A good article getting at some of the things that I've wondered about:
This article notes the influx of out of staters into the Game and Fish. I've really noticed it. This has been going on before Bruce was installed, but her installation really emphasized it, and it's not a good thing at all.
We've noted that here before.
We used to really think highly of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, but it's really dimmed over the years. I still do, but it's not what it once was. I've noted that a bit here:
Indeed, I was recently stopped by a warden and frankly he wasn't very nice. That's a new trend as well. I don't like it. But not only was he not nice, he was extremely intimidating carrying a government issued handgun on a government issued gunbelt and wearing a government issued flak jacket.
I've really hated the militarization of the policy and this is all part of it. Everytime I see a policeman anymore, including a game warden, they're dressed like they're going into Hue in 1968. All policemen of every type are civilians. They're simply deputized civilians. They shouldn't look like an occupying army. And if the treat people rudely, and many do, and are standing their armed treating you like you are a detained Vietnamese villager, it's scary.
I've mentioned such encounters a number of times on this blog. The first time was when I went to great efforts to Jeep into an area all while on public land. I'd done it before, and received a compliment from the warden then serving that area. On this latter occasion, which was only about a year or two later, the warden basically flat out called me a liar and followed me out in his pickup truck, which he was lucky not to roll. He apologized. He was from California. The year after that, I did the same and was outright harassed in a very hostile manner by a different game warden. It was so bad I called to complain about it. I received an apology from the District Warden on that occasion. This past year I had the encounter above, which was scary to a degree.
On that one, it had a bit of a happy, sort of, ending. I called to complain but couldn't get in touch with anyone. Somebody I knew, however, who has a different sort of relationship with the Game & Fish called and it had a huge reaction from the warden himself, who is now my best buddy in the field when I encounter him.
He, at least, is from Colorado.
Anyhow, every time I look up a new warden, they're from somewhere else, and in the case of the Director, she was.
I didn't follow her service much. I do know, however, a man and his son in which the son had a live desire to be a Game Warden. He pursued it in college. He didn't get on. It's very difficult to get on, but he attributed it to a sort of agenda. I don't know if it's really the case that the agenda exists or not, but I sure liked the wardens better when they were mostly locals.
I don't want an out of state head of the Game and Fish.
And an episode all played out against the background of the state's GOP going increasingly to the very far right.
I'll note that this is "Pride Month". As I've noted before, I don't really get pride month for a bunch of reasons, one simple one being I don't see how a person can be "proud" of their sexual drive. That just seems odd to me. My views on the topic are found in the related thread links below, and a person can read them if they're interested.
I'm also kind of in the camp of the months just being the months, although I do see why Black History Month and Women's History Month got started to focus attention.
Anyhow, over time, Prime Month, which originally was limited to homosexuality, expanded out to LGBTQ, and that's another topic. L G & Q are related topics, but T is really a seperate one entirely, a fact that has caused some Ls to be upset by being included with Ts, and understandably so.
Anyhow, that's the topic of the post.
As noted, this is Pride Month and the Mayor of Evansville, on her own volition, put out small rainbow flags at the Evansville Town Hall. She noted that it represented a municipal spirit of acceptedness, although it was not a municipal act. It was a private one.
This shows something really interesting in general. For native Wyomingites, the view towards LGBTQ topics long was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone". That's the native Wyoming view on a lot of things.
For this reason, for decades, locals in this community would find themselves in the grocery store line with a man wearing a tutu (I'm sincere on this), and think, "um. . .whatever". Or in my case, "um. . . poor taste in dresses".
The current right wing populist view, however, is very much "I care exactly what you are doing and I'm going to force you to stop doing it".
For locals, therefore, this entire topic has been a bit odd. There's been the movement towards "you must accept", which is generally met with "What? I wasn't bothering you" while also being met with "you must stop them", which has been met with "Why? They weren't bothering me".
Anyhow, the mayor put out flags.
