I think the world is big enough that people can speak respectfully to each other and cooperate or accommodate each other reasonably. Usually any problem is a little bit of both sides.

Or has the TEA party invaded Ham radio mentality?

Another "natural" way to get a ballpark idea of where true north is, is to look at where the Sun is at 12 o'clock (noon).
It will be in the direction of true north, give or take a bit.
The reason it will not be exactly at true north is that we now use time "zones" which means it is 12 noon over a large area of land.

When the sun is at its greatest altitude above the horizon, it is pointing at true north.
In the era before time zones, each town had its own 12 o'clock when the Sun was at its highest in the sky.
This caused mayhem when trains became commonplace - since their speed meant you would now be changing time rapidly.
Standard time zones were introduced to overcome this inconvenience.

Also, the ancient greeks proved that the world was round a few thousand years ago by noting that on a certain day of the year, when the Sun was directly overhead, a well had no shadow inside.
By noting the shadow cast in another town further away at the same time, they were able to work out the curvature and so the size of the Earth.

With all our technology these days, it is a shame if we would lose the simplicity of finding our way, that our ancestors used routinely.

73 - Rob