Who owns small town values?

So I sprained my ankle and am online catching up on all the Daily Show and Colbert Report I've missed in the last week, and I catch this clip I hadn't seen before of the miniseries that apparently was the Couric/Palin interview.

And I hear Sarah Palin saying something to the effect of "I'm not one of those kids whose parents gave them a passport and a plane ticket to Europe after graduation. I had to work two jobs until I had kids and walk uphill both ways..." blah, blah, blah.

And I flash back to her debate performance, talking about being from a small town and how special that makes her so she's not going to answer your questions the way you Media-Types or Washington-Types or Elitist-Liberal-Types want her to.

And that's when my HEAD explodes I say: THAT'S ENOUGH. You don't OWN small town values.

You see, I'm from a small town. Nearest neighbor was a half a quarter mile away. How do you like them apples? And I started my first real job when I was 13 - having cleaned houses and babysat before that - and worked my way through college with one or two jobs, depending on how lucky I was. And I couldn't afford to go to Europe until after I was married.

And I married my sweetheart who I've been with since I was 19. And I never had an abortion. And we have two beautiful children who were conceived WITHIN wedlock. And you know what?

I'm a liberal.

I'm agnostic.

I'm pro-choice.

And I don't care about your Christian values.

Because, you see, to me it doesn't matter a lick if you're a Christian. That really doesn't say anything about what kind of person you are as you walk through this world. And being from a small town and having "small town", "Joe-six-pack" values? That don't mean shit. Pardonnez mon français.

You see, my grandfather was an immigrant. He came from small town Plymouth, England. He was the child of a single mother who worked her butt off to make that existence work for her kids. My grandfather didn't have a college education. He didn't complete a high school education. But you know what his hobby was through his life? Damn sure it wasn't snow machinin'.

My grandfather read. Volumes and volumes. Everything you were supposed to read if you were a worldly, knowledgeable individual. He read Keats and Aristotle and Shakespeare and Huxley and Emerson and Verne and Freud and Dumas. He had books on Van Gough and Monet and Picasso and ancient architecture and mythology.

You see, being from a small town, being unworldly, isn't something to aspire to. It is the circumstance in which you are born. Certainly the small town offers its own set of values, but they are certainly not the ends to which you aspire.

The small town folks we DO admire, people who made this world a better place such as President Lincoln, aspired to something bigger than themselves, which required an intellectual curiosity to look beyond the sphere to which they were born.

So, you see, I'm from a small town and I live back in that same small town, but I've never stopped trying to become a bigger person in awareness and understanding.

(Did I just quote John Cougar Mellancamp?)