This is why we can't have nice things.

 

 

Going Feral: Destruction of the wild.

Going Feral: Destruction of the wild.:   

Destruction of the wild.

 

Not-so Muddy Mountain Road

Great.

Making a formerly pretty wild area an effective city park.

This is just the kind of bullshit that ruins everything.

I hope the 4x4s coming off the muddy roads rip this newly paved road to shreds as soon as possible.

Clearly a bitter post on my part.

I"ve gone up the existing Muddy Mountain Road since I was a child.  I've hiked up the one that preceded it as well numerous times when the current road was closed, something that's declined in enjoyment as the motorized ATV crowd goes up and down the same road getting to listen to the racket their vehicles make (you can literally hear them for miles).

There's a lot about this that's flat out wrong.  One of those things is the absolute hypocrisy of Wyomingites, or in this case Natrona County residents, who loudly proclaim that the government shouldn't spend money on this or that, and then turn right around and subsidize the paving of a road for no reason, other than to allow people to flood the back country more easily, and with less effort.  The road literally serves no purpose other than recreation, that's it, and makes it easier for people to get there with no real effort.

Indeed, the existing road was a good one, and had I been around when it was put in, I probably would be p.o.ed as well.  

Meanwhile, in the winter, the same department that put in this road, if we have snow, won't be able to plow out the county roads that service the oilfield and ranches.

Earth Day, 2024. Native to this place.

We have become a more juvenile culture. We have become a childish "me, me, me" culture with fifteen-second attention spans. The global village that television was supposed to bring is less a village than a playground...

Little attempt is made to pass on our cultural inheritance, and our moral and religious traditions are neglected except in the shallow "family values" arguments.

Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place

Today is Earth Day, 2024.

In "Red State", which now means more than it used to as the Reds in the Red States are supporting the Russian effort to conquer Ukraine, and hence are aligned with what the old Reds would have wanted, it's not going to mean all that much.  I don't expect there to be much in the way of civil observances.

I saw a quote by somebody whose comments I wouldn't normally consider, that being Noam Chomsky, in which he asserted that a certain class of people who are perceived (not necessarily accurately) as something beyond evil, as they're putting all of humanity in jeopardy for a "few dollars" when they already have far more than they need.  That is almost certainly unfair.  Rather, like so much else in human nature, mobilizing people to act contrary to their habits is just very hard.  And some people will resist any concept that those habits are harmful in any fashion.

Perhaps, therefore, a bitter argument is on what people love.  People will sacrifice for that, and here such sacrifices as may be needed on various issues are likely temporary ones.

Of course, a lot of that gets back to education, and in this highly polarized time in which we live, which is in part because we're hearing that changes are coming, and we don't like them, and we've been joined by people here locally recently who have a concept of the local formed by too many hours in front of the television and too few in reality.  We'll have to tackle that.  That'll be tough, right now, but a lot of that just involves speaking the truth.

While it has that beating a horse aspect to it, another thing we can't help but noting, and have before, is that an incredible amount of resistance to things that would help overall society are opposed by those who are lashed to their employments in nearly irrevocable ways.  In this fashion, the society that's actually the one most likely to be able to preserver on changed in some fashions are localist and distributist ones.   Chomsky may think that what he is noting is somehow uniquely tied to certain large industries, but in reality the entire corporate capitalist one, which of course he is no fan of, as well as socialist ones, which he is, are driven by concepts of absolute scale and growth.  That's a systematic culture that's very hard to overcome and on a local scale, when people are confronted with it, they'll rarely acknowledge that their opposition is based on something that's overall contrary to what they otherwise espouse.  We see that locally right now, where there are many residents opposed to a local gravel pit, who otherwise no doubt make their livings from the extractive industries.

But I'd note that this hasn't always been the case here.  It was much less so before the influx of outsiders who stayed after the most recent booms.  And that too gives us some hope, as the people who are of here and from here, like people of and from anywhere they're actually from, will in fact act for the place.

Related threads:

• An Agrarian Manifesto

Today

Blog Mirror: Earth Day Resolutions That Will Actually Help the Earth (hint: A Meatless Life Isn’t One of Them)

Earth Day, 2022

Lex Anteinternet: Some odd things you can do for the environment on Earth Day that may or may not have occurred to you.

Today is Earth Day for 2021. . .

Earth Day, 2020

Earth Day, 2019

Today In Wyoming's History: April 22

Wednesday, April 12, 1944. Soviet invasion of Romania fails, Withdrawal of Crimea commences, Victor Emmanuel makes retirement plans.

The First Battle of Târgu Frumos, the attempted Soviet invasion of Romania, which the Soviets and Russians don't really agree was attempted, ended in Axis victory.

On the same day, the Germans began withdrawing from Crimea, which was rapidly falling far behind Soviet lines.  The Red Army occupied Tiraspol, northwest of Odessa.

Romanian destroyer Regele Ferdinand.

The evacuation was by sea, and it was one of the most significant operations of the Romanian Navy during World War Two, with both the Romanian and German navies taking part.  In spite of Soviet efforts,  7,000 German and Romanian troops from Crimea in phase one of the operation, and 113,000 would ultimately be taken out.  This was impressive, but has to be balanced against the decision in error not to withdraw from Crimea earlier, which was due to Hilter's instance that it not occur.  Axis personnel losses during the evacuation were in fact massive.

King Victor Emmanuel announced plans to step down from office and appoint Crown Prince Umberto of Piedmont "Lieutenant of the Realm" upon the Allies taking Rome, which they were having trouble doing.

The I-174 was sunk off of Truk by a B-24.

The National Religious Broadcasters Association was founded in Columbus, Ohio following the Federal Council of Churches proposing to ban paid religious programming and limit broadcast personalities to individuals approved by their denominations which would have effectively removed Evangelicals from the airwaves.  The Association sought to preserve Evangelical access to the airwaves.

