One of the things lawmakers do

 when they decide to enact something is they look at things from their own perspective. They buy their meat from the store, they don't know how to catch a fish and they think the rest of the world lives that way.
Harry Truman once said that the Capitol ought to be moved to the center of the country and that there ought to be no nearby airport so that the various senators and representatives would have to drive to get there. That way they'd have to see what the rest of the country looks like.

The statement has a lot of merit.

A lot of our elected officials have no clue as too what it is like living out of a city where someone has to drive 20 miles to get something as simple as a can of beans.

When I was in basic training there were a lot of city kids there and quite a few of us country bumpkins. It wa interesting the way things went. The city kids thought they knew everything but were really humbled by the rubes who had experienced the outdoors all of their lives.

It was funny watching some Philly tough guy or New Yorker thinking he knew how to shoot from the movies or pitch a tent only to watch the city boy humbled on bivouac or on the rifle range. Some of those hillbillies could really shoot, and I had my tent up in seconds having been a camper since I was in single digits.

I remember that a Philly kid saw a garter snake and went into a panic and ran away from it. I headed toward it because I knew it was good to eat. Then again, I'll eat just about anything. The city kids thought I was crazy while my fellow bumpkins didn't bat an eyelash.

This is a diverse country and I am not talking abut all fo the politically correst racial crap that the government advertises all the time telling us how different we are because of some dopey thing like skin color or religion.

We are diverse in how we live.

In the cities that seem to run the country there are a lot more services and government institutions available to the average city dweller than there are out in rural areas. Simple things the city dwellers take for granted are available.

Want a pizza? Two blocks down, open until 1 am if you are in the city. If you are in a rural setting it may be 45 minutes away, with three quarters of the way being on dirt roads.

Having a break-in? Just dial 911 and the police are on their way if you are a city dweller and if you are in an upscale suburban neighborhood it's sometimes a whole lot faster.

Out in the sticks a 911 call may mean a county sheriff or deputy may have to crawl out of bed and drive for 30 minutes or longer to respond. In the event of a break-in or something threatening a country dweller is pretty much on their own and will likely have to grab the rifle they used last week to drop the coyote that was trying to harm their livestock and fend for themselves until help arrives.

These are totally different worlds.

The city peope are pretty fast to say that more educated people live there than out in the rural areas and if you define education as the amount of time they have spent in schools this is likely 100% correct. You don't need a PhD to raise beef or run a dairy or grow produce and although there are likely a number of people running farms and ranches that have degrees, the number is probably low.

Running the farm doesn't require a college education. What it does require is an education of a different type consisting of actually doing the job and learning as you go.

It's actually a pretty risky venture and takes a certain independent breed to run an agricultural lifestyle with any success. It only takes a storm or a disease to run through an area and an aggie can lose an entire season's worth of crops or several years worth of livestock.

When that happens you're screwed. If you lose a job in the city you can likely find another one, at least unless there's a major recession of some sort.

One of the things that I have seen over the years and most recently with Hurricane Sandy is the way many city dwellers went to pieces and didn't have clue one as to what to do.

Many people, used to shopping daily didn't even have enough sense to grab a week of canned goods to tide them over.

Generally when there is a weather event of some sort headed to the country, the people there board up or take whatever precautions they do for such an event. They likely don't bother to head to town because they already have a lot of food stored.

Frankly when push comes to shove in most situations I would look to the country resident to lend me a hand. They have a clearer idea of what to do.

(Of course, in the suburbs when a storm is brewing the womanfolk clean out all the eggs bread and milk before the storm so they can live on French Toast while the storm rages.)

Anyway, if you look at the people that get elected to public office you see that for the most part they have law school backgrounds and have urban or suburban backgrounds and have no clue as to what it is like living out in the country.

They equate the entire rest of the country to their experiences and enact laws, rules and regulations based on that. They have little if any respect for the very people that keep them fed.

They also have no clue.

When they try and keep parents from letting their children help out of t family farm or ranch they are really doing nothing but what politicians excel at. They get in the way.

Harry Truman had a point when he said they ought to move the capitol to a spot closer to the center of the country and make the elected officials have to drive but today I don't think that it would work because our senators and representatives are pretty spoiled. They'd just insulate themselves. They'd simpy be driven in some kind of a limo and arrive there having met nobody but a hotel clerk or a waiter in a fancy restaurant.

Then again, what do you expect.



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