A coworker of mine was dangerously close to connecting some of the dots yesterday.
He started complaining about how things are getting more expensive, and how the company we work for has started buying things from overseas because even with tariffs it’s cheaper than buying American made, and then came the stunning part.
He said “They say they have to raise prices because of terrorists or some shit, but how do WE know if that’s true? How do we know there ARE any terrorists and it’s not just all bullshit made up by politicians and the news to justify raising prices so they can get rich.”
And then he took a hard right turn and added that “all those goddamn r****d democrats in congress” are to blame.
So close.
I would have just said “Republican Congress voted for the tariffs.” And watched with popcorn.
Fox News brain kicked in
The talking points are integrated in their personality.
I think it more comes down to the fact that if you live in a rural area, you have to have a very independent and individualistic mindset because you are so far away from things that you have to do most things yourself. This leads to a less collectivist mindset. Your main hub of society tends to be the nearest church, which is where you see the other people living nearby. Or maybe the bass pro shop or waffle house if you are near enough to one of those.
When you live in a city, you are about as deep in society as you can get, and you can quickly understand why we need to help each other because you see the results of not doing that all around you (mental illness, drug addicition, homelessness, etc.).
It’s not that one is right and the other wrong, it’s that they are life viewed from fundamentally different perspectives and needs.
And yet church is a collectivist society. Even says so in the Gospels and when done properly, churches take care of each other in their societies.
Yes, but not one run by the government. It is the form of collectivism that rural people see and most conspicuously use, and hence why they don’t see the need for governments
why they don’t see the need for governments
A very generous reading. I think they couldn’t care less if government is needed, unless it helps them, in which it’s certainly desperately needed. Paying for a minority to get a benefit is their worse enemy though. It’s all about selfishness.
In which case, when it comes to big-city federal tax dollars paying for pork-barrel infrastructure (dams, highways, etc.) and health facilities, and disaster-relief in their little communities, most of those dollars come from city workers. THEY’re not the ones paying for minorities to get a benefit … it’s the minorities!
Without Blue states, Red states would be stuck with the taxes their people are willing to pay.
Well it shouldn’t be surprising that someone who lives far away from everyone else doesn’t care much for other people.
Why would that be? You say that like everyone actively chooses where they’ll be born.
Barring extreme poverty limiting your freedom of movement, I would assume people who wanted to leave rural areas to live in a city would do so. It happens quite frequently.
People in rural areas are usually poor. I would know, I left one to escape poverty. But I’m lucky I could. Almost everyone else in my family stayed for a variety of reasons and none of it is as simple as “they don’t like people”.
Yes, but not one run by the government. It is the form of collectivism that rural people see and most conspicuously use, and hence why they don’t see the need for governments
in other words, anarchism
Moving from the government to the church is really just moving from one giant organization to the other in a lot of ways. But yes, it’s outside of government so I guess you could say it counts.
I think it’s more that in rural areas webs of trust function. You may not know Bob, but your cousin is best friends with his cousin and you know the last name and so since you haven’t heard anything good or bad about him from people you trust who know him he must be an alright fella. And you know Jane just started working with you and she lives in the city but Alice who went to high school with you is saying she’s a good worker and may just be what the company needs so you’ll give her a chance.
This gets them into trouble as this creates a conformity and pushes “deviants” out of their community. “Sam from down the street is Samantha now” provides an opportunity if the town hasn’t yet committed to transphobia, but if it has she’s not longer trustworthy and is prone to harassment, and a very likely scenario is that she’s lauded as a good one and not like most of them. People of color, immigrants, and people of the wrong religion face similar challenges but without the benefit of family and an existing reputation. Ahmed and Fatima have a long uphill battle to be welcomed into a small farming town, even if they’re providing desperately needed skills.
Cities cannot function like this. In many ways they do develop geographically overlapping versions of it, but while you can model a big city queer community or environmentalist scene or whatever subset as a small town web of trust, you can’t function like that in the same way. You will have neighbors you don’t know because your block could have over a hundred families in it. Interpersonal focused charity is demolished at that point. Institutionalized services become vital as do things like multimodal transit systems.
And once you have these institutions and these resources you get the people who can’t get what they need in small towns. Sure the small town has its drug dealers and manufacturers, but only a few do higher level stuff, where the city has a drug trade and gangs. You may have a homeless person or two in a small town, but once they’ve worn out their welcome and stop getting support they’re going to head towards the city where there’s shelters and rehabs and people who didn’t watch them grow up and get sick of giving alms to them.