Religious broadcasting was different at the time. While there was some Catholic broadcasting, it was really quite limited and would remain so until the establishment of EWTN in 1981.  Most broadcasting was accordingly Protestant.

Improvising.

 

Service truck made stateside on base from Dodge WC. April 12, 1944.

1940s, 1944, 3/4 ton, 4x4, Dodge, Dodge WC, Dodge Weapons Carrier, U.S. Army, World War Two

The Summer Lake State Game Management Area was established by the State of Oregon.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 11, 1944. Plowing.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, boats and ships, Boston Massachusetts, Crimea, Equine Transportation, Netherlands, Pacific, Red Army, U.S. Air Force, Victory Gardens, World War Two

Missing the point: Blog Mirror; Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture

The real thing that will affect agriculture, particularly the beef industry, is in failing to attempt to arrest climate change.

I've long been utterly baffled by; 1) grazers failure to get a clue over climate change, and 2) ongoing agricultural admiration for the Republican Party.

More than anyone, those who graze ought to be able to freakin' wake up and notice that the climate ain't what it used to be.  I'll hear ranchers talk about it, but they seem incapable of closing the circle. Gee, it's been warm. Gee, it's been dry. Gee, we have no grass.

D'uh.

But climate change? Nope, not happening.

Now there are some exceptions. The late Pat O'Toole, who married into a Carbon County ranching family, was one.  But by and large ranchers simply refuse to believe that something is happening, even while worrying about what is happening.

Hmmm. . . 

And ironically, practices in the industry which gave it a larger carbon footprint are quite recently  Older ranchers can easily look back on an industry that wasn't diesel powered.

On the GOP, ranchers seem to have a really dedicated belief that the Republican Party protects their ability to do what they want.  In reality, the Democrats have preserved ranch lands themselves. The GOP is more of the development party, which never ends up actually benefitting ranchers.  I'll them complain about this too, but not close the circle.  Why is this oil company in my pasture?  Why are squatters trailers showing up all over.  Why are out of state rich buying this up and not doing anything about it?

Why indeed?

Maybe because of how we vote and whose support we choose to ignore.

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: Ted William's recent article in Audobon lambastes hunters, anglers, and environmental activists for failing to make common cause. In ...

Interesting comment.

I have long thought this very thing. 

Saturday, February 3, 1823. Spencer Fullerton Baird, First U.S. Fish Commissioner, born.

 

Spencer Fullerton Baird, First U.S. Fish Commissioner, Born (1823)

Going Feral: Match makers.

Going Feral: Match makers.: 

Match makers.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captured a Mexican Wolf (a type of wolf, not a wolf that is literally from Mexico) in hopes of that she'll breed with one of two captive Mexican Wolves at a facility in New Mexico.

The US is attempting to restore the endangered population.

Messed Up Animal Ecology. Why you can't separate out your favorite animal, and demonize your least favorite, and make a lick of sense.

The other night on the local news, some guy from some environmental outfit was yapping about "wild horses", equating them "with other wild animals like deer and elk", and suggesting that cattle need to be removed from the range.

One of the things he brought up about cattle were their numbers, in comparison to "wild" horses.

His argument was intellectually bereft, but then arguments in this area often are.

Winslow Homer painting of a (fairly thin looking) plow horse.  Lots of "chunks" were let go in the 30s when their owners droughted out, their descendants still roaming the range today.

There are no wild horses in North America at all.

None, nada, zippo, "0".

There are a little over 64,000 feral horses, all in the West, in the Western United States.  If we include burros, which at least nobody pretends are a wild animal, there are 82,000 feral equines.  

All wild equines stem, at the very oldest, from animals that were brought on to the continent in 1519.  Quite a few probably don't really have any Spanish blood in their veins at all, and hail from horses much more recently brought in. There's fairly good evidence that in the upper West horses came down out of Canada, not up from Mexico.  

Some poor coureur des bois awakened one morning, in other words, and thought "Chu dans marde! Mon cheval est parti!"

"Bourgeois" W---r, and His Squaw" by Alfred Jacob Miller, depicting a coureur des bois and his Native American spouse.  This is a famous painting, but we're not supposed to like it now.  One art museum notes about it:  "These words, which shaped how Miller's contemporaries viewed the watercolors, reveal the racism and sexism embedded in 19th-century exploration and colonization of the western part of what is today the United States."  Oh, horse crap.  Most trappers were culturally French, and the French had intermixed with the native population from day one.  This could just as easily be "guy and his wife."  The comment itself imposed an Anglo-American view on a Franco-American and Native American landscape.

Moreover, the introduction date to the Native Americans, at least on the Northern Plains, is much more recent than supposed, and even then, they didn't take them right up.  Indeed, among the Shoshone it produced a big argument, with the arguers, mostly young men, taking off and acquiring the name "The Arguers", i.e., Comanche.

In the 1930s, a lot of farmers in the West droughted out and simply let their horses go, including stocky draft horses, i.e., "chunks". Then again, in the 1970s the numbers of wild horses expanded as recent imports abandoned pasture pets out on the range and went back to their homes in Port Arthur, or wherever, and even now some of that happens.  The majestic broom tail of the range today may have been Little Becky's 4H project before she left for UW, died her hair purple, and started protesting for Hamas.

Okay, so what about cows?

Long horn in a herd of Angus or Black Baldies.  I'm not really sure how this bovine ended up in this herd.

They came in at just about the same time, or earlier.  Cattle were brought to the Caribbean as early as 1493 by Columbus, which is really early.  "In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue", but in 1493 the livestock truck, basically, pulled up to the dock.  Cows can and do go wild, but nobody gets very romantic about it, and there isn't a Wild and Free Ranging Cow Act.  Nobody goes by the moniker "Wild Cow Annie".  A wild cow we had went rogue and recruited other cows to her rogue wild cow band, which shows how wild they can get.  A neighboring rancher, caught her and shipped her as a menace. We got the check, and were happy for that end.

