The argument really doesn’t hold.  My maternal grandfather was born and raised in rural North Dakota but was far from narrow-minded.  He worked for the Peace Corps in Senegal in the 60s, fought in WWII, visited his kids, two of whom married foreigners and lived abroad for a period of time (Tunisia and the Philippines). 
However, he stuck around in North Dakota where most of his siblings lived and where the family farm was.  The farm no longer could support a family, but he kept it all the same and a relative does the actual farming for us.  (Regardless of business reasons, I plan on keeping it in the family, if possible, when I inherit it.)

Contrast that with some of our relatives who migrated to Orange County, CA before WWII and afterward.  The Orange County of their day was aptly named and they had a small tract of land with which with several citrus trees.  It is all paved over now and their former “farm” is now Guadalajara Tire.  The old communities where people worked for an industry or in agriculture with a supporting group of small business has been put to the sword over the last two generations.  Hardly anyone in LA, or California for that matter, has any roots in this place so any talk of civic pride or community is a load of you know what.

The only reason I live here is because I want to work in the entertainment industry, the weather is better than the Big Bagel (and the women better looking), and my mother and friends all live in California.  The only “civic pride” here in La-La land is loyalty to professional sports teams.  What kind of community is that?

As for dem durn city slickers being more sophisticated, what a joke.  Most urban liberals are so closeted and intolerant and totally ignorant.  Not to mention the tatooed and pierced libertines who predominate the hipster areas and nightspots.

Sorry Helen, not buying it.
I have heard and seen to much from cosmopolitan conservatives to change my mind.

City’s are tremendous economic engines, just watch all the white people pouring into and out of them every workday.  I bit the bullet and suffer a lower living standard by not following other conservative whites into the suburbs and exurbs, an existence I found soulless and stifling.  I have lived in rural areas as well.  It was quite an eye opener to see farmers complaining about being unable to grow corn in a clime uniquely unsuited for it, and buying their kids Trans Ams and Z-28’s.  I also like to cook gourmet meals and look at good art on occassion.  Nevertheless, my political philosophy can be summed up in the sentiment that the Constitution is way too liberal; we need to go back to the Articles.  The city is also where my Orthodox parish is located.

Sarah Palin has some sterling qualities, but like all women in national politic she thinks a vast, propositional nation of 300 million can come together like the local PTA.  Nothing wrong with bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--we’re all in this together after all.  And then there’s the crude Protestantism with its rabid support of Israel, to the detriment of her own son who is being shipped off to the other side of the planet for no good reason.

In short, this paleo, middle-aged, urban hipster is telling the Republican Party and its phony ruralism to stuff it.

“Cities”—time for more coffee.

While it’s obvious that there is something seriously wrong with me, I must admit that I cannot imagine an entertaining country without both urban “sophisticates” who are dumb as Gomer Pyle or rural “hicks” as smart as Aristotle. There are rubes in fair Gotham just as there are cosmopolites in Elko....and not just near the Polar Bear in the Stockmans Casino.

The problem begins when one or the other starts cross dressing and attempts to do something as preposterous as Mitt Romney claiming we need to re-elect the Republicans in order to “get rid of the Libruls” and thereby miraculously institute....what is it, a rare term, obscure...oh yes: “change”.

R.J.Stove’s article below reminds me that the effect of the internet, especially broadband, is not to be discounted for it’s effect on the growing political sophistication of the great unwashed (myself included) and influence of the paleo viewpoint.  I used to have to comb the magazine racks for hours to find Taki at the Spectator and other writers who didn’t fit neatly into the narrow acceptable spectrum of the MSM; I now read 20-30 articles daily by such.
I was exposed to Samuel Francis by the now-worthless Washington Times, and when he was dropped, unable to find why, or what became of him for years.  By contrast, when Will Grigg was shafted by the New American, I was able to track him down within days, find out what the deal was and cancel my subscription. Virtually all of the young people (and most of the oldsters) who supported Ron Paul were brought to him by the internet.  When someone speaks of Aquinas or the Enlightenment or Lysander Spooner, I can easily and quickly find out what I should already know, but don’t because I was drinking beer and chasing skirts in college.
If the money wasted in Iraq and other quagmires was spent bringing broadband to flyover country, I imagine many other second-rate intellects will be able to take the red pill (which is why it won’t happen without a massive struggle). Ignorance is NOT bliss, and even the unsophisticated don’t like being lied to.  Thanks to all the writers on this site for helping us up.

Sarah Palin is no ruralist, but rather the Queen of Suburban Sprawl.

There are rubes in fair Gotham just as there are cosmopolites in Elko....and not just near the Polar Bear in the Stockmans Casino.

Well put, Mr. Sabin. Well put!

And you’re right, Miss Rittlemeyer, the only true, successful cosmopolitans - at home anywhere and everywhere - are cockroaches.

Speaking of creepy-crawlies, for the life of me, I can’t get Rudy Giuliani’s death-rictus grin out of my head. It haunts my fever dreams: brownish teeth big as garage doors suddenly, jarringly flashing out in an expression of bizarre, almost childlike malignity… like the badly carved grimace in an out-of-season jack-o-lantern.

