> Unfortunately, that philosophy has been lost to time, and people in coastal cities in California seem to feel perfectly comfortable lecturing ranch hands in Montana what to do and how to live their lives.

The rural folk in Wyoming and Montana get far more say relative to their populace on how Californians should live than vice versa.

It's not urban versus rural. That... is just another variation of having more vote proportional to your land. Land doesn't vote, people do. But in the US, land also votes some, which seems ironic given a nation founded in part on getting away from rights largely embued by how much land you own.