The commenters characterizing this as a new "civil war" where "the north lost," or some kind of centuries old revenge on the part of the south, are really diminishing the horror of the civil war. Do you think everytime there's a disagreement between Berlin and Munich they play the Hitler card? Let's stop equivocating a bill failing in congress with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the slavery of hundreds of thousands more.

That being said, I can't help but feel that a lot of the rancor over this bill's defeat is about the south more than it is about the bill failing. Lots of "F*ck the South," etc. If the roles were reversed, and southern senators were begging for a bailout of tobacco farmers or something, there would a chorus of "No!"s. And many of you would be using the same statistics about the south getting more taxes than they pay as a reason not to bail them out.

So let's tone down the neo-regionalism and look at this for what it is: republicans refusing to bail out unionized companies. For some reason, most southern senators are republican, but most republican senators are not southern.

It's ironic that most of you complaining about this south v. north shenanigans are from the NORTH. No one in the south gives two rats asses what you all think is behind this because it's not really about south v. north, which is how you want to characterize it. It has nothing to do with regionalism except how you want to impose it, because most jobs are moving to the south and midwest and the north's a dying place, but none of my southern friends are even aware that this thread is happening and are vaguely aware of the vote about detroit.

The point is, too much wine notwithstanding, the south has nothing to do with this. Characterizing the vote of republicans as a southern civil war backlash shows some awful true colors. The south cares little about northern "elites" or unions or any of that mess. Give us jobs! If you want to secede, we'd be all for it. I think the south can do just fine with its beaches, agriculture, and whiskey stills without the dying north.

To the reader who said that if the south wanted to do without the auto bailout, we'd could do without insurance settlements and reprieves from the north, um, excuse me, can I introduce you to my friend Katrina? There were no insurance reprieves or charity donations from the "liberal" north, thank you. Katrina has done way more to encourage distrust of the north than the civil war could have ever done!

Dude, to quote the best writer who ever lived, "the lady doth protest too much". No one's bringing up the civil war but y'all northerners. Is it cause you're dying on an inviable business model and you need someone to blame? Sounds like it.

Good luck.

You guys are really trying to make this happen, aren't you? Too bad no one really cares outside of these Salon comment pages. Or are you just trying to push Thomas Schaller's book? Seriously? We get comments like this, from a few pages ago:

Force the South to change: Hang every single South man/woman who is a racist and spreads hatred over racism. Any moron who talks about lynching blacks or hispanics needs to be charged under the Child Abuse law, sent to 99 years in Gitmo.

Because only Southerners are racist, of course. I think the writer of this comment might be using this sarcastically (I hope). But nevertheless, the other comments are there as well. Nothing good comes of division. I'm so tired of this supposed red state/blue state divide. And here I've been blaming republicans for creating it! When in reality, liberals like you have been just as supportive of the divide, and just as cynically capitalizing on it.

We are a purple nation. Look at counties, rather than states, and you'll see it. The population centers are blue, the rural areas are red. Take abortion out of it and you've got yourself an all purple nation. Can't we all just get along?

Good luck on that book, Thomas. Seems like you need help selling it.

Allie_ and Wanak70 said all there is to say. No more commentary is needed.

PS: If you play with fire, you will get burned.

Maybe your university knew that you lack ethics. How dare you look up your classmates' files! Just because you have "access"? I don't know what program you're in, but I hope I'm never accidentally trusting you with my money, time, or children.

Give me a break. It's not like I was breaking into the office at midnight to pick the locks on file cabinets. The files were saved right on the desktop of the computer I worked on every day. You can't tell me that you wouldn't peek if they were right there in front of you.

Well, that says an awful lot about you. Sorry that you think others are the same as you. It really doesn't matter if someone handed the files directly to your open hands, it's still unethical to "take a peek."

Because the guy you want to marry and the guy you want to fuck are rarely the same guy. You didn't state your age, but maybe you should wait until you find a better mix of the two.

Don't tell the Republicans their emperor has no clothes! Let them run the naked bastard in 2012!

So pot smokers can stop acting so sanctimonious about it. I think it's harmless; should be legal. But let's not act like it forces you to question the underlying meaning of social construct. It gets you high and lets you make it b/w South Park episodes. It does not cause, nor lead to, any kind of structured social revolution. Let's not mince words and pretend. Smoking pot does not equal rebellion; it merely quenches it.