[FRIAM] Vote early, Vote often...

[Steve Smith]

Dave -

> Steve - the problem is unambiguously defining exactly which group of
> people we are talking about. It is the same problem that constantly
> arises in discussions about political bases and the constituents
> thereof, versus the radical fringe elements.
I agree...
>
> Your "Righty" friends, fully prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse, like
> almost everyone I know that is affiliated with a "militia" are all
> bluster. They will not seek out a fight.
For most that is true...  but maybe not before pulling a Kyle
Rittenhouse... one of my neighbors who I like and have a lot of respect
for in many dimensions has a 14 year old son who handles his wide range
of big-boys-toys with a lot of respect, but sadly I can imagine with
just the wrong tweaking, him "taking a gun to town", and while they are
all well locked in safes, they have a plethora of them, and no lack of
ammunition. 
> Ranchers and farmers will be too busy dealing with a drought to take
> up arms against anyone. Plus they are mostly fatalists at heart and
> will "simply wait it out."
My community-of-origin (living there from age 5-12) were all
hard-working ranchers and sawyers and other folks who got dirty for a
living... the local bar owner and the grocer were probably the only ones
who didn't literally "sweat" for a living.   One of the crustiest old
cowboys I knew (father of a friend) was captured in an oral history
before he died acknowledging that while out on horseback he was always
"packing".   He had a tiny (I know the model well) Sears and Roebuck 7
shot .22 pistol loaded with snake-shot *specifically* for the very rare
rattlesnake he might encounter and feel the need to dispatch to protect
his horse (narrow trail?)... he only used it twice.   Another friend's
father showed up on national TV in the 80s with a pair of nickel-plated
model-1911 Automatics in shoulder holsters confronting the USFS, US
Marshalls, etc.   Ammon Bundy style, claiming they "had no right" to
enter *his property* which in fact was federal land for which he had a
permit to graze cattle but who had been out of compliance with the terms
for some time and refused access to the local officials.   Guess which
one I have more respect for?
> The police will be all to willing to wade into the fray, just as they
> did in the sixties. Ammon Bundy, BTW, supports BLM because his
> decidedly "Righty / Trumpy" faction sees BLM as confronting a common
> enemy - the State in the form of the police.
I have a friend who was on the line in Kent State... on the National
Guard side.   He didn't shoot anyone, but he says it still haunts him to
this day that he might have.

It is a sad fact that my tiny "spur" of a dirt road with 3 other homes
had to be given a proper name (no more Rural Route address) for 9-11
emergency reasons... it got named "Bundy Road" about 15 years ago
without my ever knowing it was up for naming.   So I tend to explain it
as "Bundy Road, like Al or Ted" but have taken to adding "Al or Ted or
maybe Ammon".  

We are currently in a "feud" with the Bureau of Reclamation, the local
Pueblo, and the Prime Contractor on the major water project underway to
move (most) everyone from private wells to "city water".   Our 4 remote
homes get the pleasure of having a huge industrial project involving
infiltration wells and pumping station in our back yard to feed a system
many don't want and will never reach us (with processed, treated water)
anyway.  It was sited out of sight/sound from us (and everyone else)
during the public input phase, but a minor tweak pushed it into our
front yards without further notice. I am fatalistic about the project
but my neighbors are exquisitely angry at all of the above and out of
solidarity I am supporting them as best I can.  

The project is terribly invasive to them (I have an 8' tall adobe
courtyard wall and trees, they are in very contemporary/modern styled
homes with huge picture windows facing the site, etc.) and after several
rounds of the BofR and others mistaking our private drive for a public
right-of-way, the project backed off to only needing to "trespass" on my
property.   To avoid trespass with me they would have to move a power
pole and rebuild a fence and regrade a road, they won't admit how
costly/delaying that would be and have kept making promises and
wheedling to get me to grant them free access.   They agreed originally
(3 months ago) to pay for a privacy fence for the neighbors, reducing
dust, sound, visual (both ways, cuz my neighbors all have lots of
expensive toys they are sure everyone is planning to steal from them),
intrusion.  I granted a 3 month temporary easement based on that
concept, but when the estimate came in (who knew 8' coyote fence cost
$100/lf?) the construction company balked and claimed they had never
"committed to anything".  And then had the temerity to be offended when
I wasn't ready to renew the easement.   They can squeak most
construction trucks in without trespass, but cranes and concrete trucks
and other heavy equipment really needs "a new road without a power pole
in the way" or a legal easement from me.   The savings to the project of
NOT moving the pole and cutting a road has to exceed the fence cost, not
even counting the delays implied.   BUT they don't want to set a
precedent, etc... so came back with an offer to plant trees along the
fenceline (as an expansion to the reforestation they already have to do
in the Bosque) which we accepted, pending approval of their specific
plans and making sure *we* could water them through the 4-6 year
required to get big trees into the water table here.   They have another
month of temporary easement to come up with a good "plan" and I'm
expecting a lame/lowball response and suspect they are just "kicking the
can down the road", but we will see.  

The bottom line is that 2 of the other 3 houses might easily have come
to armed confrontation if the Feds and the Pueblo and the Construction
Company had continued to attempt to trespass on *their* land, and I feel
like I"m getting a hairy eyeball from them half of the time because I
*have* given legal easement, albeit temporary AND with the quid-pro-quo
of some concessions around privacy/etc.  I keep expecting to see BIA,
Pueblo, Sherrif, State Police out there any month now.  Some of them
voted for Johnson/Weld last time, but without that choice, I'm expecting
a straight MAGA ticket all the way, down the line.  But I'm not angry at
them, or even "skeered of" them, but I am sorry for them insofar as
those attitudes go.   I don't know if they even know my politics,
excepting that I'm a vegetarian and think "guns are for sissies and that
a Harley isn't a Motorcycle and Ford is not the only truck brand".  I
still bring them excess eggs and tomatoes and squash and am ready to
help them any way I can, and trust they would do the same for me, but
not sure if I put up a BLM or Biden/Harris sign how friendly they would
be  My Buttigeig/Bernie stickers on my truck may be too subdued.<TMI,
TMI, TMI>

> The "flight" has already begun. Couer d'ALene Idaho was, last year,
> the number one destination of Californians who identify as other than
> Democratic. There will be conflicts for sure, but along the axes of
> wealth and effete lifestyle, not politics. Within a ten square mile
> area of where I live, I can name more than twenty families building
> homes to "escape" California and its politics. And yes, I know,
> anecdotes are not evidence.

