That's an excellent point Kathryn. To me, "rural" is a mindset or a worldview, not a geographical designation, especially here in the States. I have no first-hand knowledge of rural folks in other countries and certainly do not mean for my horrendous over-generalization to extend beyond our borders, and certainly did not mean to imply as much.

There are parts of my country upbringing that I look back at with fondness--the clean air (which to me still includes cow manure), the open spaces, the slower pace of life, and the lack of the negative sides of urban life. But I can't in any good conscience want to go back to a place where people of color and Jews weren't accepted, where a college education was seen as a pointless luxury, where a gay man would be beaten "just because", and where a Non-Believer was considered a carrier of the plague.