I’m not usually one to do any kind of commentary with regard to how our political *factions in the state conduct their business, but a recent article over on KRTV gave me somewhat of a reason for pause.
Upon after reading about what the Gallatin County Republicans had written in their event invitation I began to wonder since when did Bozeman suddenly become the land of peasants?
You can see the article here:
… and trust me on this, my eyebrows weren’t raised because this sort of thing has pretty much been business as usual in the state lately.
My guess would be that our dear Republican friends can see the writing on the wall with regard to their less than stellar legislative sessions and can’t quite put their finger on exactly why they chose to use the term peasants.
At any rate, I find it pretty doubtful that the folks from Venezuela will be creating any problems for us any time soon. I think the problem we have here in the state originated a little closer to home.
Here’s a refresher for any Republican, or Democrat, in the state that might have slept through 8th grade history class.
It all started in Essex way back in 1381 … a rebellion that caught a young King Richard totally by surprise. The rebellion was over taxes — a poll tax to be more precise.
You see, the agricultural folks and the urban working classes had taken issue with what was known as the Statute of Laborers (1351) which attempted to fix maximum wages during the labor shortage following the Black Death.
Folks back in the day literally lost their heads over this, and though King Richard promised cheap land, free trade, the abolition of serfdom, and forced labor, thus convincing the many to go home, everything was quickly forgotten when things settled down.
Sound familiar?
Politics is to problem solving what a screwdriver is to pounding a nail.
Our Republican friends in Helena have seemingly gone down the path of Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, and Sir Robert Hales. I guess it’s just okay for Helena to cut a deal with Northwestern Energy on taxes while simultaneously removing the taxing authority from our counties with regard to property. Our local levies have failed and will continue to fail as long as the so-called sovereigns in Helena go-the-note on doing what they think is best for them.
So much for the history lesson I suppose.
We’ve got one party creating peasants, and the other party rushing in to take care of those newly created peasants, all the while complaining about how unfair everything is (it’s sort of a Made in Montana cottage industry thing we’ve got going on here).
It’s a dynamic that has summed up the political environment here in the state of late.
What I’ve gotten from the Montana Democrats — It’s not fair that the Republicans are creating home-grown peasants so we might, someday, have to do something about it. Maybe, when we feel like it, we’ll have to vigorously contest these HD and SD seats. But not right now though because we have to bitch about the problem for a while first before we go on about forcing our world view on to our citizens.
What I’ve gotten from the Montana Republicans — Oh well, we’ll go on about helping out our rich buddies (from out-of-state) until someone throws a fit about it. The we’ll back off and hold our hats in our hands for a while until everything settles down. We’re politicians so that means all we have to do is talk without saying anything while we’re forcing our world view on to our citizens.
The next time you see our state Republicans talking about the peasants, you might want to stop and take a look at why they might be talking that way and realize that the problems they are going on about are a little closer to home than you think.
This business with peasants in Bozeman is on the Republicans this time around. Next week at 2 o’clock it’ll be the Democrats turn to say something stupid.
Since I don’t align myself with any political party and just vote for the person based on merit, I might suggest that both the Republicans and the Democrats do a bit soul searching with regard to their respective platforms.
There are great people on both sides of the fence and I’d hate for them to miss out on great opportunities to do good things because they bought into a bill of goods that doesn’t even matter.
If the Republicans and the Democrats can ever expect to move forward in any meaningful way, I might suggest that the Republicans purge the Fascists from their ranks and that the Democrats do the same with their Marxist elements. Getting back to square one by eliminating these failed ideologies should be the order of the day as it might relate to Montanans and our Montana Values.
We aren’t Red, Blue, or Purple — we’re Montanans, and as such, we have a golden opportunity to unite and show the world how it’s done here in the land Under The Big Sky.
