How Things Should Be Revisited

I've been thinking more and more about the conservative student who bemoaned that the problem with the world as it is is that thing as not the way they should be. The more I read about the election and the distribution of red and blue counties, the more I see that he's not alone, not at all.

The family needs to be fundamental unit of society, small government is necessary for the family to perform its appropriate functions. Unions are unnecessary. Large corporations are a necessary evil. (I can't see anyone whose primary focus is hearth and home finding much sympathy with something as impersonal as a multi-national conglomerate.)

The point seems to be that the family, working as a unit, is best able to secure the goods to its members, including a relevant sort of freedom. My rough (ie unsupported) conclusions indicate that this position is most commonly held in rural (ie red) counties. I've also seen it described as the position shared by the people who founded this country, by which I think they mean the settlers of various generations. This is the group that tamed the wilderness, settling wherever they could clear their own bit of land to satsify their needs. Quite literally the family would be the most relevant unit of operation. This group contrasts with later generations of immigrants who left Europe for the more familiar context of the cities.

The rural counties have an obvious sort of appeal for someone who'd like to emulate these values and the descendants of the frontier settlers who haven't rejected these values would most reasonably be found in the red counties.

This particular approach reminds me strongly of the Little House books. Pa didn't need any social security. Retirement was an alien concept anyway. In traditional societies, offspring are security in old-age. Here's one more way that contemporary western cultures break with traditional ways of living.

Regulatory government is the death of the Little House approach to living. Environmental regulation prevents the most effecient forms of farming, large scale projects lower the entry costs to the frontier too much ...

But the more I think about it, the less appealing a Little House life seems. The isolation, the crude ammenities, not to mention the occasional brutality and lack of good coffee make all make me glad that I don't live on the frontier.