Quote:
Originally Posted by KODAD
Our country is basically split 50/50 on the issues, as indicated by the last two elections. How can half of us be so sure we are right, and the other half be so sure we are wrong?
|
I have said many times that I believe this split is rural vs. urban.
What do urban people want ? The urban economy is top down, it is essentially large companies, large institutions, etc, and people in the city walk around in the shadows of large everything, including large government. Whether you get money in the city is mostly a matter of your education level, who's ass you kiss, which big organization you belong to, your ability to politic your way to the top, and all of the rest. Socially you are concerned about the drug dealer on the corner who is trying to tempt the school kids, you're worried about getting mugged by some guy with a pistol walking around downtown, you're worried about corrupt government and corrupt cops, racial divides, and you're concerned about the tension between downtown and the suburbs. There's your Democratic party.
What do rural people want ? To be left alone, to stop sending tax money to build stuff that they'll probably never see, to stop having urban decision makers decide things for them, to stop having urban people tell them what to do concerning the environment (farmers know more about the environment than any urban politician ever will), etc. Rural people tend to go to church and value the church as a social construct. Rural people don't depend on big government or big companies for their well being, instead rural people are most entrepreneurs from the biggest construction companies down to the guy who cuts and sells firewood. Rural people value independence, being left alone, not being told what to do, making decisions locally instead of at the federal or even state level, etc. Rural politics is bottom up, and the rural economy is bottom up as well. There's your Republican party.
Rural and urban people simply don't "get" the other's point of view. Urban people can't figure out why rural people won't vote their own interest, because urban people actually believe that rural people want and need help from government. Rural people can't figure out why urban people don't like their religion when the church is a valued institution in the country, a place to go and celebrate important events, to see your neighbors on Sunday, etc, and they can't understand the urban hatred for their church. Urban people don't get why rural people want smaller government because they really don't understand at a fundamental level just how screwed rural people are by high taxes and government mandates. Rural people know that they pay a third of their salary in taxes yet they still don't have cable television, don't have cell phone reception, don't have high speed internet, don't have reliable electricity, don't even have paved roads ... rural people KNOW that the money they are paying in taxes is building a big hospital in the suburbs of big cities, or that it is paying somebody to sit around in an office in a skyscraper somewhere, and they don't like it. Rural people know that when it comes to taxes they are getting SCREWED. Urban people don't get the rural obsession with guns when guns kill so many people in the inner cities, and rural people don't understand the urban fascination with gun control when farmers have to have a gun on them to shoot the occasional rattlesnake or rabid possum. Urban people just don't get that ... a rural person can walk out on their front porch and see a fox acting weird, and without a gun what is a rural person supposed to do, grab a spoon and try to saw the damn thing's head off ?
Until urban people stop trying to control what happens in rural people's lives, and until rural people can stop thinking of every city as Sodom and Gomorrah, we will continue to have these close elections. Think about that the next time you're watching "Weeds" on cable television, try to see a show like that from the perspective of somebody who lives in a small house in rural Ohio, try to imagine what they are thinking when they see stuff like that. And rural people, try to think about some urban person feels when they see a rifle, it may actually be the first time in their lives they've ever actually seen a rifle in real life, all most of them know about guns is what they've seen in Hollywood movies.