by gollum » Fri 08 Oct 2010, 13:33:16
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cabrone', 'I')n such a world what does Miami have in common with Seattle?
The citizens of both cities think of themselves as Americans for one thing.
I think the whole US "Balkanization" thing is a fantasy of people with no tolerance for views other than their own who imagine if they can just get the boundaries down small enough, everyone in their "zone" will be exactly like them - kind of a Galt's Gulch fantasy with them in the lead roll.
I'll going out on a limb and say there is a much wider gulf between the politics of just about any big American city and it's surrounding rural counties than between any two big cities like Miami and Seattle. They both voted Obama for example, 61% and 57% respectively and though I'm not going to look it up I'd bet their nearby rural counties voted overwhelmingly McCain.
It makes sense people in town are more in favor of strong/big/more government, after all, governments provide
all the infrastructure necessary for city living - there is a reason to not have a septic and well and burn barrel on every city lot. And it makes sense for rural people to want less interference as their livelihoods usually involve natural resources - and the more regulations that hamper their free use of those resources the harder it is to make a profit.
I didn't come to this conclusion lightly, I'm an anarco-liberal that moved smack into the middle of a Paleo-Con area so I have given it some thought.
I don't really look at it as red state blue state, although beyond a doubt you have a good point about the urban vs rural. I think there is definitely some racist sentiments behind some who wish this would happen, but there were also racist sentiments in Bosnia and the Soviet Union, they were not really important until the central governments became weak and irrelevant (and perhaps hated) in those countries.
I was talking to a friend today about gold prices, and the gold confiscation of the 1930s came up, we both agreed that if the government ever tried that again people would laugh in their face, just another sign of how little respect the federal government has.