America's Coastal Royalty

Townhall.com ^ | November 28, 2013 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

The densely populated coastal corridors from Boston to Washington and from San Diego to Berkeley are where most of America's big decisions are made.

They remind us of two quite different Americas: one country along these coasts and everything else in between. Those in Boston, New York and Washington determine how our government works; what sort of news, books, art and fashion we should consume; and whether our money and investments are worth anything.

The Pacific corridor is just as influential, but in a hipper, cooler fashion. Whether America suffers through another zombie film or one more Lady Gaga video or Kanye West's latest soft-porn rhyme is determined by Hollywood -- mostly by executives who live in the la-la land of the thin Pacific strip from Malibu to Palos Verdes.

The next smart phone or search engine 5.0 will arise from the minds of tech geeks who pay $2,000 a month for studio apartments and drive BMWs in Menlo Park, Palo Alto or Mountain View.

[BenLurkin]

Sadly, those on the coasts who are using their control of the media to destroy civilization -- think that they are the ones who are civilized.

[captmar-vell]

“And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.” Isaiah 13:11

“And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell securely in the coastlands: and they shall know that I am the LORD.” Ezekiel 39:6

[j.argese]

Sorry but swing and a miss. This “flyoverphilia” is misguided. Do the names Harken, Franken, Pryor, McKaskill, Udall, etc., etc., etc., ring a bell? No state is pure, with Oklahoma coming the closest, for conservative ideology. State pass a law, perhaps Arizona, the Feds come in and fight it, the state must buckle.
Perhaps it’s time for the states to work as one, rather than swing alone.

[CitizenUSA]

I have no problem with letting people live as they wish so long as they allow me the same privilege. That's what make the people of the coasts, i.e. statist leftists generally, so wrong. Govern (muck up) your own states however you wish, but stop passing laws that restrict everyone else!

Californians, for example, are apparently really keen for single payer health care. Fine. California is bigger than many nations, and it certainly has its share of wealthy people. There's absolutely zero reason why it couldn't do single payer. They can be responsible for its success or failure, and the rest of us can watch and decide if we want it for ourselves. It's called federalism.

Bottom line: just leave the rest of us alone, and we can continue to get along as Americans. Keep passing all these mandates on the rest of us, and it will tear this nation apart.

[Kaslin]

BTTT

[Standing Wolf]

Sadly, those on the coasts who are using their control of the media to destroy civilization -- think that they are the ones who are civilized.

Fortunately, they're edible.

[RedStateRocker]

An inane article. Badly written whining. The author makes claims without backing them up, presents no evidence whatsoever except pissing and moaning.. Live where you want, listen to and watch what you want; no is forcing anyone to watch a Kanye video instead of listening the Merle, no one is saying you can’t move to Bismark or Missoula, drive a truck and watch Duck Dynasty if you want.

Every society that has ever existed has had “elites”and these elites have usually been out of touch with the ‘commoners’. Thus it was in Thebes, in Rome and ion London.

For some reason the simple fact that the very function and definition of elite educational institutions is to introduec the next generation of powerful people to each other is presented as some sort of startling revelation, shocking fact or new phenomena. HELLO: that is WHY people go to and send their kids to these places; you don’t get 10 times the education at Harvard than at the local state college, you go there because your roommate or friends will be the SCOTUS justices, Senators and CEOS of your generation- duh!

[WashingtonSource]

Bump

[jobim]

tragic consequences of their own therapeutic ideology on the distant, less influential majority.

VDH's use of the word "therapeutic" derives from America's foremost sociologist, writing in the 1960s, Philip Rieff, who categorizes his therapeutic model which springs from the psychologically-based personality:

In this age, in which technics is invading and conquering
the last enemy -- man's inner life, the psyche itself -- a suitable
new character has arrived on the scene: the psychological man. Three character
ideals have successfully dominated Western civilization: first, the idea
of political man, formed and handed down to us from classical antiquity;
second, the ideal of the religious man, formed and handed down to us
from Judaism through Christianity, and dominant in the civilization
of authority that preceded the Enlightenment; and third, the ideal
of the economic man, the very model of our liberal civilization formed
and handed to us in the Enlightenment. This last has turned
out to be a transitional type, with the shortest life expectancy
of all; out of his tenure has emerged the psychological man of the
20th century, a child not of nature but of technology. He
is not the pagan ideal, political man, for he is not committed to the
public life. He is most unlike the religious man. We will recognize in
psychological man the nervous habits of his father, economic man.
He is anti-heroic, shrewd, carefully counting his satisfactions and
dissatisfactions, studying unprofitable commitments as sins most
to be avoided. From his immediate ancestor, psychological man has
constituted his own careful economy of the inner life

Thank you to Victor Davis Hanson for the consistency of truthful insight you bring to helping us understand the changing landscape of our once great nation.

[redangus]

You are missing the whole point of the article. Sure anybody can move anywhere they want, but the “elite” don’t want to move from their cozy havens of privilege, nor do they want to associate with commoners. If we could just ignore their self indulgent, narcassitic ways I would be fine with a live and let live attitude. But through their control of government, media and pop culture I am not given that opportunity. Whether I or you like it our not these cretins and their inane ideas have an inordinate impact on all our lives. That is the point of the article.

[j.argese]

I think most people just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace, without interference from the government or any other busybody type. Whether they are from Bugtussle AR or Getouttahee NY

[pluvmantelo]

For those of you not familiar with California, the notion of a corridor from San Diego to Berkley is a bit of a stretch. About a two hundred mile stretch. South of Carmel down to Santa Barbara is sparsely settled.

[military cop]

or Bullsnuts Montana or Gumpville, Alabama....

[Conservative4Ever]

True, but I wanna know why the writer left out Seattle. :-)

[RedStateRocker]

I get the point of the article. VDH is usually a decent writer; but he’s full of it on this one. If you let yourself be controlled by the coastal elites then you deserve what you get. There are a lot more voters in the heartland. I don’t cotton to piteous whining about Hollywood liberals and the like screwing up my life - defeat ‘em at the ballot box and don’t consume or hang out with people who consume their fetid crap and they’ll go away.

As a ‘commoner’ I don’t want to associate with those jerks either; if one wants to watch TV and surf Facebook and text like a zombie on their iPhone then they are as much a part of the problem than some quasi Dilbert who happens to vote Democratic. In short, the problem is helpless attitudes like the author’s, not the fact that elites spew out crap for mindless sheep.

Just a cranky .02 But please don’t assume that someone who disagrees with an article misses the point - that is a stupid and insulting attitude to take; I can perfectly well understand any damned article written in English between Chaucer and now, but I am not obliged to agree with them even if I usually like the author.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[pluvmantelo]

I like it. The ‘densely populated’ San Diego to Seattle corridor.

[pepsionice]

Years ago, John Steinbeck got into a truck and drove across America. What he found....was a nation of “characters”. People may sit on either end of the nation and think they are unique....but they aren’t.

A lot of Americans used to jump into a car and drive three states over...using secondary roads, not the interstate. They’d stop for 90 minutes at some diner that was run for the locals, and everyone chatted up about the great cheesecake. They’d stop at some gas station and get a lecture on bad political figures...which might be Republicans, or Democrats.

We stopped these cross-country trips, and just don’t recognize the vast character and nature of the nation itself.