Liberals value equality. Everyone should have the same opportunity, regardless of circumstances. Conservatives value fairness. Everyone should play by the same rules, regardless of circumstances. And when you grow up well-off and white, the opportunities you see wasted on minorities seem fundamentally unfair to you - after all, nobody gave you a leg up!

veen and I were discussing a couple papers I threw at him about the rise of geographic inequality in the United States. Over the past 50-70 years the advantages of GDP and productivity have gone more and more to cities and developed areas while the strife has largely hit rural America. If you can get out, you're doing good. If you can't, you're dying. If you can get out, you're exposed to a cosmopolitan world. If you can't, it's you and the neighbors you grew up with... that also couldn't get out. They are the Left Behind, their time is up, and they know it.

And they're angry.

Demographics have not been kind to Kentucky. No surprise it's starting to look like Romania. Without substantial federal investment it's reverting to form. Unfortunately for the rest of us it could have a population of one and still get two senators.