IT'S A COMPLICATED WORLD

This story in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights how two seemingly politically distant groups can agree on one major political stance. This probably traces back to the agrarian myth of the self-supporting, independent farmer that began in Jefferson's time and apparently still lives for some American.

State's most conservative county uses much cash
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The prevailing attitude among the right-wing ranchers and modern hippies who define Modoc County is of fierce self-reliance...

Ken McGarva and Tina Hodge will both tell you with equal ardor that government should stay out of their faces. But you wouldn't know they could agree by looking at them.

McGarva is a cowboy. The real kind, one who ropes and brands his cattle in the dot-in-the-road town of Likely. At 70, he loathes liberal politics.

Hodge is a back-to-the-land hippie. The real kind, one who raised her kids in a tepee on a remote mountaintop near tiny Eagleville and now lives off the grid in a hobbit-style house on that same mountaintop. At 57, she loathes conservative politics.