There are about 90,000,000 head of cattle in the United States as of this past summer, down from 100,000,000 in 1998.  

Okay, that's a lot of cows.

Which bring back our ignorant protagonist's point.  Before Columbus came and said "let's stock this range and lose some horses doing it", he seems to argue, the rangeland was empty of large ungulates.

Um, nope.

There were something like 50,000,0000 to 75,000,000 buffalo.

But, gee, Yeoman, that would mean that the entire ungulate supporting range of North America has always had a lot of large ungulates on it. . . 

Yep, that's what it means.

Currently, there are about 20,500 Plains bison in wild herds and an additional 420,000 in commercial herds, which we are supposed to pretend are wild herds.

Given our inability to accurately state how many head of anything were on the Pre Columbian landmass, what this basically tells you is the ungulate population hasn't changed very much.  Overall populations of large wild animals, i.e., "big game" are way up, however, due to water projects and farmed fields.

So the entire Cow Bad/Horse Good argument is pretty flawed.

Now, the line of last defense on this is that cows cause global warming. That's because cows fart.

Buffalo don't.

Umm. . . 

Well, buffalo do, but only Febreeze.

Well, no, they fart methane too.

In reality, all mammals fart, but some fart more than they otherwise would due to diet.  You already know this due to your coworker who has, every day, the Lumberjack Special at Hefty Portions for breakfast, followed by the Ejército del Norte special at El Grande Conquistador for lunch, a quart of scotch around 2:00 p.m., and goes home and has his spouse's Roast Wildebeest Surprise for dinner (all Keto approved, of course).  The only real argument here, therefore, is that maybe cattle ought not to be finished off on corn, which they probably wouldn't normally do unless somebody left a gate down. That likely makes them gassy.

Lascaux painting of aurochs, approximately 36,000 years ago.  Note also the deer/roebucks and horse depicted.

Taking this out worldwide, I'd note, cattle are native to the entire rest of the planet in some form, save for Australia.  Wild cattle ranged Europe, Asia and Africa.  They aren't new here, and they've been wondering around chewing their cuts and farting for longer than we've been a species.

So back to environmental destruction.

The first real notable example of it was Cottonwood bottoms in the American West.  During the winter, buffalo hang out in them.  Feral horses took it up.  And mounted Native Americans, who previously had a pretty limited impact on the environment, did too.

But you can't really say anything about that.

Blog Mirror: Fill ‘er up: #Colorado’s reservoirs hit 100% of normal for the first time in 3 years — Water Education Colorado

 

Fill ‘er up: #Colorado’s reservoirs hit 100% of normal for the first time in 3 years — Water Education Colorado

The Baggage Train.

Going back to that WyoFile editorial, one of the replying letters stated this:

Sorry Kerry, buy you couldn’t be more wrong about Harriet Hageman – you made the mistake of trying to predict how she will be judged in history on one issue which will rapidly decrease in importance as Trump goes down in flames.

The only way to predict how Harriet will be viewed in her new roll as a Representative is to do an in-depth review or her substantial record in the courts – particularly the Federal court system. Its my understanding she has been one of the most successful and foremost natural resource attorneys in the United States and has argued cases at the highest level. To understand her experience in this field of natural resources one must recognize there are less than 10 really experienced individuals in Wyoming who have proven over the years their expertise in the field of natural resources. They include Jill Morrison, Doug Thompson, Ken Hamilton, Angus Theumer, Dan Hielig, Karen Budd Falen, Harriet Hageman and maybe a few more. Harriet is near the top of this distinguished list of competence.

The bottom line is that Harriet can be expected to be one of the most knowledgeable natural resource experts to ever be elected to Congess. If she equals or exceeds her past performance she will have a major impact on natural resource issues in the house. It will be important to see which committees she is appointed to and whether she can put together a staff of truly talented experienced natural resource experts.

Her unique experience as a natural resource attorney positions her to write amendments to legislation, existing laws which could redefine the ESA, Clean Water Act, Wild Horse and Burro Act, Wilderness designations, etc. and do this in a House of Representatives controlled by the Republications at least for the next 2 years. Never under estimate a person who has proven over and over that she is all about competence, competence, competence. The Donald Trump thing will wilt in the very near future and we’ll see Harriet in the legislative setting instead of the court room setting. Will she be as successful in Congress as she has been in the courts. Based on past performance, I think Harriet will be as influential.

This taps into something that's been bothering me throughout this election, or rather, maybe several somethings.

Those are; 1) when does "being a lawyer" credit you as a candidate, and when does it discredit you, in the public eye, 2) does the propaganda on lawyers match the reality, 3) does anyone really believe that having been a successful lawyer in private practice means you're going to be a big wheel in Congress, and 4) if Hageman's record is correctly cited, why would we support it?

First, a disclaimer, which I've noted before. As noted here, I knew Hageman slightly at one time.  Early on, because of her circle of friends, I frankly assumed she was a left wing Democrat.  At that time she was shy and hardly spoke, so my assumption was probably way off, but if it was way off, she was a unique personality in that her friends must have been way outside of her political beliefs.

That actually credits a person.

Indeed, one of the people like me, who had friends that were in her circle of friends, is mentioned in the letter above.  And that person definitely has very left wing beliefs and is married to one of Hageman's school year friends who also have very left wing beliefs, at least based on their views at the time, and their careers since.

Interesting.

It's additionally interesting as that person would most likely be on the opposite end of the spectrum on all the issues listed.

That brings up the point that lawyers careers tend to reflect the work that was available when they started off.  It doesn't necessarily reflect their personal views.  In the case of the person I'm thinking of above, it does, as their choices in career paths would reflect that.  In at least one other person listed above, it probably does as well, although they took a big diversion from their pathway at one time.

Hageman?  