When Giuliani smiles, it’s truly scary and mean-spirited. And something else underneath… greed. Avarice. Hunger. The former mayor always looks like he’s imagining a sizzling porterhouse the size of a Park Avenue tax shelter. Ooo… wake me up!

Palin is so down-home sneery and smug it’s easy to relish expectations of Biden gutting her like a baby seal in foreign policy debates.

Helen,

Your writing is wonderful and you’re a great addition to Takimag, almost cancelling out the addition of the midly retarded. Spencer. With regard to Giuliani, I think it is disgraceful that he was permitted to speak at the convention after garnering far fewer votes than Ron Paul who was banished from the convention.

“Palin is so down-home sneery and smug it’s easy to relish expectations of Biden gutting her like a baby seal in foreign policy debates.”

You must be kidding, SFC. The debate:
B: I am a Zionist.
P: So am I.
B: But not as much as I am.
P: No, I’m more of a Zionist than you are.
B: But I love Israel.
P: So do I.
B: But I love it more than you do.
P: No you don’t, I love it more.
... 

Such penetrating and polarizing repartee continues long into the night, after the cameras have stopped, the crowds have left, and the lights turned off.  Finally, exhausted by the thunderous intellectual policy exchanges, both weary combatants turn to the AIPAC rep who holds in each hand frameworks of wood and string, as both ask, “How did we do?” No, both Biden and Palin will win - it’s the rest of the world that loses.  Chritsian Mystic

There’s no evidence of any rural / urban division on the American right, much less of some kind of coalition of cosmopolitan conservatives. Nor is there evidence that there is any major cognitive difference between people who live in small towns and people who live in cities. Miss Rittelmeyer’s distinctions don’t explain anything about teh real world.

Sadly, Mr. Tregarth, what you say is true. I must have been gripped by revenge fantasy. Consider me bitch-slapped.

The only real drama in their debate will entail which candidate keels over from a busted vein while fulminating against “Russian agression”.

Helen Rittelmeyer says, “There’s even an argument to be made that America’s urban elites have more of a claim to conservatism than Red Staters do.”

This kind of writing is on a first year level in a small college...perhaps a community college in the dinginess of Manhattan or Queens. The author indulges in categories of discourse that are undefined, unlimited, and meaningless. This essay is like confetti flung in the air flow from a summer-time fan.

“America’s urban elites” are who exactly? One trusts that writers who use this utterly imprecise label will re-examine the fundamentals of their writing and their personal philosophy. Are “America’s urban elites” actually a well-defined cabal instead of a mere label, like a rock thrown into the water for the ripple effect?

“Conservatism” is a banal reference to woozy ideological reifications. The “conservatism” clung to by the writer is dead. It died the night Sarah took the stage and defensive white identity politics finally broke into consciousness among those who had eschewed such politics heretofore. It doesn’t matter what Lawrence Auster and Paul Gottfried think, and they seem to think the same thing about Palin, the intellectual world wheeled on its axis last week and the writer may find it more valuable to chart the new trajectory of thought by those living on the ground.

“Red Staters” is a left-wing media term used to ever-so-slightly demean the rural dwellers and small town residents. Certainly the people described or defined by this strange term never volunteered to be “Red Staters.” The very term reeks of superiority claims and dismissive, look-down-the-nose labeling.

Perhaps the writer’s eruption of categories of discourse will mark the end of legitimate-appearing tail-chasing about these vague, meaningless concepts and labels.

You people are like the AA farm team for The Weekly Standard. It’s really getting sad.

Helen Rittelmeyer’s “conservative members of the urban elite” can hold meetings in a phone booth. Urban concrete jungles are poisonous for rearing kids, so you can’t really be that conservative and live there, unless you enjoy suffering.

Hardly b-s’ed, SFC - you post too well.  Besides, you did not mention my failure to include the a-salaaming of the candidates at the feet of the AIPAC rep and their bidding war, resulting in AIPAC fork-lift operati ers bringing in frn laden pallets, Baghdad-style.  The final words, spoken by the AIPAC puppet-master/auctioneer - “Sold-America!”.  Christian Mystic

Simon Tregarth:
Your weird babbling about AIPAC does not help the cause of sanity. The people who write this site will take it as a sign to drift ever leftward. As it stands, they live in fear of being tarred as anti-Semites.

William - what, you weren’t impressed by Miss Rittelemeyer’s references to Hazlitt, Wordsworth *and* Burke?

I just found Miss Rittelemeyer’s blog. Evidentally it’s given to proving to the world that Miss Rittelmeyer reads. Wow! I’m not sure that her reading has inspired her with any actual *thoughts* but, that she reads is still commendable. I guess.

PR, do not mistake your political views for valid psychiatric evaluations, especially in view of your unproven claims to mind-reading. I have as much a privilege to comment here, if not more, based on your detachment from reality (on top of your possible inability to recognize irony).  Christian Mystic

“There is nothing contradictory about cosmopolitan conservatism.” She is trying to make a serious point, one that has not had anywhere near enough attention above the name-calling level.  I would ask this: can she NAME someone she thinks is really cosmopolitan and really conservative?  That might get us somewhere.