I honestly think this is a case of equality appearing as persecution to those who've lived relatively blessed lives heretofore. For all the rigors of rural, sma

I honestly think this is a case of equality appearing as persecution to those who've lived relatively blessed lives heretofore. For all the rigors of rural, small-town, w/e life, you don't see a mass exodus to the cities. Why not? Because, ultimately, they're getting what they want out of the deal: tight-knit communities, regulatory autonomy, and - the dirty little secret, which we must at least mention lest we make liars of ourselves - clear cultural (and even racial) hierarchy, if not homogeneity, among other things. But, of course, it's not sustainable in an accelerating information and service society. People are getting left behind and they don't like it (just not enough to move). Their desires matter, but not more than anyone else's. So we have to find the balance. No, you can't just do what your dad did. No, you don't, just by nature of being you (whatever that entails), deserve a stable, affluent, modern lifestyle in an inoffensive culture surrounded by people who look just like you - at least, not anymore than urban folk deserve what they want. If we're going to do this thing, it's not going to be make-work pork (that would be your given farming subsidies, federal contracts - including in highly-educated STEM work, and whatever other public-private partnerships that get cast as bootstraps when they're very much not) getting shipped out to your rugged individualist homestead, funding your technically-rigorous but otherwise anti-science and ahistorical curricula, $80k lifted trucks, and mall-scale megachurches, while everyone else has to scrimp and sacrifice and live on the margins. A true national solution will respect regional interests while, at its core, recognizing an equal right to whatever quality of life we deem workable and sustainable, and our collective interest in such. If the goal is a) rural folk get what they want, and b) fuck everyone else, it's not going to work. And what I've seen lately is city-dwellers switch from a patronizing to a hostile regard to these demands, so the decision on what to do is going to have to be made quickly, before the bottom falls out. Most of America's big cities could "secede" economically and be fine; after all, their reliance is on the trade of digital goods and intellectual services. Good luck to our landlocked states who sour their relationship to our ports of entry and exit.