Small communities are modeled as relationships and responsibilities and people in those places often think rigidly like that. But urban life forces you to think in systems
This small community way of thinking you’re describing is kind of a bad system. It doesn’t scale well and is extremely vulnerable to injustice. It shouldn’t be held up as a gold standard or even an acceptable way to think. I thought most people accepted the law should apply equally to all, but that “small town” mode is going to produce “sure Jimmy stole the car and crashed into the deli, but he’s a good boy. Give him probation. But that [slur] parking in the fire lane? Throw the book at them!”
Yep, cities are great because there’s almost always someone you can call on to get problems dealt with almost immediately. Police, fire, utilities, landlords, homeless shelters, therapists, hospitals, exterminators etc etc
In the country you simply don’t have that. Churches are basically community centers. The govt doesn’t have a huge role so country people are okay with smaller government. Cities can’t imagine life with a smaller government because they rely on it in tons of ways to keep society functioning
Many people in cities think something like owning a gun without the intent to commit a crime is insane because they can call the cops.
Many people in the country think not having a gun around for emergencies is insane because any first responder is 15-40 minutes away, and until then you and your neighbors are it
Like you said it’s not so much right vs left but city vs rural mindsets
Let’s not think of all the infrastructure to get what they sell to the people who buy it or that gets the stuff you buy to you. And if your response is, “Well, that’s only 100 miles to the nearest store/city/hospital,” that completely ignores how the stuff got there so you could pick it up.
Unless your lifestyle is such that you only have to buy or sell things a few times per year to survive, you’re relying on that national/global infrastructure to enjoy your rugged, individualistic lifestyle.
The conservatives don’t want to clean up. They just want to drag everyone down into their own slop.
Red states sure do love all those taxes being paid out by those awful cities, though … they don’t wanna damage -that- part!
Nah, that can’t be it. Uhh The cats are probably dealing drugs out of Democrat cities! I saw it on a post!
Almost like people who don’t want the government breathing down their necks don’t live in places that are government controlled. As someone who’s lived in NJ all my life, it’s the cities that are the disease. The economy and society in cities isn’t anything we should be proud of.
Ahh yes, as soon as you leave the cities, the government can’t touch you. That’s why farmers are subsidized by the government, rural healthcare is propped up by Medicare, and rural voters have been gerrymandered into a position where their (republican) votes are worth more than voters in the city. Jfc, how deluded can you be?
This is like a fractal of stupid. Any portion of it is just as stupid as any other portion. I suspect it’s a joke.
Poe’s law is alive and well this day.
you don’t have to live in cities if you don’t want to. just move to the countryside and check whether things are better there.
I remember that talking point about walkable cities being “digital prisons” and never understood the gymnastic logic people go for with those.
Do they think that only being able to leave via a registered electronics-laden metal box on roads built by the government is “independence”? Do they realize in some countries even assassins will use public transit to evade attention?
Do they realize in some countries even assassins will use public transit to evade attention?
Is this a Luigi reference?
done, and much happier here.
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In cities, economies actually exist. In cities, society is just a reflection of human nature and has fuck-all to do with government.
That’s way too generalized of a statement, even though I get what you mean. Things like infrastructure and mobility for example play a major part in how a city feels and develops. Tokyo, Amsterdam and Detroit are all cities but couldn’t be more different in nature, which in turn also shapes society and economy.
To think cities cause humans to just be themselves is as foolish as the foolishness your post was an answer to.
To think cities cause humans to just be themselves is as foolish as the foolishness your post was an answer to.
That’s not what I said. I said they bring out human nature. Which is a reaction to this idea that people in cities have bad manners or are somehow worse people. All my rural friends and family who didn’t leave think cities are horrible and likely think like the person I responded to.
And yes cities are not all the same but my point is that they exist because there are enough people to have an actual economy. Walk down main street and any small town America and you’ll see the stark difference I’m trying to point out. No money in those places at all. Extreme poverty running rampant. Half of businesses shuttered.
I’m guessing you enjoy drinking clean water and breathing non-toxic air on a daily basis, no? How do you think that happened?
Almost like the people who don’t want government breathing down their necks are wholly incapable of actually supporting themselves without leeching off better, more functional economies. Almost like parasites.
Actually i’m in favor of the rural communities breaking away from big government. They don’t want the government, why should the government keep them? They can take care of themselves …