Well, I don't know.  She did seem to develop, from what little I know of it, a career that focused a lot on water law at one time and then branched into something else, that being the representation of far right interests on various land and environmental issues.  I know of her representing a super wealthy import on a house construction case, however. Perhaps that was a favor of some kind.

Most lawyers actually are at least a little left of center.  Even the self-proclaimed right wing lawyers I know tend to actually be left of center, a little.  I've met a few really right wing lawyers, but in those cases one was a fellow who was so wealthy he really didn't have to do anything, and who came from a very conservative background (I also know a very left wing lawyer who was so wealthy the lawyer didn't actually have to do anything).

Of the three really right wing lawyers I've known over the years, two of them were from, you guessed it, somewhere else.

Is Hageman really right wing?  Well, she is now, and has no choice but to be.  Her father was a right wing legislator, and she's from Ft. Laramie, so if she is, she probably came by it naturally.  If she originally wasn't, she is now, and she has to be.

Which will make her irrelevant in Congress.

Which, in an out-of-order sort of way, brings us to number 3 on our list "3) does anyone really believe that having been a successful lawyer in private practice means you're going to be a big wheel in Congress"?

I can't think of any examples.  Can you?

Let's start with the letter writers citations here:

The bottom line is that Harriet can be expected to be one of the most knowledgeable natural resource experts to ever be elected to Congess.

Well, setting aside Herbert Hoover, maybe.

Hoover was a mining engineer. 

If she equals or exceeds her past performance she will have a major impact on natural resource issues in the house. I

How so?  Legal work is presenting your case to a jury or judge, and in this line of country, probably mostly to a judge.

That, frankly, doesn't mean squat in terms of arguing policy in Congress. 

The House of Representatives has 435 members, who all think of themselves as being the judges.  And unlike a real judge, they aren't, and don't have to be, constrained by what the law is and, while they should be constrained by the facts, they have never been.

They also all think themselves equal in their expertise to you, and really don't give a rats ass what your pre Congress career is.

Put another way, does anyone really think that AoC is going to think, "wow, Harriet, you know so much, I'm going your way!"  Or, for that matter, that Keven McCarthy is going to think "I struggled for years and sold my soul to become Speaker of the House, but I'm deferring to you Harriet".

Not bloody likely.

Particularly, and this is important for Wyomingites to realize, the House represents the population of the United States, which is about 70% aligned against what Harriet is seems to be for, based on her record.

Which takes us to this:

Her unique experience as a natural resource attorney positions her to write amendments to legislation, existing laws which could redefine the ESA, Clean Water Act, Wild Horse and Burro Act, Wilderness designations, etc. and do this in a House of Representatives controlled by the Republications at least for the next 2 years. 

Bar har har har!

Uh huh. The House is Republican, barely. 

The Senate, isn't.

The Oval Office, isn't.

You have to be delusional to believe that any legislation is coming out of the House with a right wing point of view on the ESA, the Clean Water Act, the Wild Horse and Burro Act, or Wilderness designations in the next two years.  

No freakin' way.

And if the last several elections cycles have shown, the rules about when houses switch are now broken.  If Donald Trump continues to whip the ass cart towards the cliff, the chances are just as good that you end up with a Democratic House and Senate in 2024.

Particularly if the GOP Rockettes in the form of Marjorie "Jewish Space Laser" Taylor Green and Lauren "Insurrection Barbie" continue to draw so much press.  Far right House female  House figures look more evil female villains in Marvel Comics right now that serious policymakers.  If you are a far right angry congresswoman, and that's the presentation that Hageman has given so far, firmly riding the Trump Ass Cart, do you really think you'll be taken as a serious potential policymaker?

Indeed, does any Wyoming politician have that street cred right now?  Senator Barrasso did at one time, but the GOP has seemed to use him recently to personally blame Joe Biden for gas prices when they go up, but not credit him when they go down.  Lummis might be faring the best right now, and she's clearly working on breaking away from the Wyoming GOP, with her sights set on a cabinet position in a future GOP administration she figures won't be Trump's.

Indeed, how the next two years go, with Lummis acting independently and Hageman beholden to Trump, will be interesting. 

And frankly, most Wyomingites aren't haters of Wilderness. Out on the street, it's easy to find Republican Wyomingites who would add more. That's an upper level GOP thing and one of the many examples of how they are out of sink with the electorate. Same with the Clean Water Act.  You can get visceral reactions to the ESA mostly because the right has hated it since day one. 

The Wild Horse & Burro Act matters to ranchers, and I don't like it, but most people don't think about it at all.

All of which is to say that I don't expect any Congressional action at all in these areas.  In 2024, the Wild Horse and Burro Act, the ESA, etc., will all be there, and Harriet Hageman's opinions on them will not have mattered one bit.

Which covers not only topic 3, but topic 4.

What about topic 2?

Well, maybe, in her case. The New York Times supported that view, that she was a lawyer who worked against environmental regulation for decades, and they're surely no fans of Hageman.

Well, what about 1.  Funny how that works.  If somebody's a lawyer, and their views seem to agree with yours, that means a lot. If they're a lawyer, and their views differ, they're a dirty bastard.  The High Country News, before she was a candidate or even close to being one, in 2009, stated the same thing, more or less.  So that claim seems to be correct.

But again, does that credit you?

Witness the Secretary of State election.  Chuck Gray complained that Tara Nethercott was a lawyer and was only campaigning for the salary, an absurd proposition. First thing he does his hire a lawyer to be on his staff.

Weird how that worked.

Which gets back to the letter writers point that we don't know how we're judged in history, until we're judged in history.  His point is that Hageman may overcome having a front row seat on the careering ass cart due to her background and skills.

And maybe she will.

But in order to do that, she'll have to get out of the ass cart quick, as otherwise she's just going to be wrecked baggage. And that's not an easy thing to.

