Large Scale Central

That'll put a damper on your political ambitions

General Discussion
#21
Ric Golding said:
Ralph Berg said:
Ric, You have the right to feel that "virtue" is unique to small towns. But you should realize it is insulting to all "good" people living in urban areas. As for Mike, I don't see his opinions as being any more inflammatory or arrogant as your opinions or my opinions. Opposing viewpoints are healthy for us all. I learn something from all the posts, whether I agree or not. Sometimes we are all guilty of lacking "diplomacy" in our responses. That is OK. It just shows we are passionate about our views. I hope neither you or Mike stop sharing your opinions with us. And I'd be more than happy to share a beer with either one of you. Ralph
Ralph,

I apologize that you, or anyone, is offended by my views on any subject. It is never meant as an insult, but it does amaze me that I’m not allowed to have those views or I’m thought less of because I do. I live and work everyday with the politics of Illinois, Springfield and Chicago. It is quite interesting. I am not surprized that many of our politicians end up in jail. I believe many more should be there and only stay out of jail, because of ruthless lawyers and monetary assistance in many ways. Come to my World and I’ll be glad to spend a day showing you examples of how we are impacted by politics on a daily basis. Its actually quite humorous and fun, but it is the real world. My wife and I chose where we live and where we raised our children. Yes, I am passionate about it. No, it is probably not right for everyone. But it fits us. Beer, Rum or Diet Coke, its all good and worth sharing with new or old friends and even strangers.


Ric,
You didn’t insult me…but I can see where others may be insulted .
I appreciate both you and Mike for your strong opinions and fortitude to express them, whether I agree with either one of you, or not.
As for Illinois politics…I certainly don’t judge you by the politics that surround you.
After all, even a cesspool is mostly water.
Time will tell if Obama emerged from the cesspool, or brought it with him.
Ralph

#22
mike omalley said:
Mik, why is it when I argue a point I'm "forcing my beliefs" but when you argue a point it's different?
WTF did I do? I gave up on trying to talk any sense into you guys months ago.... As for trying to have any control over who your teen daughter dates, if you haven't gone through it yet, just wait. My 16yo is seeing a total drooling doofus, but you don't DARE say anything against the boy or it makes her even MORE determined that he is "the one"....
mike omalley said:
I'd be happy to say any of the things i said here to your face. Will you be at the ECLSTS? I will.
Sure I'll come..... if somebody gives me a winning lotto ticket for Christmas. Some of us are still busting our humps every day for jack and don't have money for fancy trips. BTW, Where's MY bailout?
#23

Be grateful.

OUR daughter, a hydrocephalic and cerebral palsey-inflicted wheelchair user, married a failed suicide who was a piece of work BEFORE he almost took that giant leap via a hose through the car window. Personally, had I been the one to open the garage door that day, I would have crept quietly back in the house and made a nice cup of tea, drinking it slowly.

tac

#24
mike omalley said:
I would not blame Palin for this, it's pretty distant. The Mother of her possible son-in law?

What I would argue is that it indicates the phoniness of her rhetoric about “small town values,” or Ric’s argument that “chicago” is all bad. The idea that virtue is uniquely located in small towns seems ridiculous to me. Colin Powell recently criticized Palin for talking about “small town values” and small town Americans as the only real Americans. Powell said “I was raised in the south bronx and there’s nothing wrong with my value system.”

It’s not that she has trouble in her extended family–most everybody does. It’s that she thinks small town people are better or more moral than urban or suburban people. But as Powell susggested, I hope she keeps pushing that line, because most people don’t live in small towns and they resent it when someone tells them they aren’t “real” Americans or that their values are inferior to “small town values.”


I think we all know what is generally meant by “small town values.” Those are values that can just as easily be held by anyone living anywhere, but small towns and particularly frontier-western small towns as can be found in Alaska, provide the best examples of people who tend to be self-reliant while always ready to help their neighbor when their neighbor needs it. The emphasis is on “self-reliance” as opposed to a sense of entitlement that is much more closely associated with the masses (a term I use deliberately) who live in the big cities or the liberal “elites” who are also associated with same. The rhetoric was hardly phony because we all KNOW what she meant. I see these small town values as much more closely associated with those of our founding fathers while I see the big city values as more European–the very type of society which many of the early Americans sought to escape. I realize these are generalities of which there are many exceptions, but the point should be clear to all. I believe in small town values and I OPPOSE the Europeanization which is occurring throughout much of the lower 48 but particularly is found in the large metropolitan areas. I consider it inferior because it requires a paternalistic society which eventually means an all-powerful government to shepherd those who believe that someone else owes them. That, by the way, is exactly the attitude which ruined my fellow Natives for many generations. I blame that on those who push paternalism as though it is somehow morally superior to self-reliance. It is not. It is a throwback to the middle ages of serfdom.

