Is NYC Tyrannical?

Recently a scribe named Conor Friedersdorf wrote an article in The Atlantic called "The Tyranny of New York." His thesis: that NYC produces too much culture, too much news, too much stuff, that it attracts too many people and too much talent, and that it shamelessly waves all of this in the face of the rest of the country so as to make the American people feel alienated and resentful towards NYC. He believes the relationship between NYC and the rest of the country is "unhealthy." Hence the supposed "tyranny."

What a tool. What an utter tool.

In fact, his theory was so dumb that Conor himself basically retracted it a week later in a piece called "The Tyranny of New York Revisited" where he calls his initial idea "flawed." Basically, he revised thesis goes, wouldn't it be nice if there was some other American town that could hold its own against NYC? And isn't it a crying shame that there isn't? Yes, that would be so lovely, Conor, I'm sure you're the first person to have thought of it.

You gotta read these two very stupid pieces by this very stupid man -- if you can, if you dare -- in order to see how embarrassingly dumb someone can be who thinks he is smart. It proves that anyone, really, can get published (particularly in a respectable publication like The Atlantic) if they have the right connections, know the right people, kiss the right tuchus, etc.

Woody Allen was right: Conor's writing proves that there really is such a thing as "mental masturbation." I'll be the first to admit that Mr NYC (like all blogs) is basically a big act of mental masturbation but at least no one pays me to do it like Conor or that kid in "Boogie Nights"! Egads.

Look, Conor, and all you NYC "playa hateas": my city, my hometown, is not tyrannical. It is, quite simply, one of a select few of the great cities of the world, up there with London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Beijing, and Tokyo. It's really big, really rich, really exciting, and really complex because it attracts amazing people from all over America and the world. They come here because it encapsulates everything that's so great about America and these are the people that make it so great. NYC is a place where dreams come true, always has been, always will be.

"If you can make it here" and so on.

Some of you might say hey, Mr NYC, why are you taking this so personally? He's just a jackass (and he certainly is) so why do you care? Well, it's simple really: you attack my city, you attack me. I don't care if you're an Arab terrorist or a douche writing for The Atlantic.

But it goes deeper than that and it's more sinister. It's part of what I call a "red state narcissism", a belief that big cities are somehow "un-American." I really resent this. Big cities are the most American places in America because, you know what, they have more Americans in them! Conor reminds me of people like Sarah Palin who not only knock big cities and praise small towns but also use derisive terms like "liberal elitists", "illegal aliens", and "welfare recipients", etc. Let me clear up something right now:

Welfare recipients = black people
Illegal aliens = Spanish people and other swarthy foreigners
Liberal elitists = Jews.

And being a white person I know my own kind very well and can tell you that this is what people like Conor and Sarah mean when they use terms like this or trash places like NYC as being "tyranical. NYC and cities like it, as well as the people who live in them, make white people feel insecure and threatens their position of privledge. I mean, after all, the president is black -- what do these white folks have left if not there own sense of their own superiority?

So, in closing, I will simply say this: NYC is not tyrannical. It's just a great place. And lots of people know this and "want to be a part of it." I'm not even saying it's the greatest place in the world -- it's just one of them. And if people like Conor have a problem with that, well, tough noogies.