lucy24 - 9:50 pm on Oct 26, 2012 (gmt 0)

Anyways, we're all British.

This is a common pattern between groups of people in many different situations. Mountain people and lowlanders, urban people and farmers, you name it. Group A sees a strong distinction between Us and Them, while Group B sees "We have our differences, but we're all one big happy family at heart".

In the US, the temperance movement was a response to the symptoms of heavy drinking-- lost work time, injuries, domestic violence and so on. Treating some of those symptoms as problems in their own right was unthinkable, so it became Demon Rum instead.