Tucker Carlson gave a speech in Budapest, Hungary recently in which he explained to the Hungarians what was happening in the United States.
He talked a lot about how modern life and nature explained why there had become such a large political divide between the liberal Democrats who populate urban areas and the conservative Republicans who lived in small towns and rural areas.
It is an interesting insight.
"Who votes for the people who run the United States right now? People who are working for big banks, living in crowded conditions, very often alone, in big soulless cities, having their food delivered by immigrants, and spending their time glued to a screen. What does that sound like to you? It sounds like prison, actually."
"Who are the people who oppose this? Where do they live and how do they live? Well, they are poorer generally on paper. But are their lives worse if you live in a place where you can see the sky? Where you can make your own food? If you can go outside and identify three species of trees or hear birds, or experience silence, the rarest commodity in the modern world. Those are the people who are not with the program. People who have a daily experience of nature. And those people are much more likely to acknowledge a power beyond themselves and their government. And there's a reason for that because they can see it. When you're living crowded as you would on an industrial farm as a cow, you are not liberated. You are enslaved. Your reference points are gone. You can't see the stars. You cannot see God's creation. All around you you see drywall and screens. And your ability to think clearly goes away."
This is a video of the full speech.
If you have the time it offers some very interesting perspectives on what Tucker sees is happening in the United States.
Tucker's insights on the urban/rural divide conforms with an observation I have made previously in BeeLine.
We live in a modern world in which all of us are increasingly dependent on all manner of things and other people in order to survive.
We are dependent on electricity.
We are dependent on food being in the grocery store.
We are dependent on gasoline being at your local gas station.
We have become dependent on the internet and our cell phones.
Many are dependent on government benefits like food stamps, housing subsidies, student loans, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The list in endless.
However, the fact is that those in urban areas are much more dependent than anyone else.
A mass disruption in any one of the items I listed above would mean that many would not survive.
As Tucker points out it is akin to being in prison or enslaved.
I believe it is a big reason we see the political leanings we do between urban and rural areas in this country.
People in these urban areas know they are vulnerable. They seek security and look to government to provide for them them because of that insecurity.
The result is a lot of people vote in the way they do because of that dependency.
Of course, they vote Democrat.
The Democrats tell them they will take care of every problem in their lives.
Of course, history shows us that the problems don't go away. The only thing that occurs is that dependency increases.
Contrast that with the story I heard about Susan Butcher when I was in Alaska recently.
Susan Butcher was raised in Massachusetts but moved to Alaska when she was 20 years old to raise sled dogs with the goal of competing in the Iditarod sled dog race.
Butcher went on the win the 1,000+ mile Iditarod race four times.
No man has won it more times than Butcher did.
In her early 20's Butcher moved to a remote part of Alaska in the Wrangell mountains to a cabin with no running water and no electricity.
There was no grocery store, no heat and nothing to get around the harsh climate and terrain except with her dogs.
Every day for three years she needed to chop wood, hunt and bring water to her cabin in order to live.
Survival was a 24/7 objective every day.
She said doing all the things she needed to do to survive consumed all of her waking hours.
As Butcher put it, "When there is so much to do each day in order to survive, there is not much time to contemplate your belly button."
When you are on your own and you are in charge of your destiny and survival there isn't a lot of time to think about what is "owed" to you, what you "deserve" and who has "wronged" you.
I would say Butcher's experience is the polar opposite of dependency.
All of this came home the other day when I happened to hear the following song on the radio.
I like country music but it is not something I listen to every day. I am more likely to be listening to news or sports talk.
The theme in the song is consistent with everything I have written about above. You could say it struck a chord with me considering what I heard from Tucker and what I learned about Susan Butcher when I was in Alaska.
I have to admit I never heard the song before and was surprised to learn that it actually was recorded in 1981 by Hank Williams, Jr.
You would think it was written today.
The Lord does work in interesting ways in that I went from Susan Butcher to Tucker to Hank Williams, Jr. in a matter of days for the inspiration to pen this blog post.
The song is titled "A Country Boy Can Survive".
Here are the lyrics.
The preacher man says it's the end of time
And the Mississippi River, she's a-goin' dry
The interest is up and the stock market's down
And you only get mugged if you go downtown
I live back in the woods you see
My woman and the kids and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun, a rifle and a four-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk 'til dawn (Yeah)
We make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain't too many things these old boys can't do
We grow good-ole tomatoes and homemade wine
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
Because you can't starve us out and you can't make us run
'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotguns
We say grace, and we say ma'am
If you ain't into that, we don't give a damn
We came from the West Virginia coal mines
And the Rocky Mountains, and the western skies
And we can skin a buck, we can run a trot line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
I had a good friend in New York City
He never called me by my name, just Hillbilly
My grandpa taught me how to live off the land
And his taught him to be a businessman
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway nights
And I'd send him some homemade wine
But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife
For 43 dollars, my friend lost his life
I'd love to spit some Beech-Nut in that dude's eyes
And shoot him with my old .45
'Cause a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
'Cause you can't starve us out and you can't make us run
'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotguns
We say grace, and we say ma'am
If you ain't into that, we don't give a damn
We're from North California and South Alabam'
And little towns all around this land
And we can skin a buck, and run a trotline
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
A country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
Source: Musixmatch
Here is Hank Williams, Jr. performing the song in 1981.
The real question is does the country have any chance of surviving if the country boy does not survive?
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