"Tail Gunner" Joe McCarthy.  Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Two conservatives who didn't react, when they could have, both of whom might have been very much differently remembered than they are today.  By the time that McCarthy hauled in the Army in front of the House Committee on Un American Affairs, the bloom was off the Communist under every bush rose.  He should have known that and wrapped things up, stating they'd gone as far as they could, and have gotten back to things later. Instead, he rode that wagon over a cliff.  

Nixon should have exposed the Watergate burglars. He didn't order them to actually do anything. If he had, he'd have completed his second term, destroyed the negative evidence against him, and be remembered as the President who got us out of Vietnam.

Part of taking trips into dangerous territory with the baggage train is knowing when to leave it.

Musing for Conservatives from a real (well mostly, sometimes, 50/50 anyway) Conservative.

This comes, I'd note, at a time at which it's clear that much of the Wyoming GOP got to the station on the Trump Train, went into the station and had a few drinks, and re-boarded on Crazy Train, where it stumbled to the club car, and is now decrying the moral state of the country to the bar maid, who has ear buds in and is listening to Taylor Swift and hoping these guys leave a big tip, while knowing that they won't.

Witness:

Wyoming GOP Wants Investigation of Gov. Gordon’s Ties To Bill Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett

That is, quite frankly, and the only way it can be described, "batshit crazy".   This is going to reveal nothing, and it won't happen for that matter, but the fact that the GOP Central Committee endorses it is scary.

And hence the problem. At the same time that across the country a lot of Republican conservatives voted and said "whoooeeee, what's that smell in here. . . " and then marked the ballot for Democrats, the Wyoming GOP, listening only to the right wing edge of the party, has voted itself into total isolation. Right now, the state's party is about as aware of reality as close affiliates of Kim Jong-un are.

Somehow, it just figures.

And for that reason, they're going to take the state into political isolation, spouting nonsense, while one Senator proclaims that Joe Biden personally sets the price of gas every day, another tries to figure out which GOP Presidential hopeful stands the best chance of giving her a cabinet slot, and a freshman Congressman rails against whatever Kevin McCarthy says is a good thing to rail against today.

In four years we'll have so little say in the nation's politics that our even being a state will be utterly pointless, and beyond that, the Conservative "movement", if it can still be called that, will be about as relevant to the nation as the post World War Two Sicilian movement to make that island the 49th state.

You didn't know there had been one, did you?

Hence, my point.

So, as I am a conservative, of a sort anyhow, and feel that generally my sort of conservatism is correct, some unsolicited advice and commentary for conservatives.

With the first being, what is a conservative, anyhow?

In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation . . . the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not . . . express themselves in ideas but only . . . in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.

Lionell Trilling, 1950. 

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

William F. Buckley.

Defining Conservatism.

The blue flag of Conservatism.  Blue is the traditional color, globally, for conservatism, but for some reason in the American political imagry its been substituted for red, which is the color of socialism. Perhaps this makes sense, however, as populism is really a left wing ideology, and as the national conservative party becomes more populist, it is in fact less conservative.

Defining conservatism isn't all that easy to do, and we'd submit, it's so frequently done clouded by either a liberal tradidtiion or a reactionary impulse, that its done incorrectly.

Take, for instance.

We, as young conservatives, believe:

• That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;
• That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;
• That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;
• That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;
• That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government; and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;
• That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: Does it serve the just interests of the United States?

The Sharon Statement, 1960, drafted in part by M. Stanton Evans. Is it correct?

One of the real problems modern conservatives face is that they don't know what conservatism is, even if most vaguely have a grasp of it.  As a result of this, they've adopted a lot of libertarianism, which isn't conservatism by any means, and a fair amount, recently, of fascism, which actually originated in the radical left.¹

Without some sort of existential understanding of what it is, conservatism isn't really anything at all. And indeed, if you look at the current GOP, it is indeed a "big tent", but that tents a real mishmash of people with widely varying ideologies, or no ideologies at all.

The irony of the recent race in Wyoming is that one of the far fight candidates campaigned on the platform of "less government, more freedom". That's not conservative, that's libertarianism.  The same candidate has billboards up opposing abortion, which is a conservative position, and one I support, which has roots in theology, philosophy, and natural law, but which doesn't really square with the "less government, more freedom" platform.  A guy who is for less government, and more freedom, ought to take the position that you can pretty much do whatever you freakin' want to, which of course he really doesn't.

You can get to being pro life and be a libertarian, I'd note, but its harder.

Shoot, why not legalize dueling?  Less government. . . more freedom.

And that defines why the current crop of conservatives make nearly no sense.

I'd propose that Conservatism is this; it's a political/philosophical view that human beings are flawed and in some serious ways, de minimis.  We're a creature of some external force, that force being nature, and for those who are believers, nature's God.  What we are and how we should behave is defined by that, and as we are imperfect, we should always be extremely careful about departing from something we have conserved, i.e,. tradition, as by and large, tradition and traditional views are highly refined from experience and probably correct. Something we come up with in our own era stands a good chance of being wrong.  Because we are imperfect, we can find out that we are wrong on things, and we do over time, but we ought to never assume we've figured it out in our own era.  Added to that, as history is conserved knowledge, the past is nearly as alive as the present, and we should consider it and its voices constantly.

Now, going from there.

All reality is governed by, well, reality.

And what we know of reality is ultimately governed by nature.  

We can know nature, and know a lot of it by observation.  But we cannot redefine it.

Modern "ology" fields, outside of the hard sciences, have tried mightily, and indeed enormously succeeded, in shoving out vast piles of crap on our natures for well over a century. Sooner or later, the last crap starts to stink up everything and be revealed as crap, but not before many lives have been destroyed in the process.  

Psychology, sociology, sexolgy, all are hugely guilty of this.

Biology, geology, orthodox theology, and physics, are not.

If things aren't grounded in nature, as revealed by the real, i.e., hard, sciences, they are probably wrong.

