I think there is much truth in what you say. But if I may…
I lived in a small town.
I worked in Manhattan for a long time. Indeed, most of my career was spent in concrete jungles.
It’s real easy to become divorced from reality in Manhattan. Indeed, when the Village Voice still has the ability to laugh at itself, it referred to Manhattan as “that tropical little island off the coast of America.” The leftists I met there were off-the-charts. The few conservatives I met tended to be intellectuals or Objectivists - and I doubt many of them owned a gun. A fireplace to them is a pellet stove.
But the same is true of life in a small town. In my small town, everyone looked and talked like me, generally had the same values, and rarely left town. It was sort of nice. But…mention NYC, and you got a dystopic, Alex Jones-ish description that clearly came from someone who’d never been there.
Some of the best FReepers are folks who get around and get out often. They bring a perspective that’s empirically-grounded. They may live in a small town or Gotham. But their philosophy is American.
It will always be my first love.
BTW, I hate small towns because I am a freak in them.
When I mentioned small towns in my comment, I had in mind those small towns that were basically tiny farm towns (i.e., little towns dominated by the farms around them).
I completely agree with what you say about small towns being completely insular.
I guess the small towns I was thinking of might not exist anymore.
Agreed - but I would urge even more wandering afield: go to the rest of the world and meet people there. Go to allies and adversaries (carefully) and see how they live, how they think and then come back.
I have had the good fortune to have spent a career traveling to most of the countries of the world (and occasionally fighting there) and those of us who have done that know much better what the other folks are like, how they live, and how great our country really is.