This includes the excellent essay The Idiocy of Urban Life, which I've occasionally cited here under its original The New Republic name, The Cows Revenge.
Ayes included Pearson, Cowley Republican Rep. Dalton Banks, Cheyenne Republican Rep. Steve Johnson, Riverton Republican Rep. Pepper Ottman, Douglas Republican Rep. Tomi Strock, Thermopolis Republican Rep. John Winter and Casper Republican Sen. Bob Ide.
Opposing were Buffalo Republican Sen. Barry Crago, Cheyenne Republican Sen. Taft Love, La Barge Republican Rep. Mike Schmid, Baggs Republican Rep. Bob Davis and Laramie Democrat Rep. Karlee Provenza.
Of course, Casper Republican Ide is in favor of it.
Frankly, for Wyomingites in general, and more specifically for the users of public lands (hunters, fishermen, outdoor recreationist, ranchers), this ought to be it in regard to political support.
If anyone of our three Congressional reps vote for this, they shouldn't receive our votes after this.
The views of average Wyomingites, by a huge margin, are clear on public lands. We want them to remain public.
And yet our Congressman voted to transfer 500,000 of FEderal land in Arizona and Utah over to private hands. It's clear that at least one of our Senators is okay with doing something similar in Teton County.
Wyomingites aren't in favor of this at all. Indeed, one of the most rabid Trumpites I know actually expressed bewildered opposition to this.
So here's the problem, and the question.
Why are Wyomingites still supporting the people who support this?
Politics are varied and complicated. The reasons that Wyoming has gone so far to the right in its recent politics are as well. A lot of it has to do with social issues, abortion, transgenderism, immigration, and so on, and much of that, here, has to do with the death of the Democratic Party and there being, seemingly, no where else to go.
But at least on the local level there certainly is, and what Wyomingites are presently doing is not in their own best interest.
Much of what they're currently doing is, frankly, based on a host of lies. Donald Trump was not the victim of a stolen election with Joe Biden won. Joe Biden won. Global warming is not a fib. The long drift away from coal cannot be arrested. The state's petroleum industry was never under any governmental assault (leases went up under Biden). There is no war on the West. The region's agricultural sector isn't under governmental attack, but rather under real estate developer attack. The Democrats really weren't advancing gun control.
But we've been bought off on a bunch of dramatic assertions designed to cause the rise up of what plaintiff's lawyers call our "lizard brain".
Well, now we have a whole host of legislators, many from out of state, who don't share local values at all, and a Congressional delegation that is more interested in supporting the agenda of the far right and its ostensible leader, a nearly 79 year old real estate developer suffering from dementia, than paying attention to what we actually believe.
And that's because that's exactly what we let them do.
In reality, those close to the inside know that John Barrasso doesn't believe what he's supporting. It's pretty clear from her past that Cynthia Lummis doesn't either. Harriet Hageman, well she probably does, as she's a political family that has always had this set of views. Having said that, and importantly, she intends to run for Governor next election and Chuck Gray, who is a Californian with very little connection to Wyoming, will run for House.
In the next election Wyomingites have a chance to make their views known, although they really need to start doing so right now. That can have an impact. John Barrasso, in the last election, adopted a whole host of new views he probably doesn't hold at all to hold off an attack from his right. Lummis just quietly mostly didn't say what her views actually are the last time she ran, which she could do under the circumstances, and which leaves her room to maneuver.
Maneuvering will, it must be noted, need to occur. In 2026 the House is going to be Democratic and the MAGA reign will be over, save for in Wyoming, where there's every reason to belive it will keep on keeping on.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus of its day, the Johnson County invaders.
Much of this, we'd note, is perfectly consistent with Wyoming's history. Early on Wyoming sent a solidly Republican group of legislatures to our solon in Cheyenne in spite of its association with large outside agricultural interest which were oppressing local interest. That didn't end until the invasion of Johnson County in 1892 which briefly swept the Republicans out of power, and brought Democrats into the legislature and which sent Governor Barber packing, although not until after he tried to actually remain as Governor a la Trump insurrection in a way. That event, however, shows the electorate can react. It also shows us that politicians can too, as Francis E. Warren managed to survive the event, career entact, when really she shouldn't have, by changing views.
And this is happening in Montana, which was a little in advance of Wyoming in tilting to the far right, right now.
Just sitting and complaining "well that's not what we think" won't get much done.
Politicians from any party ought to represent the views of their state. They ought to also intelligently lead. There's not much intelligence being manifested in the populist far right, which is mostly acting with a primitive response on a set of social issues combined with false beliefs, andy in Wyoming, with views they brought up from their own states which don't have much to do with us here. We aren't Sweet Home Alabama.
But that won't happen unless Wyomingites educate themselves as to the truth, and what is truly going on, and how they're simply being fed raw meat for the dogs. Until that occurs, we're going to go further into the abyss.
Remember that some things aren’t for sale: Wyoming's congressional delegation should review the "Code of the West" before they sell off our public lands, attorney Ryan Semerad writes.
In reality, capitalism is based on the idol of money. The lure of gain gradually destroys all social bonds. Capitalism devours itself. Little by little, the market destroys the value of work. Man becomes a piece of merchandise. He is no longer his own. The result is a new form of slavery, a system in which a large part of the population is dependent on a little caste.
I'm all for rewilding, but Dire Wolves have been extinct for 10,000 years and preyed, in their day, on megafauna. Presumably any return of the Ice Age species will be limited to captivity. . at least for now.
I'm not so sure about this.
Notable, the company that cloned them back into existence says they have not, so far, shown any dog like behavior, which is perhaps not too surprising given their evolutionary history, which is debated. Some classify the large canine as Canis dirus dirus, a species in the canine family that shares a distant canine ancestor, Canis chihliensis, with wolves and dogs, with the wolf, canis lupus, being the direct descendant of that species with the dire wolf has an intervening one. Others proposed that dire wolf has essentially the same linage, but is sufficiently separate such that it deserves its own genus, and should be classified as aenocyon dirus. Frankly the cloning effort would suggest that those who disfavor a separate genus are correct, as a domestic dog hosted the puppies as embryos.
Dire wolves, it should be noted, were absolutely huge, which makes sense as they killed megafauna.
This blog has a completely different theme, rather obviously. So what I'd normally do is post some personal and more universal items. I'll just do both here, in the worried sort of way both of the above posts are.
This blog is heavily invested in the concept of Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic, which is:
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.
Aldo Leopold.
We also have a very holistic view of things, in the true meaning of the word. That is, everything is connected. And we also, as people here know, have a very Agrarian, Wendell Berry, view of the world. We are part of nature and we need to acknowledge that, and be true to our natures.
We haven't been acting like that for quite some time. And both the political left, and the political right, are guilty of that.
The populist right, of course, just came into power. And much of its political ethos is based on ignorance combined with the love of money. At no point in American history since 1860, when the Southern wealthy lead the Southern yeoman into a fight to preserve something that benefited the rich, and not the poor, has one class so fogged the intellect of another such that those who stand most to be hurt by developments are fully backing them.
Nearly everything those who love the outdoors, use the outdoors, or depend on the outdoors will be under full out assault in the next four years.
Sportsmen, agrarians, conservationist, farmers, ranchers and environmentalist will have to be very much on guard the next four years. Sadly, many in some of these categories vote for the very forces that stand to hurt, or even destroy them.