Now, science doesn't have an explanation for everything, but it has the explanation for a lot.  And where it does, it must be listened to. And an awful lot about us can readily and easily be explained by evolutionary biology, which should not be confused with cultural anthropology, another one of the "ology" fields that tends to be in the category of "the self-explanatory flavor of the day rationalizing my own behavior".

The lesson of the hard sciences, like orthodox Christinaity, tend to make lot of people hugely uncomfortable, in part because starting with the, yes conservative, Reagan Administration the Federal Government gutted the funding for them.  Prior to that we had enlisted the hard sciences in the war effort against the Axis and then later against the Soviet Union.  At that point we really needed to know what science, often in the form of engineering (which is applied physics) had to say about things.

By the mid 1970s "Conservatives" had regrown uncomfortable with some things science had to say, particularly in the environmental fields, which I'll address below.² So they gutted it, and int he process they've managed to make modern Americans woefully poorly educated in the sciences.  There's no excuse for it.  Here's a good example:

Nobody remembers  this as in reality we treated viruses with a massively publicly funded health system and mandatory vaccinations.  Treating things with soup and Vitamin C is a trip to the cemetery.

But we're now so freakin' dense that this actually showed up on a recent candidates' website.

Reality, you smart mammal, is defined by nature and evolution.  You are formed existentially by external forces, and that is what you are existentially.  You, and we, don't get to change that.

Our own appetites don't define right or wrong.

But people sure seem to think that.

You would think this would be self-evident, but in this era of massive wealth, the concept of restraining your own conduct in any fashion is regarded as passé.

Among the things we are, we are broken. The standards are clear, but we don't always individually orient ourselves to them. That doesn't mean our disorientation should be given license.  

Indeed, we don't even know where to draw the line on this.  For eons human beings accepted, for example, the norm that sex should be contained within marriage, and that it was between male and female. The only real global divergence on how this worked had to do with whether polygamy was okay or not. That's about it. 

This isn't the only example, by any means, but it does show how conservatism isn't libertarianism or progressivism.  Progressives would require you to believe that the latest social "ology" items are real legally.  You may not assert, for example, that transgenderism isn't real, as that's not socially acceptable.  Libertarians don't care if you believe it or not, but they wouldn't have the structure of the state accept the scientific realities that it's far from proven, and up until it is, it's not a state matter to force, and because it's also contrary to long human experience, and frankly science, the burden of proof on it is very high.

Our own economic well-being doesn't define true or false.

Avarice, 1590.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.

1 Timothy.

Somewhere along the path of things, conservatives started believing that capitalism is the natural order of things.  And beyond that, somehow conservatism began to equate itself with a worship of mammon.

Southerners justified slavery, which was in their perceived economic self-interest, on the basis that the Bible said it was okay, which it does not.  The Germans justified invading the Soviet Union on the "ology" basis that the Germans were a master race, and they therefore were entitled to the Slavic breadbaskets of Europe.

Think this doesn't apply to this argument?

Well, right now the GOP in Wyoming, which claims to be conservative, wants the state to investigate Gov. Gordon’s Ties To Bill Gates, George Soros, and Warren Buffett. Why?  Well somebody's economic ox is being gored as these men don't have the same view of the economic future as the Central Committee does.

Indeed, among those who are involved in economics and science, it's really clear that the Republican Party in Wyoming has literally walked up to a dead mule and put it in harness on the basis that the mule made us rich in the past, and he better now.  That's not how these things work.

Things do change, and you don't have a right to insist that they do not.  Railroad crews couldn't demand that the switch from steam to diesel not be made on the basis that steam engines employed a larger crew.  Sail mariners couldn't demand that the age of sail not yield to that of coal.  But that's what a lot of people in the "conservative" moment are doing right now.

Truth be known, we can learn that our own occupations are not sacrosanct, even though the lesson is hard.  Nobody argues, for example, that "I'm a tobacco farmer, and therefore cancer is a fib" anymore, but people did at one time.  We hear economic arguments of that type made in conservative circles all the time, however.

And that is not real conservatism. That's reactionary.  A real conservatism would realize that economics isn't the same as conserving core human relationships.

Conservatism sometimes has to aim to restore or recall what was already lost.

One of the common failings of conservatives, which opens them up to criticism all the time, is that they are often working at conserving either what is right now, or what was just very recently.

A good example of this is another economic one.  Conservatives constantly claim to be preserving capitalism. That isn't conservative at all.  Capitalism itself is a government made economic liberal construct designed to promote certain type of business activities.

Capitalism can be argued to be good or bad, and in varying degrees, in its own right, but the fact of the matter is that its contrary to nature in recognizing what would otherwise be a type of partnership as a "person", giving it a huge economic advantage against real people.  If conservatives truly sought to conserve, they'd look back and realize that the corporate innovation has evolved massively and to the detriment of the natural social and economic order.  In other words, they'd restrict the use of the corporate business form, which itself would go back to an earlier era.

None of this is radical, it's purely conservative, but because it understands the nature of how this works, and looks back prior to December 31, 1600, it doesn't seem that way.

Another example is in the area of men, women, sex and marriage.  Conservatives in our current era are full of horror about the recent developments in the area of sexual attraction, and they should be. But addressing this by taking it back to the pre Dobbs status quote actually isn't all that conservative. Taking things back to when the heart balm statutes still predominated would be.

"But, didn't William F. Buckley say. . .?" 

Yeah, so what.  He was wrong here.

We're all fallen, but nobody has the right to engage in open hypocrisy.

Strom Thurmond, the Southern Democrat and "Dixiecrat" senator who opposed desegregation for most of his career but whom also fathered a child by his 16 year old black maid, that child being his oldest offspring.

Oddly enough, this story was sort of hi lighted by a development that occurred after Cynthia Lummis went up on the decks of the SS Political Fortunes, looked at the weather gauge, and determined that it had shifted, probably resulting in her vote on Dobbs.  I've dealt with that extensively here.

What does that statute really say? The Respect For Marriage Act, what it says, what it means, what it means behind what it means, and the reaction to Lummis voting for it.

