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

[temporal1]

i apologize for my shortcomings.


OP:

I found this article interesting...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... out-485107
In particular the opposition to canals and railroads in the 1800's.

"It was a position echoed by Monroe, who vetoed plans to erect tolls on a national highway, and Andrew Jackson, who famously vetoed funding for the Maysville Road in 1830. All three presidents professed support for internal improvements, but only if they were principally financed by state and local governments, or by chartered corporations.

But opponents of federal funding for internal improvements feared more than just an empowered federal state. They understood that internal improvements would usher in a new reality—one in which a cherished agrarian republic gave way to a mixed economy of farms and small towns, factories and cities, agriculture and commerce. In a short story published in 1843, Nathaniel Hawthorne, a steadfast Jacksonian Democrat in politics, likened the railroad to “a sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions.”

In North Carolina, opponents of state funding for internal improvements popularized an election ballad that framed canals and roads as the ruin of their agrarian paradise:

So therefore let it be our care,
To keep these men away from there,
Who build their castles in the air,
Who dream they can vast things perform,
Aid in a breadth God’s works reform,
[But to] us send such men as will
Cut no canals through vale nor hill.

In the eyes of opponents, where canals and railroads cut a swath through the countryside, they seemed to decimate local communities and turn once healthy, independent farmers into washed-out wage laborers. A New York editor invited readers to gaze on the “sallow complexions, emaciated forms, and stooping shoulders” of mill workers and consider what a “crime against society” it was to “divert human industry from the fields and the forests to the iron forges and cotton factories.”

The world had the model of the Roman roads to witness. We now adjust to the internet. As it improves+guts society.

But none of these things are, at core, about serving the comforts+desires of the masses.
The masses are affected, positively and negatively. But their lot is not the driving force behind these big projects.

Military needs and decisions may be the #1 driving force. First before commerce.

Similar for medical advances.
We don’t like to know military needs have led to many major medical advances. But it’s true.

[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.

[Ken]

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.

[RZehr]

In Oregon, it is already notoriously difficult to subdivide and/or develop rural land. And it is for the most part impossible to build a house or business on that land either. Zoning.
The smallest you can normally subdivide farmland is 80-160 acres, which means that you need to start with at least 160-320 acres. And then you still would be permitted to build a house on your land. You can farm it. Exclusive farm use.

[Ernie]

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.

[Szdfan]

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.

[Ken]

In Oregon, it is already notoriously difficult to subdivide and/or develop rural land. And it is for the most part impossible to build a house or business on that land either. Zoning.
The smallest you can normally subdivide farmland is 80-160 acres, which means that you need to start with at least 160-320 acres. And then you still would be permitted to build a house on your land. You can farm it. Exclusive farm use.

Yes, Oregon is practically unique in it’s land use laws to protect rural agricultural land. Most states have nothing of the sort. Yet it still doesn’t prevent tech millionaires from California from “colonizing your part of Central Oregon and buying up hobby ranches to play on.

[RZehr]

You’re right. I’m about 10 miles from Phil Knights ranch. Although he’s from Oregon, there are a lot of wealthy people who like to buy up ranches and vacation homes.
I sort of like the agriculture protection that zoning provides.

[temporal1]

OP:

I found this article interesting...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... out-485107
In particular the opposition to canals and railroads in the 1800's.

"It was a position echoed by Monroe, who vetoed plans to erect tolls on a national highway, and Andrew Jackson, who famously vetoed funding for the Maysville Road in 1830. All three presidents professed support for internal improvements, but only if they were principally financed by state and local governments, or by chartered corporations.

But opponents of federal funding for internal improvements feared more than just an empowered federal state. They understood that internal improvements would usher in a new reality—one in which a cherished agrarian republic gave way to a mixed economy of farms and small towns, factories and cities, agriculture and commerce. In a short story published in 1843, Nathaniel Hawthorne, a steadfast Jacksonian Democrat in politics, likened the railroad to “a sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions.”

In North Carolina, opponents of state funding for internal improvements popularized an election ballad that framed canals and roads as the ruin of their agrarian paradise:

So therefore let it be our care,
To keep these men away from there,
Who build their castles in the air,
Who dream they can vast things perform,
Aid in a breadth God’s works reform,
[But to] us send such men as will
Cut no canals through vale nor hill.

In the eyes of opponents, where canals and railroads cut a swath through the countryside,
they seemed to decimate local communities and turn once healthy, independent farmers into washed-out wage laborers.

A New York editor invited readers to gaze on the “sallow complexions, emaciated forms, and stooping shoulders” of mill workers and consider what a “crime against society” it was to “divert human industry from the fields and the forests
to the iron forges and cotton factories.”

In another thread, HondurasKeiser describes the “happiness plight” of ordinary folks living with so little, and how “want” upsets the fragile balance. Jesus and scriptures do not suggest wealth, comfort, ease guarantee happiness/fulfilment, just the opposite!
Yet the human condition routinely seeks all of these things.

Not that these things are offered with ordinary folks in mind! They aren’t. They are offered due to military or commerce desires of others. Wealth+power of the few. Throughout history, this includes infrastructure, in contemporary times, much is driven by technology and the internet. Notice HK’s references to TV, etc. And resulting unhappiness and covetnousness.

We are our own worst enemies. i’m not sure why. Jesus offers His way. We always hanker for our way first.

