American links

[erudito]

Another campus speech code loses another court case because of the pesky free speech bits in the US Constitution.

The US is more “small town” than folk think: In 2000, slightly more than one-half of the nation’s population lived in jurisdictions --- cities, towns, boroughs, villages and townships --- with fewer than 25,000 people or in rural areas

Comments

[anemone]

In 2000, slightly more than one-half of the nation’s population lived in jurisdictions --- cities, towns, boroughs, villages and townships --- with fewer than 25,000 people or in rural areas.

I don't think think this is a relevant statistic. A lot of these subdivisions don't mark a burst of population in the middle of nowhere, but merely a change of address as you go from one street to the next. I grew up in a city of 40000, but right next to it is a town of only 10000. You wouldn't have really known I was in a "big town" and someone else was in a "small town" as you move from one place to the next.

I currently live in a hamlet of about 5000 people, which is in a town of 40000. The neighboring village (also contained in the town) has about 10000 people. I don't think any of these really have a "small-town" feel.

Social or jurisdictional

[erudito]

It depends on whether you want to make a social patterns point (in which case what you say is perfectly reasonable) or a narrower jurisdictions point, which is more Wendell Cox's thing.

[jordan179]

A lot of the people who do not live in large cities are culturally closer to Sarah Palin than they are to the journalists who attack her on her small-town culture. That's the relevant point, and explains why sneering at Sarah Palin for being a "hick" is very poor campaign strategy.

[anemone]

A lot of the people who do not live in large cities are culturally closer to Sarah Palin than they are to the journalists who attack her on her small-town culture.

Quite likely. Almost certainly so, in fact. But I think it's an mistake to estimate the effect of "small town culture" by the number of people who actually live in small towns. First of all, it's an error because many of the supposed small towns are administrative and not cultural regions and so may be exactly like the neighboring non-small town across the street. (A larger city is a different thing.)

Secondly, it's an error because "small town culture" has resonance with people who've never lived in a small town. I've never lived in what I would call a small town (though never really in a big city, either) and the term has a positive meaning for me.

[jordan179]

Clive Crook said:

Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes - or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.

It is, essentially, an aristocratic attitude. As such, it is an almost sure loser in a republic. The middle and lower classes are perfectly capable of noticing this air of upper-class condescension, directed at them, and (since they do not accept the implicit claim to superiority) they resent it and punish it at elections