There's almost no way to deal with this topic without being somewhat crude, but suffice it to say if you are on the current Super Conservative Special, you really can't be proclaiming what people who have unusual attractions are doing if you are shacked up with somebody, or bed hopping, or the like. Quite frankly, you probably can't say anything about family values if you are divorced and don't have a really good explanation or if you are married but childless and seemingly in a well paying career.  You can't say that "those people aren't acting" naturally, if you aren't either.

And yes, this harkens back to an age with children out of wedlock was regarded as conveying shame, and being a serial polygamist was frowned upon.  But hence the point.  This sort of topic is broad, not narrow, and you can't take your social programs off the shelf like cans of pinto beans, and leave the lima beans up there.  You are getting a sack of beans, and they're all in there.

"Freedom" may not be just having nothing left to lose, but it's not a defining feature of our beings either.  Nor is "liberty".

Freedom and liberty are the two most misused words in the political lexicon.

Conservatives, if they grasp it, do have a better claim on these words than liberals do, but freedom isn't an absolute and liberty doesn't equate with being a libertine.  

In Catholic social thought freedom is often noted as being a true positive but only when a true understanding of things is derived.  I.e., the framework of the Church doesn't impose shackles on my freedom so much as guardrails, so I don't fall off and lose it.  This is true of properly understood social conservatism as well.  And that's one of the things that distinguishes conservatism from libertarianism.

Looking at things from a point of view of nature, it becomes clear what things have to be provided with guard rails and which do not.  For example, recently, the Obergefell decision opened up same sex unions all over the country.  A frequent argument was that this meant you were "free" to marry whom you wanted. 

Marriage, however, is simply a natural institution for the protection of children created by male/female interactions.  It has nothing whatsoever, as a social institution, to do with "love".  The guard rails here are for the protection of kids, and then widows.  Nothing else.  They've been massively removed over the years to the detriment of society, which hasn't made people "free", but careless and miserable.

Another instance is the massive decriminalization of drugs in American society. Drugs don't make people free, they enslave people to them. The guard rails kept people free by helping them to preserve themselves against self-destructive impulses.  Frankly, Prohibition, in this context, was very much pro freedom and liberty.  Opening up the weed laws and, in Colorado's case, opening up the shrooms, is pro slavery (as well as worshiping money).

Most conservatives instinctively get this, but don't know why they do. People haven't thought out what this ultimately means. And what it means is that sometimes the expression of the people, legislative bodies, have to enact restrictions, rather than open things up.

This includes restraining some kinds of businesses, and not just those mentioned here.  Getting back to what is clearly a distributist bent, restraining some sorts of economic activities promotes freedom, including the right to make a living, but finding a conservative who realizes that isn't always an easy thing to do.

We ought to be honest, and occasionally blunt, but smart.

But at the same time, we ought to be knowledgeable.

We ought to say what we mean, but know why we mean it.

A recent populist Interim Secretary of State had, on his failed campaign platform material, that the United States Constitution was ordained by God.  He didn't say it that way, but was pretty close.  I'd have to look it back up.

That's not a conservative position, that a theocratic one, and it tends to indicate membership in one of several minority religions.  I note this, however, as I hear people relate their political views loosely to God all the time and often in a poorly thought out way.

I don't think the United States Constitution was ordained by God, and I also think that God loves Russians and Ukrainians every bit as much as Americans.  Americans may be exceptional, and right now we're not exceptional in ways that aren't universally positive, but simple unthinking citations such as this don't cut the mustard.

If your conservatism is founded in religious beliefs, fine, you ought to say so. But you probably need to go a bit further and really explain it in a thinking fashion.

Likewise, conservatives constatly spout "less government, more freedom" now days. What does that mean?  The logical conclusion to "less government" is no government, which is called anarchy of course, and which isn't very conservative.

What people who say that probably really mean is that the best government is the government that governs the least, a phrase attributed to Thoreau and to Jefferson, but which in reality nobody knows the author of. The Thoreau quote is as follows:

I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Thoreau, it might be noted, was in fact an anarchist, and was arguing for that.

Of course, Henry David Thoreau lived in an era in which you could wonder off in the woods and hang around there pretty much unimpeded, if you were a European American.  The prior occupants of the same territory had been forcibly removed by the government.  Those aboriginal occupants, it might be further noted, had their own form of government.

Given all of this, we can say, for instance, that stating phrases like "less government" and the like sound really nifty until you realize that a lot of them are bankrupt and always have been, if not explored more completely.  Less government?  Is that conservative, or is it simply anarchic?

Let's look again at the Sharon Statement:

• That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That certainly makes sense, but it probably makes sense to liberals as well.

And being free from arbitrary force concedes that some force isn't arbitrary. That often seems quite missed.

• That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

That also makes sense, and is a basic tenant of conservatism, but one that's poorly implemented and understood. True economic freedom would require an economic leveling that modern conservatives seem to abhor. That is, some will do better than others, and all should be allowed to compete, but a guy wanting to start an appliance store really can't effectively do that if giant corporations, with shareholders protected from liability and personal loss, are running a mega store in the area, now can he?

• That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

Conservatives, truly, can agree with that.

• That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

American conservatives, at least, can agree with that, but  recently they don't seem to be doing universally on all of its tenants.

• That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government; and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

This is true, but conservatives weren't really arguing for this to be logically implemented at the time, and they still aren't.

Indeed, to some degree what conservatives seem to think is that they're fighting against "socialism". True socialism was knocked out in the fifth round and has been removed from the building. Today, conservatives are arguing against any sort of revival of The American System, but only to the degree they don't personally benefit from it.

• That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: Does it serve the just interests of the United States?

Every nation's foreign policy should be so dictated, but with the understanding that the United States isn't its own planet.  Like it or not, advances in travel, technology and the conservative insistence on the globalization of trade now mean that actions anywhere impact people everywhere, and we're all in this together.  In other words, have bat soup one day in China and the next thing you know, people are sick and Rome and Sacramento.

