Few things are more wondrously beautiful than a Wyoming sunrise bursting in the sky above our sleepy little village nestled in the Big Empty. Children rise, yawn and wander in their jammies to the breakfast table, safe for one more day from imaginary boogiemen.
Another night has passed without a bloody attack from the Zombie Werewolf Commie Atheist Other-People, and we have Chuck Gray to thank.
The Secretary of State for the Great State of Wyoming, Chuck Gray, is a diminutive man, smallish in stature. He compensates for that shortcoming by flashing his daddy’s fat wallet and an election certificate.
He was raised in coddled privilege and has never had to buck bales, rassle calves or trip pipe to make a living, and it shows. So, it stands to reason that his world view might be, to put it kindly, skewed.
Emboldened by Freedom Caucus nightmares of Chairman Mao, Lenin and Taylor Swift, Gray is proposing regulations that would tighten up voter eligibility and put a screeching halt to the voter fraud that is historically rampant in Wyoming.
It's worth mentioning that you can count all the bona fide cases of attempted voter fraud in the Cowboy State over the last couple decades on one hand, and you’d still have a finger left over to scratch your head over Chuck Gray’s paranoia.
Nevertheless, Chuck Gray has volunteered to stand in some imaginary breach and protect us all from what really isn’t there. THAT, friends and neighbors, is the essence of politics.
As a champion of limited government and individual freedom, Gray is proposing a government solution to a problem that really doesn’t exist by imposing restrictions on the individual. That, saddle pals, is the epitome of hypocrisy.
What’s next? Will Chuck attend a Freedom Caucus sleepover where everyone has the same nightmare about Trotskyite hordes from down south storming our border with Colorado to sweep north, polluting the minds of our young’uns?
Waking in a cold sweat, will Chuck issue an edict from his office uncoiling razor wire north of Rockport and arming the dancers at the Clown’s Den?
Will Chuck have one too many at a Freedom Caucus Kool-Aid Party, and dream that the First Amendment is misunderstood, that government really does know what is best for folks to say and hear?
Will he step into a phone booth, change uniforms and emerge to save us from words hurting our feelings, too?
You see, the business of a king, a dictator (or any government for that matter) creating a straw man of a problem just so they can save the people from it is an old and lucrative business. It is the age-old political game of crying wolf and knowing that people will come running every damned time.
Politicians like Gray know that the first time folks don’t pay attention to them, their game is up. Nope, it doesn’t mean that there was ever actually a wolf, it just means that their bluff was called and they were holding nothing.
I guess that the lesson in this is to keep your bullshit detector fully charged. That’s always good advice, but particularly so these days with so much snake oil out there trying to grab our attention.
Trust your gut; if something smells bad, it probably is. Use your head; if something doesn’t add up, the “answer” is probably wrong.
Life in the real world is tough enough. Don’t complicate things by buying into the private little nightmares of scared politicians.
Rod Miller can be reached at: rodsmillerwyo@yahoo.com