I'll see your anecdote and offer you my own.  I have a good friend in
Spokane who teaches the children of those folks moving in (and already
in) Couer d'Alene at the college level (he commuted 45 mins each way
before COVID).   Many come to him from a home-school environment, most
come with a strong suspicion of "Science" and while none have declared
"Flat-Earth", many declare that "Science is a cult/religion" and are
pretty strong Creationists.   He teaches an advanced lower-division
Physics course where he's trying to imbue his students with "Scientific
Thinking".  He's pretty confident that every year he's taken in 40-60
students who were deeply leery of him and his subject and turned out
*most* of them with a healthy understanding why it doesn't have to be an
either-or, that they can learn the scientific method and study math and
physics and even taboo subjects like paleontology and evolution without
losing their faith in the Bible ("if it ain't King James, it ain't
Bible!").   He has even had to ask one last year to "leave his guns at
home" since the school itself doesn't allow open-carry, and this young
man thought that didn't mean him.   With the new blanket "concealed
carry" in Idaho, he's thankful to not have to be wondering which purse,
backpack, or parka is "packing" in his classroom (he's doing 100% remote
teaching even though he much prefers in-person).

But that isn't the clap-back anecdote... just color for framing.   A
couple of weeks ago he went to northern Idaho (near the CA border) to
visit a friend who moved there 20+ years ago to escape the rat race of
California himself.   When he moved there, he felt there was a bit of an
antagonisticly "individualistic" attitude but he is a live-and-let-live
kinda guy, and integrated well into the "community" which was
significantly "summer retreats" for most.   In the last 5 years, he says
many of those summer homes have become full-time homes as those people
retired or sold to people such as you describe.   He still wants to be
"live and let live" but the anecdote armatures around his experience
that the few "wild west" characters packing a .45 on their hip and maybe
a deer rifle in their pickup, have been swamped out by modern camoed-up,
open-carry weekend warriors in expensive SUVs/Hummers, etc. with
oversized flags flapping from pickup beds, etc.   There is a LOT of loud
engine noise in the forest from off road vehicles, ATVs and a LOT of
gunshots, some clearly entire clips unloaded fast as possible from a
semi-auto (into *what* kind of backstop?).    The conversations at the
local cafe/store/bar have gone from "country lifestyle" things about
forest fires, pickup trucks, weather and hunting prospects to
trash-talking the places they came from (a lot from Southern
California).   He claims that many are self-identified "Retired LEO" who
"moved up there because they are tired of all the XXs and YYs and the
snowflake liberal P*****s", etc. (XX and YY => pick your racist name). 
As an old white hippy that could be mistaken for a mountain man or a
biker, he knows he blends in (and owns guns and a pickup truck himself)
but his wife (also an old hippy) who is a health care worker now only
goes straight from home to work and back and patently does NOT feel
comfortable among this new (or newly emboldened?) crowd.   She still has
a few friends she is comfortable around, but it definitely went from
"live and let live" to something a LOT more aggressive.  My friend who
has been visiting there for roughly 10 years every summer has seen heard
this change himself, but they live it.  The change in demographic might
just be the wave of baby-boomers retiring or it might have something to
do with the 2016 election.    I think William Gibson uses the term
"Ameristan" to describe this kind of right-wing Utopia-in-the-making?

I'm also surprised that you are comfortable with the Californication of
Utah?   Private property and all says anyone can sell to anyone and
anyone can buy from anyone (ignoring redlining practices).   It *is*
beautiful country and the new "telecommute" standards that came with
COVID do suggest that lots of urban/suburban folks may well move to the
country for one reason or another.  

>
> Those who will not / cannot accept four more years will take to the
> streets in mass protest. Unfortunately, it seems like those protests
> cannot occur any longer without arson and property destruction. And
> guess what the response to that will be.

Military-geared, unmarked (presumably) federal officers grabbing
protestors off the streets into unmarked vans, holding them in
undisclosed locations without charge for as long as they dare?  17 year
olds with high capacity semi-autos driving in from out of state,
shooting protestors to "help keep law and order"?   Sounds about
right.   Doesn't sound like a Right-Wing Utopia either, unless of course
it is only Lefties being snatched and shot....

(Un)fortunately right now Portland (and the rest of us) has bigger
problems (as Glen pointed out) than the amount of damage some protestors
leading to some looting and vandalism, or a convoy of Gun-Nuts
threatening (shooting at) them with their trucks (and guns).    My
daughter living there doesn't know anyone evacuated yet, but plenty
under evacuation warnings, and is preparing to double up and host a
family if it becomes necessary and I'm preparing to offer the same if it
comes to that.   We are a wealthy (and once-upon-a-time) generous
culture who can do a lot more positive things for one another than it
seems like we do these days.  New Mexico absorbed a number of families
after Katrina (and more acutely horses and dogs and other pets/animals
that refugees couldn't maintain while waiting to return, rebuild).  

We really don't need a civil war OR 4 more years of an acutely eroding
culture/Democracy.   Vote early, Vote often (as Donald suggests)!

- Steve


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