else they would be solved by now.   

Sexual education has been shown to be very efficient to lower teenage pregnancies, and it's known since a couple of decades. As for generational poverty, the issue is more lack of political will and a low-quality education (which is a complicated issue, true, because the causes aren't the same everywhere and they are usually multiples).

[Del Tachi]

Also, where do you get the idea that gentrification is a more complicated problem than teenage pregnancy or generational poverty?  Complicated only in the sense that its "solution" would prove undesirable to you? 

Complicated in the sense than finding a solution isn't an easy task. You have a solution, Del Tachi? And, no, I'm not corcerned at all by gentrification, I live in a rural city (through we have housing issues, because regional economy (gold extraction) is going well due to the crisises and housing isn't built quick enough for people moving in).

I never said I would offer a solution.

And I would challenge the assumption that teenage pregnancy and generational poverty are not "complicated" issues.  All issues are complicated or else they would be solved by now.   

Sexual education has been shown to be very efficient to lower teenage pregnancies, and it's known since a couple of decades. As for generational poverty, the issue is more lack of political will and a low-quality education (which is a complicated issue, true, because the causes aren't the same everywhere and they are usually multiples).

If sex education is a simple fix for teen pregnancy than rent control is a similarly simple solution to gentrification.  In the South there are many social factors in play that encourage teenage sexuality and pregnancy, and least among them is lack of knowledge or access to contraceptives.

As for there being a "lack of political will", I think that only goes-on to support the claims I made earlier.  There is no political will to seriously tackle the teenage pregnancy issue in places like Mississippi because such issues are taken as "given" by voters and politicians there.  This doesn't represent anything wrong or broken with the political or economic system, but rather reinforces the idea that what makes a particular issue a "problem" has very little to do with how it actually impacts those affected.