The guy who has issues with outside clothes lines, would probably also have issues with compost piles, wood piles that were not artisticaly stacked, and lawns that were not manacured at least once a week to keep them within 1/2 inch of their "perfect" length. He also (probably) spouts off about how "we need to get off our addiction to carbon based fuels" and go solar and wind. But he would not want any of the solar or wind generating equipment or transmission equipment within his viewing area either! Some people don't get it! Sometimes we need to give up a little in the area of esthetics in order to help with a bigger picture. Many of us do lots of little things each day to save energy and conserve where we can. We do it quietly as a part of our every day lives.
You have the "Not in My Backyard" crowd that opposes at every turn the things we need to do to get energy independence. They fight wind turbines because they might injure some birds or create "esthetics issues". They have problems with large solar arays because of one species or another and the transmission lines from both large solar and wind projects are taboo as well, for esthetic reasons. It seems like they want each of us to have our own, little generating station on our property (as long as no one can see it and no animals might ever be injured). This is obviously impossible, because most people in the US have little or no land and if they did, they could not afford the cost of getting and maintaining the equipment needed to produce power.
You also have the idiots that are full of hot air, making alot of money, spouting off about our being "fossile fuel junkies" and trying to sell us carbon credits as they get into their big suv's (or worse yet, jets) so they can travel to their next lucrative, guilt laden lecture. If anyone talks to me about carbon crdits, I tell them I have been planting my own "carbon credits" on my little 3/4 acre lot. Since I moved on to it in 1999,we have planted 40 pine trees, 5 fruit trees, 4 deciduous trees any numerous shrubs. If the people who were blathering about carbon based energy, would put their money where their mouth was, and just adjusted their life style to use less, it would be easier to believe the hype that they are spouting. I think I will go and hang the last load of laundry on the clothes lines in my basement (my dryer gets almost no use) because it is too dark to hang it on the clothes line I have out side!
:coolsun
However not all Americans are aloof. I've lived in three different states during my 40 years here on this earth. I have moved many times within the three states. I can name each and every neighbor I've ever had. 
I got along with 99% of them (The 1%-er guy tried to push Amway on me way too many times and I finally asked him to stop coming over to my house...but that was a fluke.)
