Things that are lost with "Progress" and "Federal Government"

[Szdfan]

Politicians seem to have an idea that, “If we build it, they [JOBS] will come.” This is backward.
From what i can see, these projects may be “roads to nowhere,” as the country moves evermore to a welfare state.
The wealthy FLY in private jets.

Jobs won’t come with gov policies that are unfriendly to business. High taxes, crippling regulations.
The political double talk is off the charts.

Colorado’s roads are generally inadequate and in bad shape because of something called the TABOR amendment, which puts significant limits on the amount of tax money the state is allowed to collect. Colorado is also among the states that spends the least in education. A couple of years ago, the situation was so bad that teachers in the state went on strike.

Infrastructure has to be paid for somehow. When there’s not enough money to pay for roads and schools, rural communities suffer.

[Josh]

It's interesting that a conversation that started about Federal government overreach has shifted to complaints about state government overreach. I suspect that if some of you got what you wanted (a weak Federal government and strong state governments) that you'd still be unhappy about the powerful overreach of the state capitals.

I’m generally a fan of self government, the consent of the government, and am anti-colonisation. We’d all be better off without rural areas being colonised by wealthy people in mega cities.

Likewise most city people seem to think the source of all evils is rural voters, so they’d be happier too without rural people being involved in state or federal politics.

Historically, governments were organised into city states. America used to have a concept of the Senate to represent smaller (rural) states as a counter balance to the main house of Congress representing the concentrated population, but people like you keep complaining about the evils of non-popular vote for things like the Senate or President, so apparently you think rural people must be ruled, dominated by, and colonised by the wealthy megacities.

*Snort*

I live outside a town of 230 people in rural southeastern Colorado. My wife works in agriculture. My in-law’s family survived the Dust Bowl and still owns ranch land in Baca County. We’re hoping to purchase property with water rights in the next couple of years. I also spent the last three years working in a factory. I recently was hired to teach English at a high school in a nearby town with 2400 residents. The HS has 120 students, many of whom come from ranch and farming families. I live 1.5 hours from the closest Starbucks. But please, Josh, tell me all about what it’s like to live in a rural area and what rural people think.

BTW...which city do you live in and what kind of high priced consulting work do you do?

Also, rural communities themselves are colonialist — the area I live in was settled as a result of the Homestead Acts which were used to settle land taken away native tribes. I live minutes from the Old Bent’s Fort (one of the first white settlements in the West) and the Santa Fe trail. I live a couple of hours from the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. Unless your “anti colonialism” includes returning land to the native tribes, then you’re not really anti-colonialist. It’s just hyperbole.

Yes, you complain about your rural setting all the time, which is puzzling - why don’t you move to one of the well managed big cities with their oh-so-superior culture to the terrible rural rednecks and their Republican-voting ways?

I live in Ohio these days, halfway between where my mother grew up and my father did. (It’s right there in my profile.) Most consulting I do these days is for local businesses.

On the employment side, in case you haven’t noticed, pretty much all tech and finance employment has gone entirely remote.

[Josh]

In Ontario they call it "green belting" when they limit suburban sprawl from taking over farmland.

In China they build their buildings up into the air about 25 stories on the average so that they can keep their farmland for producing food.

Or they do this as part of a massive real estate speculation bubble, much like how most new housing built in America is for wealthier people, not priced and sized for the people who actually need it.

[Josh]

It's interesting that a conversation that started about Federal government overreach has shifted to complaints about state government overreach. I suspect that if some of you got what you wanted (a weak Federal government and strong state governments) that you'd still be unhappy about the powerful overreach of the state capitals.

I’m generally a fan of self government, the consent of the government, and am anti-colonisation. We’d all be better off without rural areas being colonised by wealthy people in mega cities.

Likewise most city people seem to think the source of all evils is rural voters, so they’d be happier too without rural people being involved in state or federal politics.

Historically, governments were organised into city states. America used to have a concept of the Senate to represent smaller (rural) states as a counter balance to the main house of Congress representing the concentrated population, but people like you keep complaining about the evils of non-popular vote for things like the Senate or President, so apparently you think rural people must be ruled, dominated by, and colonised by the wealthy megacities.