#25
Ronald Simpson said:
I think we all know what is generally meant by "small town values." Those are values that can just as easily be held by anyone living anywhere
Ron, Sorry to quote only a part of your reply. But to me, this is the most important point. I was born and raised in the Detroit area. However, my values fit in quite nicely in the small, rural community I now call home. Ralph
#26
Ralph Berg said:
Ronald Simpson said:
I think we all know what is generally meant by "small town values." Those are values that can just as easily be held by anyone living anywhere
Ron, Sorry to quote only a part of your reply. But to me, this is the most important point. I was born and raised in the Detroit area. However, my values fit in quite nicely in the small, rural community I now call home. Ralph
My mother's folks lived in a big city. But they were immigrants and their values were definitely small town. Grandfather was the very model of self-reliance who had to learn English because it was not his native language and who quickly became one of the most trusted building contractors in the Portland, Oregon of a very different era. He was a modest man who lived a modest lifestyle. And as he saw it, no one owed him ANYTHING except when there was a contract between them--written or not. But that was a voluntary trade between willing partners. Hard work and a lot of careful thought and diligence earned him everything he had. He had a remarkable capacity for loyalty and a great many friends because everyone knew they could count on him. Especially they could count on his absolute honesty, but also he believed in being a good neighbor.

My great-great grandfather on my father’s side was also the very model of self-reliance. He was his people’s leader from the early age of 18. He watched the self-reliance of his people slip away as the government dole–and alcohol–stole away his own peoples’ independent spirits and replaced them with another kind of spirit. He never gave into that because the end result was only too obvious in those days. He remained independent to the very end as he watched a railroad move in and change his world drastically. He did not complain. He just made deals. He would never be beholden to anyone else nor would anyone ever owe him anything except the respect that a lifetime of being a true leader and inspiration to his people had earned him.

Small town values does not necessarily mean “small town.” It could apply to a European immigrant in a big city–my mother’s father–or an Indian from another world entirely–my father’s great-grandfather. It is a combination of self-reliance tempered by an understanding that we live within the context of a community. Does the average big city person of today know his neighbors more than one or two doors away? Is he prepared to help them if called upon? I think not. It is a very different world where the Big City dweller has almost become in all too many ways dependent on the state and believes in it more than he does in his neighbors.

I realize this is a generalization, but I also am quite certain that you ALL know exactly what I mean. This is what Sarah Palin REALLY meant. She was not putting those who grew up and lived in small towns above those who are city dwellers.

#27

Ron,

You said that very well. Thank you for sharing and keeping that independent spirit. Nobody can really take freedom away from you, unless you let them.

#28

I, too, grew up in a small town, so I have an idea of what “small town values” means. I even went to college in a small town. When the 7000 students of the University of Idaho returned each fall, the population of Moscow, ID, doubled. I even remember a sign outside of one of the stores, “Welcome back, $tudents!” :smiley: Both places were the type of town where everybody knew everybody’s business, and we read the local newspaper to see who got caught at it. :lol: We would lock the front door to let folks know that we were not at home, but leave the back door unlocked, in case somebody needed to get in. If I got caught misbehaving, I could expect on the spot discipline from the person who caught me, and twice that from my father, when he got home. My mother never had to say, “You just wait until your father gets home.” She had a pretty good swing, too. I never received more than three swats on my posterior for any crime, real or imagined. My parents had a rule, learned from their parents, “Three swats are for the child, if he needs them. Any more, and they are for the parent.”

I was free to go down to the train yards, always with my best friend, Bob. We made friends among the men who worked there. They watched out for our safety. They knew when the hotshot freight was coming through and made sure we were up on the switcher to watch it, after which we usually got a cab ride down to the local swimming pool. We even made the acquaintance of several of the hobos who lived down by the river. They were kinda scary for 10 year old boys, so we didn’t hang around long.

On the down side, there were only a handful of Native Americans, one of which, Walter, was my best friend and blood brother. Walter is now a physician and teaches at the Univ of Washington Med School. The Mexicans came and went during apple harvest. The kids were always clean, well behaved, fun to play with, but in school such a short time that I barely had time to learn their names before they moved on. No Blacks. None. Zip, zero, nada. I did not have a chance to meet folks from other cultures until I got to college. I found it fascinating that people thought differently than I did. I wanted to find out more. I often got in trouble asking questions. Folks thought I was being “nosy.” In the Navy, I got all the multiculturalism I could handle. In Mombasa, Kenya, I hooked up with an Arab guide who, for $40.00 took me on a walking tour of some of the seedier parts of Mombasa. After the tour, he told me that his original intent was to rob me of everything I had, but that I was so full of questions, and displayed such a genuine interest in his culture, that he decided to extend hospitality, instead. To this day, I don’t know whether I believe that, but that is what he told me.

