GOP Congressman Says Families Should Abandon City Life

[Marenco]

In the documentary Urban Danger, 84-year-old Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who is serving his tenth term as the representative of Maryland's Sixth District, explains why US citizens should avoid living in cities.

"There are a number of events that could create a situation in our cities where civil unrest could be a very high probability," Bartlett said in the film. "And I think that those who can and those who understand need to take advantage of this opportunity when the winds of strife are not blowing to move their families out of the city."

"It's just plain fun when you're looking at the challenge of what do I have to do so that I'm independent of the system," he added.

Before becoming a member of Congress, Bartlett worked as a professor at the University of Maryland, research scientist, small business owner, and farmer. He was awarded 19 military patents for his inventions of life support equipment.

Rep. Bartlett is also a devout Seventh-day Adventist and conservationist who supports renewable energy legislation.

"As a member of Congress, I'm concerned, I would like everybody to do this," he continued. "I would like everybody to have a year's supply a food. I'd like everybody to have some plans so that they can make do if any one of these emergencies occurred. It's going to be easier to do that and you avoid the problems of civil unrest if you are out of the cities and in the country."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/15/gop-congressman-says-families-should-abandon-city-life/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=8099d01ef7-3_16_113_16_2011&utm_medium=email

[demolama]

"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230

[roho76]

"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230


Jefferson had the best quotes of anybody in history, IMO. The guy refers to government and democracy as cankers and open sores. He gets it.

[AtomiC]

Jefferson had the best quotes of anybody in history, IMO. The guy refers to government and democracy as cankers and open sores. He gets it.

This.

[scottditzen]

I've lived both in the city and in the middle of nowhere.

While I appreciate the quality of life that both offer, I much prefer enjoying the benefits of living in the city.

[00_Pete]

As a localist, anti-urbanist and an interest in the whole "off grid" thing i certainly see where this man is coming from.

[ChaosControl]

Cities are distasteful and disgusting. Rural life is infinitely more preferable.

[Romulus]

Green acres is the place to be....

[WyoLiberty]

There are benefits to living in either the city or the country...I used to long for the city but during these tumultuous times I'm glad I'm in a small "city" in Wyoming.

It is a huge undertaking to move your family. Prepare for the worst first, then make plans to move to a less populous area. Life's what happens when you're making plans...don't be planning on moving and then a crisis hits before you get there....

[Who girl]

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/294/5/5/the_irish_forest_by_fruitexplosion-d2by3y7.jpg


"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
--Thoreau

[crazyfacedjenkins]

Cities, small towns and undeveloped rural locations are nice, but the suburbs are disgusting.

[tpreitzel]

As I've said in the past, FIAT money has been the root of all evil. It's created an artificial environment which can NOT be sustained. When the fiat monetary system finally collapses, it'll have to be replaced by another fiat currency or the whole damn infrastructure will slowly collapse. Unfortunately, it's the fiat monetary system which has created all this artificial (debt-based) wealth. What's the current national debt, ~15T, which can NEVER be repaid which is why Geithner is running around proclaiming Washington is ready for a global currency. Sure, he and the rest of the globalists and moronic stooges known as representatives are complicit in the destruction of the US. All of these traitors need to be summarily dragged into court, charged, convicted, and then executed.

[Marenco]

"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals,
the health and the liberties of man.
True, they nourish some of the elegant arts;
but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere;
and less perfection in the others, with more health,
virtue and freedom, would be my choice."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

[osan]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/15/gop-congressman-says-families-should-abandon-city-life/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=8099d01ef7-3_16_113_16_2011&utm_medium=email

There are well over 200 million people living in cities in the USA. Where, precisely, would he have them all go? Here, by "cities" I take his meaning to be not only the cities proper, but the surrounding metro areas including many suburbs. The New York City metropolitan area alone accounts for 20 millions. Los Angeles another 13 millions, Chicago 9 millions, Atlanta 6 millions, Boston 5 millions, Seattle 3 millions... That's already 54 million people from only six metro areas. Add Detroit, Phoenix, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Denver, and so forth. Adding them all up I get about 210 to 220 million people living in MSAs, and those stats do not include much of the urban sprawl of places like NJ, leaving millions uncounted in the official stats. It would not surprise me a whit to find that we top 250 millions living in the sorts of places prone to the risks to which the good Congressman refers.

Just how quickly could we empty cities in favor of green acres? It would take decades - I'd bet at least two, going full throttle to build housing and infrastructure. If that many people started vying for the farm life, it would be a cluster copulation of unprecedented proportions. The economy would sink into the muck and we with it.

I am not sure that the good Congressman's statements were rational, however true they may otherwise be.

[Fredom101]

I think painting all cities with a broad brush like this is misleading.
I live in San Diego, which is about 2 hours from LA, but worlds apart in terms of how it is laid out.
We're much more spread out and "decentralized" so to speak, and while I can see LA boiling over into riots, as it has in the past, I don't think we are in as much risk down here.