For what it's worth I posted this thought here 2&1/2 years ago and the sentiments are still the same but perhaps more articulate and speak to broader structural issues better than what I just posted in response to MikeF (this may also get to T1's query):

I’ve lived and worked in Honduras for 10 years both as a missionary, serving the very poorest of society and now as teacher, where I give philosophy and history classes to the children of the very wealthiest.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Honduran society and I certainly cannot claim to have many answers with respect to issues of immigration. The whole topic strikes me as far more complex and nuanced than what many voices on either the Right or the Left make it out to be.

Nevertheless, I know the milieu in which I live, I know why many poor Hondurans choose to emigrate illegally, I know why many wealthy Hondurans fly to Miami or Atlanta to give birth to their children and I know that all else remaining constant, this current caravan is only the beginning.

A poor Honduran lives his life with little to no hope of ever achieving anything approaching financial stability.
The people I know make their livings off of garbage collecting, selling un-ripened bananas and day-laboring at construction sites.

I’m particularly close with a group of young men and older boys that live in and around the municipal garbage dump of La Ceiba.

In many respects they are some of the happiest, most worldly-wise, most realistic people that I have ever met.
Not much upsets them, they laugh often and give fully of themselves to whoever asks.

They also have absolutely no hope of a better future.
They work hard, incredibly hard; rising before dawn to load up on either the banana or garbage trucks and not finishing work until late in the evening.

For their efforts they manage to bring home about $5 a day with which they are expected to either help support their parent(s) or the family that they’ve started. Some in the garbage dump community also manage to study in the local public high school on the weekends. Their hope is that if they can manage to graduate high school, perhaps even college, that they will be more attractive to local businesses and thereby land jobs as sales clerks, cashiers or bank tellers.

I haven’t the heart to tell them that all of their effort will likely be for naught as businesses simply don’t have the available positions to fill and that even if they did, business owners would never consider a public high school education worth anything compared to one from a private high school.

The economy here is anemic, the currency is prone to inflation and the ability to open and maintain a small to medium-sized business is notoriously difficult both because of the endless and contradictory bureaucratic paperwork and because gangs often extort local proprietors until they have to shutter their operations.

Government for its part is utterly corrupt;
it actively steals from any and all available funds, including and most recently the Social Security fund.

It refuses to maintain a proper infrastructure, protect its citizens from gangs and narco-traffickers, provide a decent public education or healthcare system and it has now begun to blatantly steal elections.

This then is what drives the poor of Honduras to leave their country, their homes and their families.
Sure there are many fleeing direct threats of violence; I’ve known a few.

Most though leave because they simply have no future here, no hope of achieving what they see on the television, no hope of offering a better life to their children.

Those of my friends that I’ve watched leave have never been eager to go, they were heart-broken at the prospect of leaving the friends and families behind and they always insisted that they’d return; they simply saw no other way of improving their lot in life.
They recognized that Honduras as it is, as it is structured, keeps them permanently poor.

I am not sure what the solution is.
Nothing the United States does at the border will change Honduran society or diminish the impetus to emigrate.

Life for 4.8 million Hondurans will still be a never-ending hamster-wheel of poverty.
The government will still defraud its citizens at every turn.
Gangs will still operate with impunity.

Hondurans will still find ways to enter the U.S. illegally.

If the United States wants to to truly solve the immigration crisis, and a caravan/invading horde of 7,000 people is a crisis, it needs to make some difficult decisions that affect those that are in power here.

It can begin by cutting off aid, every penny to this country.
The U.S. gave $67.8 million in military and development aid to Honduras in 2018.
In 2017 it was over 100 million.

That money is not reaching its intended destinations; its being siphoned off to corrupt government officials at every level before ever reaching a worthy development project.

The U.S. should revoke travel visas of known corrupt officials.
Recently there have been a few prominent politicians to lose their U.S. entry visas, there should be many more, beginning with the President.

Lastly, immigration law should change to make it more difficult for the wealthy of Honduras to fly to the U.S. to have their children and thereby procure for them birthright citizenship.

Many of my students are U.S. citizens and haven’t the faintest inkling of what that means for them in terms of rights and attendant responsibilities. Such practices make a mockery of citizenship as a concept and make legal for the wealthy i.e. anchor-babies, the very thing that the poor are demonized for attempting to do.

These solutions, if you an call them that, may seem naïve and short-sighted.
I know that it would not solve the structural problems here as such.

I know too though that unless those that are in power have real and sustained pressure put on them, unless their access to unlimited funds is finally cut off, unless they are forced to truly reckon with what they’ve wrought in this country;
Honduras will continue to produce thousands of émigrées every year and the U.S. will continue to fight this battle by proxy at the southern border.

The primary point for Ernie’s OP is about the happiness/contentment scale associated with simple life.

Then HK continues on to complications associated with outside interference. Corruption, coveting.

For myself, i see potential for optimism AFTER the U.S. changes HK suggests.
First: Pull the plug on corruption.
Then: Approach Foreign Aid anew, demanding accountability for funds.

Endless funds to the incompetent+corrupt makes no sense. Pull the plug and begin fresh.

“Go and sin no more” are classic words that fit most troubles faulty mankind comes up against.

- - -

In the U.S., there was first a need for highways, railroads, canals; i.e., infrastructure followed perceived need.
True throughout history. Today, what is the need?

Politicians seem to have an idea that, “If we build it, they 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.

“A petition urging the government to give $2,000 monthly stimulus checks to every American has surpassed 2 million signatures”
https://www.businessinsider.com/petitio ... ple-2021-5

[temporal1]

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.