Well, this has turned into a bit of a ramble.

One last thing. Small town values exist everywhere. Even in Detroit and Philly. It’s just that they are overshadowed by other things…

#29

Steve,

I grew up in the City of St. Louis and the suburbs of the same part of the World, about a mile from Lambert International Airport in the 50’s and 60’s. I went to the largest high school in the State of Missouri. My high school, Ritenour, had 3 grades and that was 3400 students. My graduating class was 948. My wife came from a nicer area, but the same monster school environment. I never even knew all the kids in my class and you were pretty much a number.

I spent much of my youth in Oklahoma on my grandfather’s farm, 38 miles north of Oklahoma City, between Guthrie and Mulhall. It was the most fantastic place you could imagine for a young boy. Ponds, an old barn, cows, horses, fishing and hunting or just working the land. Learned to drive the tractor at 9 and the truck by 12. I looked forward to every summer.

My wife and I lived in apartments in St. Louis for the first 3 years of our marriage. When we started thinking about a house and having a family, we wanted to raise our children in a small town rural environment. Carlyle was 3000 people when we moved here in 1975. It is now 3400, the same size as my high school. We will always be the kids from St. Louis that bought the Wall’s house. Our children, now 30 and 31, are natives, but we will never be. Almost 18 years ago, I took over running the marina on the north side of town. It is the largest marina on Illinois’s largest man-made lake. If I had a day off, I’d still go to the lake.

Lots of people call this “fly over country”, but we enjoy it and so do many that visit here for vacation.

My son and our granddaughter just stopped by. Gotta go.

#30
Ronald Simpson said:
Small town values does not necessarily mean "small town." It could apply to a European immigrant in a big city--my mother's father--or an Indian from another world entirely--my father's great-grandfather. It is a combination of self-reliance tempered by an understanding that we live within the context of a community. Does the average big city person of today know his neighbors more than one or two doors away? Is he prepared to help them if called upon? I think not. It is a very different world where the Big City dweller has almost become in all too many ways dependent on the state and believes in it more than he does in his neighbors.

I realize this is a generalization, but I also am quite certain that you ALL know exactly what I mean. This is what Sarah Palin REALLY meant. She was not putting those who grew up and lived in small towns above those who are city dwellers.


That must be what “Bitterly clinging to guns and religion” means to some people…:wink:

#31
Ken Brunt said:
That must be what "Bitterly clinging to guns and religion" means to some people.............;)
I am not aware of anyone, nor have I known anyone who "bitterly (clings) to guns and religion" with the possible sole except of a large uneducated family headed by a religious nut of indeterminate politics who once tried to occupy a part of the nearby Wrangell St. Elias National Park. And he more resembled the Rev. Jimmy Jones--a left wing lunatic. Both his background and his group lifestyle more closely resembled those of the communal hippies of the late 60s-early 70s, but with an extreme twist. Near as I can determine that is a phrase intended solely for the use of the far left as a cheap way to put down those who don't partake of their Kool aid. It is a phrase that is not a reflection of reality as society exists most anywhere today. It is nothing more than a left-wing boogey-man.
#32

Ron wrote: “This is what Sarah Palin REALLY meant. She was not putting those who grew up and lived in small towns above those who are city dwellers.”

She was though. She described people in southern virginia as “real virginians” and she described rural people as “real Americans.” As a resident of northern virginia, my response to that is impolite and annoyed.

I’m sure many of you agree with the idea, in a general sense, that the “real” america is small towns. It’s a common cliche, it’s in movies and tv and etc. But the US has also always been heavily urban and many of the founders were urban people. Ben Franklin loved cities and spent his whole life in cities, Hamilton thought Jefferson’s idea of keeping America a rural nation was delusional. John Adams was an urban guy. These men sacrificed just as much for their country as VA planters did; they’re just as real. Statistically, until the 50’s the movement of Americans was into the cities, not the frontier, and it’s in the cities that the United States forged the economic power to lead the world. Cities produced much–but not all–of our greatest music and art.

But I’d never go around saying urban America is the “real” america or claim that people who chose to live in the country were taking “the road to serfdom.” We live in a semi-urban place, a few blocks from the DC metro; we leave our door open half the time, our neighbors all have keys, we watch each other’s kids, we have neighborhood parties–all the things that are supposed to belong exclusively to small towns.

