Last edited Mon Jan 27, 2014, 06:18 PM - Edit history (1)
they deserve to have. And the reason they consider urbanites parasites, is them thinking we are feeding off them.
I will give what I have heard and thought about what I've heard from country folk which are the model for red staters. There is a lot more to it, socially, but I'll stick to the tax and welfare argument.
All of the wealth of the cities comes from the land, parleyed into a value which is not returned equally. It can't be, since the city requires a lot just to exist that it is not able to produce, resources and materials.
Rural workers are low-paid, because the majority of people live in the cities and insist prices be kept low and all their wealth is solid and tangible, not digits to be manipulated as city dwellers can do.
The farmer or rancher in a long-term gamble against weather, government regulations and a market he has little or no say in, such as Wall Street or whoever is running government. He must think long-term as it takes time for his crop to come in, and what does he have to live on before that?
The urbanite expects food available all the time, heat, water, and income to buy the same, or a system of governance to see him through bad years. If the city dweller through government taxes sees him through that period of time, he is sure that only part of what he is owed. He considers his plight to be the fault of the city dweller.
It is a permanent grievance that has been in place as long as the rural - urban dynamic has existed, and government comes from cities and high population states and insists the rural dweller obey.
it's getting more unbalanced with the HUGE need of those who demand regularity in their living conditions that the rural dweller cannot insist upon. The ratio of city to country dweller in this country is virtually the opposite that it was as the Great Depression hit.
People were driven out of their homes in the country to the cities to make a living. And they were made unwelcome when they arrived, as the refugees they were. Many have let those days fade into memory. Others have not forgotten, especially those that held on in the country for decades and felt pride - and not a small amount of resentment.
The rural people see what they are up against, and they call city and coastal dwellers elitists. The gas, oil, electricity, water and sewer systems MUST be going 24/7/365. The city, truth to be told, DEVOURS the countryside as a material thing that it does not respect. So when the country dweller looks askance at our horror of mining and factory farming, it is only fair in their book. They want to make a living, but they are driven to produce more meat, vegetables, oil and minerals for the city - which I am using analogy for the blue states and Democratic strong holds which pay the most taxes.
We pay more taxes because we have more money, it's not as hard to get as in a the almost barter system of land owners. We can make appear or disappear, the rural or red stater cannot do this sleigh of hand that we can. We can pass a law that makes one group well-off, they cannot make more land, water, etc.
But nothing else has ever worked in an urban environment of millions, and we love our combined intelligence, wealth, organization and education and what it buy us. Our money that we pay in taxes comes from our ingenuity, but what undergirds it is the land, which is neglected. And we use resources rural people lose to the political influences of the masses in cities. It's probably the reason our government was set up as it was, to maintain a political equity between the classes or regions.
The frontier mentality of guns, hunting, willingness to slaugther, live with animal and industrial filth and all the rest have made their culture. They consider their penury to be the fault of luxurious living in the cities and laziness because they consider their work more physically demanding. It's all out of sight and out of mind for the genteel urbanite, but all that we use and buy and sell comes from such places and people considered by many to be stupid and uncouth. That is very old.
Since rural folks are not getting the same treatment as they think the non-agrarian city dweller does, they believe our life styles to be frvolous, they think we are spoilt brats and resent us. They value land, family, etc. and the like. Not a full explanation, but IMO this is why they don't see our money paid in to them as welfare, but less than they are owed.
They think they are being cheated. Are they?
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