Thanks to everyone who read and/or commented. I guess I just wanted to think out loud about what would represent a pretty good place to live in. Not a paradise, not a hell but something in the middle for the people in the middle. Not too good, not too bad. Not too smart, not too stupid. Not too rich, not too poor. Just reasonably somewhere in the middle.
I’m aware that it’s impossible and people gravitate to some dysfunctional equilibrium where the winners and losers sort themselves into an aristocracy and an underclass but it must be the American Catholic school background that traps me into a fantasy where “We all just get along.”
Well, no harm done. It cheered me a good bit to express that thought experiment.
As Plato found out tyrants aren’t philosopher-kings. It was Machiavelli who formulated the saying, “the ends always justify the means—no matter how cruel, calculating or immoral those means might be.” We’ll see.
I think that somewhere along the Appalachian Mountain range from Virginia south to South Carolina. The population density is reasonable, and you find good land for a good price. The health care system is good with Duke medical. And there is good highway infrastructure, that supports the mountain communities running north south. You are also far enough away from the east coast cities that could be a problem.
That is my dear wife and my focus right now.
It’s good to hear you have a plan Mac. I’m much too caught up on the national tragedy. But I have gotten involved in the local affairs in my own way and that is helpful. When you deal with people one at a time, even people that clash with you on important issues, it’s easier to find common ground and come to a live and let live understanding. But looking at the big picture is truly appalling.
Thank you for doing the heavy lifting on this series of posts! My wife and I live close enough to the south side of Chicago that the breakdown in society is a constant worry. The powers that be seem to be trying to break society. They don’t seem to want to “fix” the violent areas but to “break” the peaceful ones. They want to disrupt and dismantle in order to make way for the new utopia. We would actually like to relocate to central Arizona at some point. There are towns there that remind us of what most of the… Read more »
Glenn, I’m glad you liked the series. I was in the mood for a lecture on how to fix the world. And now that I’ve gotten that off my chest I can try to enjoy life a little bit. Freedom os speech is at least mentally therapeutic. Good luck on the move plans. It’s a very difficult thing to uproot. I also have plans. but family commitments makes them problematic.