I grew up in a small town. I found it narrow minded and conformist, full of bigotry and suspicion of difference, gossip mongering and intolerance. I absolutely loved living in Manhattan–I thought there was more genuine independent thought in one Manhattan apartment building than in my entire hometown. I feel much more free in the air of big cities. Nobody gives a darn what church you go to or how you live your life.

If you want to live in the country, good for you: make a happy life. It’s not my choice, but it’s the choice of some friends and family of mine, and good for them. But where do politicians get off telling the rest of us that we aren’t “real americans” or that are values are somehow lacking?

#33
mike omalley said:
Ron wrote: "This is what Sarah Palin REALLY meant. She was not putting those who grew up and lived in small towns above those who are city dwellers."

She was though. She described people in southern virginia as “real virginians” and she described rural people as “real Americans.” As a resident of northern virginia, my response to that is impolite and annoyed. . .

If you want to live in the country, good for you: make a happy life. It’s not my choice, but it’s the choice of some friends and family of mine, and good for them. But where do politicians get off telling the rest of us that we aren’t “real americans” or that are values are somehow lacking?


I am sorry you took it that way, because you have missed the point. This is not really about rural vs urban. I am one who could just as easily fit into an urban setting as a rural one but right now I happen to live somewhere in the very remote country. I would have no problem living right in downtown Portland (except, of course, I would be sacrificing my large-scale train space). It is not the setting per se that is the issue. It is the values. No one is being stigmatized because they are city dwellers. I cannot imagine that EVER becoming an issue. Urban vs rural is a non sequitur if not a red-herring. The only politician I am aware of who has really pushed this notion of urban vs rural is that idiot John Murtha, who referred to his own rural constituents first as “racists,” then “corrected” that statement, saying he really mean “red-neck.”

#34

Here’s a quote from Palin

“We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”

The implication is pretty clear, isn’t it? People in big cities or suburbs are not real Americans, aren’t hard working or patriotic or “pro-America.” If people in small towns are the real America, then the rest of us must be what–“fake America?”

I don’t want to rehash the election, or beat up on any candidate, just to point out how this kind of language gets thrown around. People in rural areas are quite reasonably annoyed when they are described as rubes or residents of “fly over states.” It’s the same thing in reverse

My original objection, the thing that raised Ric’s hackles, was to the idea that cities are morally corrupt and rural life is virtuous. I think you and I agree that neither way of life has a lock on virtue. Each of us might choose to celebrate the best of what urban and rural traditions have to offer

#35

Thats OK Mike

She can have all the the “Real America” small towns she wants, its us urban “Fake Americans” that outnumber and outvote them 10 to 1 every election, “Hoods” wins over “Hicks” everytime :lol:

Someone should point out to Sarah that its them Real American Family Values “small town” folk that are the most affected by America’s Meth drug abuse problem, (Meth is a vastly rural white drug problem) guess even she can’t see that, even when its standing on her doorstep saying “Merry Christmas In-law” but she can see Russia from her home… :wink: :lol:

#36

Actually, NOBODY can see Russia from their home unless they live in Little Diomede.

#37

I can see Russia from my house if I click on Youtube :wink: :lol: :open_mouth: :lol: :wink:

#38

I spent my time growing up in the big city and in rural parts. Sadly, it was in “small town America” where I encountered the worst of America with a culture of guns and religion, bigotry, racism and small mindedness. Just my experience.

-Brian

#39

The great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.
-William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold, Speech given at the Democratic National Convention, July 9, 1896

Ironic indeed that the Dems are now roasting a Rep over saying something similar lol

#40

This whole conversation is not productive and it is certainly cause for many more people than myself to “raise their hackles” on both sides of the argument. Come on, 3 whole pages and we are not talking about LGB. It is amazing that what isn’t brought forward is that we have the freedom to openly argue/debate/haggle about such mundane dribble without fear of government or straw boss retaliation to ourselves or our families and friends.

For a side note, William Jenninigs Bryan was born and started his political career in a CITY about 20 miles east of here, when it was about the same size that it is now, but megalopolises like Chicago were just swamps along the shore lines of our Country. I know some people still think of Chicago as a mosquito infested swamp. Anyway, political fodder is always made by people wanting political support by grouping one portion of the population of this Country against the other parts. People can beat up on someone like Governor Palin, President Bush or whoever because they do not come across as polished as someone from some Ivy League School. But it isn’t going to change the opinion of someone that is not impressed by the initials behind somebody’s name. Its kind of like what’s hanging in your shorts counts more than what’s on a business card behind your name.

So for the near future, I 'm going to follow the example of BHO and perform my own investigations from now on on my income and the taxes I pay on it and I’m sure the IRS will except this as Gospel. :wink: