As the mechanics of our society grind slowly to life after Covid shut-downs, I look at the hives of activity and wonder at our way of life. We live in a suburban small city in Western Montana, a University town with several small tech companies, a Direct TV Call Center, a few small manufacturers making enclosed trailers, dental equipment, and spas. We have one of the better music venues on the Clark Fork River where we saw the B-52s last summer under the Big Sky. We have a traditionally Liberal city council with two lone Conservatives, as you might expect in a university town, and the surrounding rural counties are great plains of conservatism surrounding the den of bears who buy run-down hotels for 40% over their value claiming they need a place for homeless Covid patients, turn private water companies into public utilities and allow health officials wide authority to limit business hours of operation, require its population to wear masks, all while claiming authority using a law that in its verbiage requires them to also remove vagrants and vagrant communities who all live happily untouched at an encampment on the Clark Fork River where they undoubtedly use the river to carry away garbage and excrement to areas downstream that they will never see. We may never see it, but it seeps into our environment bringing dangers, I believe, far greater than breathing at others sans a mask.
People who care show up to comment at meetings where their grievances are largely ignored and the council goes merrily on its way increasing taxes where they can and making plans for more. Most business owners, like mine, are looking for ways to leave our fair city, if they can, and move their operations to counties that still believe that there is a limit to effective taxation. Though it has been proven time and again that people will avoid taxation by voting with their feet, our council has not an entrepreneurial bone in their body and they will continue to tax, and spend, like their is no tomorrow. This microcosm of our federal bureaucracy is a wonderful example of the body politic and the difficulty Conservatives have in penetrating the Liberal mindset once established and ensconced in the chamber of local power.
You'd think the Chamber of Commerce might provide a bulwark of protection against the Liberal behemoth, but though they warned local businesses against the Sign Laws introduced in the 1990s by the Liberal donor class pushing Agenda 21, there wasn't an outcry sufficient to push back against these "regulations" that seek Visual Beauty and defy common sense, so I found myself arguing with a sign Nazi about what 25% of window "space" meant when she had decided it meant window "pane." She looked blank when I suggested that if we installed New England style windows with 8"×10" panes that I would then be forced to buy hundreds of 2"×3" signs for each "pane." As she measured my Snowman sign and window pane in front of my customer, we both eyed the sky and wished for a simpler time.
Our latest societal upheaval comes from the Left, no great shock there. We are seeing middle-income white women bashing white men on behalf of black America. Rush Limbaugh believes that our universities have indoctrinated women to believe that men are out to get them, and, if they are not beautiful, society will discriminate against them. I thought, "No, women are smarter than that." But I was wrong. He was right, and I should know better than to question his wisdom after 30 years. While I go about my daily life, running my business, making phone calls to my suppliers, dealing with customers and doing my bookkeeping, I have never thought that men suppressed me or discriminated against me due to my sex. I also don't care what color skin my customers, suppliers, or anyone I deal with have or do not have. Ah, but I am beautiful, so I don't have to worry about such things. I do have a lazy eye, white freckle skin, and grayish-red thin hair, but I am genetically blessed with a combination of a Scottish father and German mother, and, of course, the kicker, I am white. Almost too white.
What I know for certain though is that I do not live in a society that is rife with systemic racism. Our local YWCA has a strong campaign against racism and very effectively pushes that message out to a largely accepting public who secretly think, "what racism?" I suppose that there may be some racism against our Indian population in Montana and maybe that is what they fight against, but even our Indian customers are treated, in my store, with the same respect that I treat any white cowboy. I cannot imagine frequenting a store that treated anyone differently than anyone else because of skin color or sexual orientation. Now, that does not apply, in my book, to idiots and stupid people and we find those of all races, creeds and colors, so take that out of the equation right now.
I heard an interesting explanation by Dennis Prager of the Leftist need to "solve" problems. Mr. Prager posits that the Left in this country are not happy with peace. They need something to gripe about because they are bored. He blames this on the movement of the Left away from organized religion, and that may be true, but I believe that his idea that lack of spirituality breeds discontent has merit. I am not a fan of revealed religion, but I don't hate it and I believe that our society is better off with the 10 commandments than without them. I support those around me who love their churches and their congregations and I went with my Mom to her Orthodox Church for many years because I loved the music and the art that they bring to religious practice. I choose to worship God in my own way and I have read every book that C.S. Lewis has ever written. He made, by far, the best argument for Christianity that I have read, yet I still prefer to find God in my own way. But I love peace. I love it so much that I am willing to buy and store guns in order to defend it. Yes, that may seem a contradiction to some, but peace is worth fighting and dying for in my book.
It may be that time to defend peace. The Left is working hard to break our lovely society and I don't know what our fight will look like. It may come in the courts defending against voter fraud, and it may come in the streets defending against organized Leftists who seek to disrupt our city centers. But when the fight comes to small town Montana, we will be ready. If you disrupt our idyllic life, you will pay with yours. I feel very strongly about that, so take care, BLM, I am not alone. If you bring your violence any further into small town America, you will meet with a fierceness that you have not yet faced. We love our peace, and we will defend it both against fraud and destruction. I love my little town and I love even its Liberal people, and if you threaten us here, it will look different. We will never let you destroy our lives, so fair warning. I sincerely hope the Left will simply give up, go back to their lives and let us run the country correctly with low taxation, less government and adherence to Constitutional Principles. That sounds almost as idyllic as my little town and its hives of activity. Unlike our Leftist friends, however, I don't believe utopia exists here on earth and so I prepare for the fight.
One who believes otherwise
