This tells me you either didn't read or didn't seek to understand what I wrote in #6. Not that I blame you. You don't go to a messageboard to volunteer to read
War and Peace. :-p
The best alternative way I can explain it is through the South Park episode "
With Apologies to Jesse Jackson." In this episode, Stan's dad says something racially offensive on television and it becomes a big stir. Stan knows that his closest black friend Token won't like this and spends the whole episode thinking that he understands how Token feels and doesn't understand why Token won't accept his apology. Finally the episode ends with one of its two Aesops (as a
SP episode is wont to do): the fact that Stan doesn't understand is in fact the point and Token just wants Stan to acknowledge that he
could never understand. Once Stan admits this, Token is fine with him.
When you say that "many in the sunbelt do understand," trust me when I tell you: No. You don't. You don't understand.
And that's OK. And just the same, I don't think someone who lives in a hockey-mad town could possibly understand how it would hurt a born-and-raised Phoenix hockey fan if the Coyotes left. Because they are two similar looking pains that are in fact very different.
So yes, I think some people have come on this board and likely appeared quite hateful to you. But you, without meaning to, come across as ignorant when you say that Sun Belt fans "understand where northern fans are coming from." You can understand it in writing. You can understand it logically. But you're not going to get it emotionally and you'll get a lot more mileage out of a conversation if you acknowledge that point first.
Of course this is also tied up in a whole "Why does America get to have all of Canada's toys and not vice-versa" argument that again.....I've lived on both sides of the border and I don't think one side can fully understand the other from an emotional perspective on that either. Our Prime Minister actually tweeted Taylor Swift because there are enough citizens worked up about the fact that she hasn't listed a tour date in Canada. You might not care about Taylor Swift and I don't particularly either but it's a great microsm for how Canadians often feel about popular culture writ large: Americans get the stuff they want,
sometimes Canadians get it
if Americans ever so much deign us worthy of it. It's not entirely irrational to imagine that some Canadians might want Americans to have the feeling of wanting something but not being able to have it.
And if you didn't like me projecting Taylor Swift not doing a concert as an aspersion on *ALL* Americans and think that's really dumb. Yes. Yes it is. But that's kind of the point. Particularly when I also say...
