VDH

That's a very important thought. We've talked about this before. For instance, not doing away with something until you know what function it serves. The "liberal" idea is that you can just punch through any wall with no thought of supporting beams and structures.

And I put "liberal" in quotes because you don't have to be a hard-core Leftist to believe this. I think anyone who has went to college in order to become "educated" has had indoctrinated into the idea that pushing for change, any change, is always a good thing. Only fools or grumpy old men worry about whether any particular wall is a load-bearing wall or not.

I've had these conversations with people who hate Leftists, hate Hillary Clinton, and yet fundamentally believe that all change is for the better. If not in the short term it is in the long-term because it keeps us "dynamic." It's what America is all about, they say.

But I always make the very careful distinction between markets (products) and principles. Yeah, sure, the next revision of a computer is bound to be better (but not inevitably so). But some principles are timeless and you can't expect to dispense with them just because you're bored or enamored with change.

Leave it to VDH to be one of the few to get to the essence of things.

An excellent question. As a historian I favor the idea that civilization could only develop in an urban environment. Until the last 20 years I would still strongly favor cities as the epitome of human civilization. It was in cities that neolithic man found the leisure time to think about issues, great and small. It was in cities that political power could be gathered for common defense, and common projects. it was in cities that individuals could specialize in singular crafts.

Rural life, on the other hand, was constantly filled with drama over the weather, pests destroying crops, and roving bands of bandits putting families at risk. It was in cities that armies were organized and detailed to protect the farmers in rural areas. It was city engineers who developed the technology to bring watery to farms. It was in cities that methods of combating crop destroying pests was developed.  It was in cities that methods of storing excess product for future use developed. 

Today in 2022 a major portion of the value of cities can be returned to the country. The internet, as has been shown over the last two years, provides a tool allowing individuals to live outside of cities. The work of the farm is increasingly become technology centered and one man with the proper tools can manage hundreds of acres of land. Over time it seems to me, cities will become centers of production. Some will be generalists and others will specialize but will require fewer employees. A car production line might be run by a few hundred staff instead of a few thousand. A busy port might see a container ship unloaded by a handful of longshoremen/women operating advanced equipment. 

The center of government could be dispersed to the outer rim of the cities with many satellite offices including courts. What then of today's city centers? A good question the massive centralized facilities will no longer be economical or useful. It is possible that city centers could return to their original rural status? Or will the endemic homeless tent communities just spread? I wonder is anyone else giving the future of cities any thought? 

I would tend to agree with you, all things being equal. But I have heard it said that too many of these small towns are not really friendly to outsiders and one has to have three generations in the local cemetery to be considered a native. Perhaps things have changed. 

That is certainly true more in the South, I think, than in the west or north. Although, the clannishness of New England small towns is noteworthy. In the South when your neighbors refer to you or some other newcomer as a "good O'l boy". It means you are accepted as part of the local population. If you have southern roots coming from the West or North it makes settling easier, but neighbors will refer to you as being from off for at least 20 years. 

The one thing that will mark you as an outsider, perhaps for generations, is a haughty, condescending attitude. I suppose that goes just about everywhere, but in the South it just means you are a dangerous radical and to be shunned. 

I was thinking of a particular comment made to me from an outsider who had moved to the South, when I wrote what I did. 

This tight-knitted attitude gives rise to a certain conformity which I find somewhat stifling. Of course, like in Japan, you can get some real characters arising from those who do not fit in. But in America, there was always the West and such characters could debunk thence. No such luck in Japan. 

In some respects that is becoming true in the South, although, Southerners were/are also very mobile. My GG grandfather was from Georgia, joined with the Georgia militia in about 1812/13 and was at NO with Jackson he later settled in NE Arkansas, got a land grant in SE Arkansas in 1836 and in 1850 moved to Mississippi. He spent a couple of years in Alabama and after the war lived in Mississippi until about 1870 when he died. Where upon his son moved the entire family to Hot Springs AR in about 1890. 

On my grandmother's side of the family the story is much the same except they ended up in Oklahoma and Texas. My grandmother is buried in Paris TX. Her father and mother are buried in Scott County AR. and various aunts and uncles are buried in OK, TX, CA, AZ, MO, IN, KY, TN. 

More wisdom from VDH

amgreatness.com/2022/07/17/biden-and-the-destruction-of-wisdom/


Each time Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland, Antony Blinken, Deb Haaland, Janet Yellen, Lloyd Austin, Pete Buttigieg, Alejandro Mayorkas, or Jennifer Granholm speaks to the public, the people concludes two things: these people are either crazy, incompetent, or ignorant of ancient human nature, and they were appointed to their positions for reasons that have nothing to do with either experience or competence.

And the result is the rapid destruction of most wisdom as we once knew it.

The problem is for us, and all more moderates is that it is hard to believe that the democrat party, which has been a part of the political landscape for 200 years is no longer an American institution. It is run by communists, socialists, greenies  and a whole raft of insane political ideas drafted by even more insane, over educated, privileged, morons who have never held a job requiring them to produce, nor have they ever had to make a payroll. We must admit to friends, family and all about us that the democrat party is completely involved in the destruction of our civilization and will do anything to destroy our country. 

Am I being alarmist? Well, the redcoats are coming, perhaps alarm is necessary.