Good luck trying to prevent the "colonization" of rural areas as you put it. The only way to actually accomplish something like that would be to hugely restrict the property rights of rural residents. You would have to prohibit rural folks from selling to "outsiders" and prohibit them from doing things like subdividing their properties or using them for any purpose other than agriculture. I doubt that would go over very well in most rural areas and would almost certainly represent an unconstitutional "taking" of private property.

I was referring to representation in government; your bloviations generally lean in the direction they rural people deserve zero representation at all.

For some reason, you’d like everyone crammed into tenement slums and moved off the land, and the only people left on the land day labourers unable to live or raise families anywhere near where they work. This is a common urban liberal fantasy.

[Ken]

I’m generally a fan of self government, the consent of the government, and am anti-colonisation. We’d all be better off without rural areas being colonised by wealthy people in mega cities.

Likewise most city people seem to think the source of all evils is rural voters, so they’d be happier too without rural people being involved in state or federal politics.

Historically, governments were organised into city states. America used to have a concept of the Senate to represent smaller (rural) states as a counter balance to the main house of Congress representing the concentrated population, but people like you keep complaining about the evils of non-popular vote for things like the Senate or President, so apparently you think rural people must be ruled, dominated by, and colonised by the wealthy megacities.

Good luck trying to prevent the "colonization" of rural areas as you put it. The only way to actually accomplish something like that would be to hugely restrict the property rights of rural residents. You would have to prohibit rural folks from selling to "outsiders" and prohibit them from doing things like subdividing their properties or using them for any purpose other than agriculture. I doubt that would go over very well in most rural areas and would almost certainly represent an unconstitutional "taking" of private property.

I was referring to representation in government; your bloviations generally lean in the direction they rural people deserve zero representation at all.

For some reason, you’d like everyone crammed into tenement slums and moved off the land, and the only people left on the land day labourers unable to live or raise families anywhere near where they work. This is a common urban liberal fantasy.

Once again Josh you apparently would rather argue against some fantasy strawman than anything people here actually say. No one here, not me, nor anyone else has ever argued that rural people shouldn't have representative democracy. And no one here has ever argued that rural people should be forced to live in any particular way. There is no such "common urban liberal fantasy" The only fantasy is in your own mind.

[ohio jones]

Infrastructure has to be paid for somehow. When there’s not enough money to pay for roads and schools, rural communities suffer.

On the employment side, in case you haven’t noticed, pretty much all tech and finance employment has gone entirely remote.

The "information superhighway" is a critical component of rural infrastructure, perhaps nearly equal in importance to physical roads.

[RZehr]

Infrastructure has to be paid for somehow. When there’s not enough money to pay for roads and schools, rural communities suffer.

On the employment side, in case you haven’t noticed, pretty much all tech and finance employment has gone entirely remote.

The "information superhighway" is a critical component of rural infrastructure, perhaps nearly equal in importance to physical roads.

When everyone travels by drone, and everything is delivered by drones, we can save a lot of money by abandoning roads, bridges, traffic lights, signs, overpasses, etc.

[Ken]

Infrastructure has to be paid for somehow. When there’s not enough money to pay for roads and schools, rural communities suffer.

On the employment side, in case you haven’t noticed, pretty much all tech and finance employment has gone entirely remote.

The "information superhighway" is a critical component of rural infrastructure, perhaps nearly equal in importance to physical roads.

When everyone travels by drone, and everything is delivered by drones, we can save a lot of money by abandoning roads, bridges, traffic lights, signs, overpasses, etc.

You going to ship your agricultural products to market via drone?

[RZehr]

The "information superhighway" is a critical component of rural infrastructure, perhaps nearly equal in importance to physical roads.

When everyone travels by drone, and everything is delivered by drones, we can save a lot of money by abandoning roads, bridges, traffic lights, signs, overpasses, etc.

You going to ship your agricultural products to market via drone?

Might have to ship each berry, grain, steak, egg individually. Direct to consumer. Maybe sell it per bite, direct to the consumers mouth. We're gonna cut out the middle man!

[Szdfan]

When everyone travels by drone, and everything is delivered by drones, we can save a lot of money by abandoning roads, bridges, traffic lights, signs, overpasses, etc.

You going to ship your agricultural products to market via drone?

Might have to ship each berry, grain, steak, egg individually. Direct to consumer. Maybe sell it per bite, direct to the consumers mouth. We're gonna cut out the middle man!

I guess that's one way to make pigs fly.

You might not want to look up when a drone carrying a herd of cattle passes over you.