In defense of a small town

In a moving and thought-provoking post today, NRO's Jim Manzi shares his experiences of growing up in a small town. Here's his conclusion, but the best part is what leads up to it:

While there are important aspects of life that tend to be common in America, but systematically different than those in France, Zimbabwe or China, many of the specific elements of deep community – shared experiences, obligations and risks – that command the kind of loyalty that can be required to motivate the defense of a society vary widely among communities within the nation. One of the paradoxes of an extended republic like the United States is that we are called upon to see that the national government serves to provide protection against external political threats, and thereby allows these different communities within in it to prosper despite have differing mores, and that therefore, we share a common political project with people who live in ways of which we do not approve. We must have a healthy kind of dual loyalty: to our individual communities and to the nation that enables them to exist. The alternative of trying to force national uniformity would lead to tyranny, failure or both.

Read the whole thing.