This was, in turn, met with the actions of one Evansville resident who went out and drew swastikas on the sidewalk in protest. In addition, he threatened to purchase German swastika flags and put them out.
Why swastikas?
Well, nobody can really figure that one out. Asked about it in a town work session, he replied:
Yeah, there’s a difference. I’m not that stupid, but what I’m doing here is to make a point.
And what is that point?
Hard to figure.
Anyhow, Evansville residents reacted by having a sidewalk chalk fest. Seems about the best possible reaction, really.
A lesson here is that street level Wyoming isn't nearly as far right as GOP. At some point, that probably begins to have an effect.
Another lesson may very well be that the center needle on this has moved on, giving us an example of Yeoman's Twenty First Law of Behavior for the second time in two days. If that's the case, social conservatives will have a pretty hard time actually moving things back to where they want, as that requires a cultural change, and that change may have already taken place in the opposite direction.
Somewhat related, Wyoming's lone Congressman is backing a bill in Congress to change Pride Month (and I don't know how it ended up being called that) to "Family Month". A Hageman Facebook post stated:
This June, I am proud to cosponsor Rep. Mary Miller's resolution to officially declare June as Family Month.
It is time to reject radical ideologies and honor traditional family values that have shaped our country for generations.
A press release said something similar.
Some Facebook wag posted in reply:
Where's your Hageman family picture?
Whoever posted that was probably well aware that Ms. Hageman goes by her maiden name, under which her legal career was established prior to her marriage, and not the last name of her husband. More significantly, she has no children.
I've always wondered if somebody would start to take notice of this. As a far right Republican, Hageman ran on family values but, with no children of her own, made reference to her nephews and nieces, which aren't ballpark close to you own children.
Now, women don't have children for a lot of reasons. Some can't, for various biological reasons. Sometimes their spouse is sterile, either due to biological reasons or surgical mutilation. Lots of times, however, children were simply avoided, a species of tragedy, frankly, for those who have had children and grasp how they complete your lives, and make you into a real adult.
In polite society, you don't ask, however.
But American polite society is nearly a t hing of the past anymore, and here maybe there's a point to raising it. Amongst the things the far right of the GOP has embraced is pronatalism.
Pronatalism is a philosophy that is based on the concept that (married) couples ought to have a lot of children. Frankly the general thesis of it is that "our" culture is dying and we need to combat it by having children. The concept has actually been around for a very long time and is sometimes associated with the phrase "the battle of the cradle" and the concept of "race suicide". No less of President than Theodore Roosevelt advocated the idea, stating that a man or woman who was childless by choice "merits contempt."
Which is I guess why the question is fair game in regard to the Congresswoman. I'm not suggesting that she has avoided children by choice (I don't know), and even if she had, I wouldn't suggest that, therefore causes her to "merit contempt" However, ff you raise the topic, well then. . . questions can logically follow.
The current GOP has become so focused on this that its floated the idea of a baby bonus, something that hasn't been paid in a Western nation for years and which has never been done in the U.S. The proposal was to pay parents of newborns $1,000, which is just about the cost of one week of Huggies. It's a stupid idea.
From the perspective of Catholics, however, this is a lot of fish on Fridays' during Lent. You find people adopting something sort of generally associated with you, in this case children in marriage, but for oddball secular reasons, and as if the concept is brand new. Catholics don't have children in marriage as a part of a race war. Indeed, Catholics don't really recognize the validity of the concept of "race" at all, which is pretty plain if you go to a Mass in any metropolitan area of more than 10,000 people. By the same token, we don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent (or in many cases, the rest of the year) as we've adopted the Mediterranean Diet or something.
There's been some fears, I might note, that the current set of populists would do just that. It's quite clear that some in the National Conservative/Christian Nationalist camp, would do that if they could.
Anyhow, sidewalk chalk over the top of swastikas was a good end to an odd story.
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