As I was going to St. Ives

On my way to Washington last Saturday, Interstate 95 locked up solid as far back as the Beltway. Using my trusty GPS, I got off and took the surface streets. It gave me a different view of Washington and maybe the world. At first it was the usual suburban housing, but the closer-and-closer I got,


the more dense it became, until finally it was dense high-rise apartments that reminded me of nothing so much as pigeon coops or a bee hive. People who live like this are trying to tell people who live in Georgia, Colorado, and Wyoming what life is like and how it is to be lived. It is no wonder that they do not understand why we need our vehicles, our guns, the fruits of our labor, and the means to take care of ourselves. Similarly, we do not understand their needs to subvert the self to co-exist in so dense a population. We really are two different Americas.
But truly, do we really need to send more than half our wealth to these people? And how long would they survive if we out here in the physical world shrugged?