There are a lot more examples of how that works, but what the drafters of the Sharon statement were really after, at the time, was the Democratic inclination to intervene in foreign wars.  Conservatives of the 1950s had never really gotten over the US entering World War Two, which they didn't fully approve of but which thanks to the Japanese Navy they had no choice but to agree to. They weren't keen on the Korean War and they weren't all keen on the Vietnam War.  There was an odd conservative sense at the time that we could let the world slide into the Red Menace but protect ourselves through B-36s and B-52, not realizing that in the modern world Harley Davidson was about to get a run for the money from Honda.

All of which gets back to this.  Yes, maximum personal liberty is a conservative principle, but not up to the point of self-destruction.  The basic ethos is that we can provide a societal and cultural structure and hope that people succeed, and try to help them when they fall.  Pretending that we're the first person on virgin soil, however, isn't reality, and it in fact it never was.

Probably another way to put this is this.  Liberty can only travel with subsidiarity.  Freedom only travels with responsibility.  Success travels with duty.  And conserving means existential conservation, not reaction.

We don't really have fellow travelers.

Politics is the art of compromise, but the right/left divide in American politics blurs the lines on the nature of movements.  The Wyoming GOP is a good example of this, although the national Republican Party is as well.

Conservatives aren't populists.  Indeed, to some degree the old charge against conservatives as being elitists, a charge made against liberals as well, is true.  So what? 

Populism works just as well for left-wing mobs as right-wing ones, and in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries the American Populist Party was a liberal party that American conservatives fought against. Thomas Jefferson, who was a conservative, feared the day when populists would arise in the US, which he felt inevitable, as it meant the end of democracy.  He may well have been correct.

Given this, why are conservatives sitting in the corner of the club car holding their tongues but watching the populists hit on the bar maid?  They shouldn't be.

They are, of course, for the same reason that right wing German political parties held their nose and went along with the Nazi Party in the early 30s. They had a place they wanted to go, and they thought the Nazis would bet them there.  They didn't.  The populists won't get the conservatives get there either, and the populists have no desire to do so. Their nearly open declaration of war in Wyoming against conservatives, and the six-year campaign that they are "RINO's" should be lesson enough on this point.

Conservatives should be guided by Kipling (a conservative) on this point and take from The Winners, although it certainly isn't true on everything.

What is the moral ? Who rides may read.

  When the night is thick and the tracks are blind,

A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed;

  But a fool to wait for the laggard behind

Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

White hands cling to the tightened rein,

  Slipping the spur from the booted heel,

Tenderest voices cry, "Turn again,"

  Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,

High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

One may fall, but he falls by himself

  Falls by himself, with himself to blame;

One may attain, and to him is the pelf,

  Loot of the city in Gold or Fame

Plunder of earth shall be all his own

Who travels the fastest, and travels alone.

Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,

  Sing the heretical song I have made

  His be the labour, and yours be the spoil.

Win by his aid, and the aid disown

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Conservatism isn't a man and can't be reduced to worshiping a human being.

I've already mentioned a fellow here who was a conservative, Thomas Jefferson.  

He was a great man.

He also kept slaves, one of whom he was bedding, and he kept the kids born of that union enslaved. That's creepy and reprehensible.

A person we quote here frequently and whom we admire is G. W. Chesterton. He was a polymath and great thinker. A great man.

He was also anti-Semitic.

Ideas aren't people, and once the two are confused, you are in real trouble.

Some parties evolve towards cults of personality, and at that point, they're always on the verge of failure.  Once the party is defined by Il Duce's poster, it's pretty pointless.

Donald Trump is one man, and if a person strives to find what cogent philosophical positions he's held on anything, you'll be striving all day and night, for months, and fail to find them.  In truth, love him or hate hm, Trump was a mere vessel for those with certain hopes, many of whom he failed, rather than the originator of anything brilliant himself.  Trump didn't dream up the list of conservative names for the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society did.  Economically, we had good times, but how much of that was Trump, and how much of it was his staffers who came in with him as he declared himself to be a conservative.

Now, you can take this too far. No doubt there were ideas that originated with Trump, some good, and some bad, but he certainly wasn't an overarching intellectual titan that defined a movement.  No, rather, a series of movements, some very poorly defined, simply saw him as their vehicle.

That's been seemingly forgotten.

"Heroes" almost never meet their hype.  Political heroes exist, but where they do, they should be intellects that have contributed real thought. And even when they arise, they can't be the definition of a movement.

Theodore Roosevelt, a great liberal President came to define Liberal "Progressive" Republicans after he left office and a cult of personality developed around him. That lead to the Republican Party splitting and Woodrow Wilson entering office. After that, as a heroic figure, Roosevelt did the right thing.  He reentered the GOP and was pretty quiet.

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Footnotes

1. This is, I'd note, a debatable point.  I'd start off, however, noting that Mussolini had been a Socialist.  A Russian refugee of friend of Whitaker Chambers, as another example, who had been a Soviet general felt Communism was a species of fascism.  The Nazi Party had been a radical socialist party very early on, but once Hitler entered the picture its socialism rapidly waned.

2.  I've said "regrown" as the first real instances of conservatives becoming uncomfortable with science seems to have occured with Protestants becoming uncomfortable with the theory of evolution when it was first introduced. While evolution, as a scientific theory, is so well demonstrated it is clearly fact, some are still uncomfortable with it as this late date and occasionally there are efforts to preclude it from schools.  Apostolic Christians tend to be baffled by this, unless they've been heavily protestantized, as many in the US have been, as there really is nothing contrary to the Faith as they conceive of it in regard to evolution.  However, like going down a rabbit hole, rejecting evolution tends to end up as a rejection of all sorts of other science and, in the end, make Christianity weaker by making it look contrary to science, which it need not be.