"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
— Proverbs 27:6
What does it mean to be free?
Not free in the bumper-sticker sense.
Free in the original, demanding sense: capable of governing yourself, providing for yourself, solving your own problems without petitioning a bureaucrat in Washington or Cheyenne.
If you can look at Wyoming in 2026 and honestly say its citizens are free in that sense — nothing that follows will interest you. But if the question gives you pause, read on.
Tom Lubnau, former Wyoming House Speaker, is right. Kerry Drake, veteran Wyoming political columnist, is right.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus got too big for its britches and has no one to blame but itself.
The Freedom Caucus confused a narrow majority with a mandate.
A majority in one chamber is not permission to remake the state. It is a trial period.
The caucus defunded the state's economic development agency, slashed $40 million from the state university, and restructured the budget in ways that threatened services communities had organized their lives around.
Overreach is forgivable. What followed was not.
Members accepted campaign checks from an outside lobbyist on the House floor during an active session — Checkgate.
That moment was out of character for people who had spent years fighting for Wyoming's integrity.
Wyoming voters responded accordingly.
The critics are right about the failure. They are wrong about what it means.
Before this conservative joins that chorus, let the record show what the Freedom Caucus delivered.
A 25 percent residential property tax exemption — real money returned to real families.
Expanded school choice, because a government monopoly on education is a bug in a free society, not a feature.
Repealed gun-free zones, because they read the Second Amendment as written.
Proof of citizenship to vote, because the integrity of the franchise is foundational. These were not the acts of extremists.
They were the acts of people who took their oath seriously.
Now look at the actual numbers.
Eric Barlow won the Republican gubernatorial primary with 44.4 percent. His two conservative opponents combined for 54.3 percent.
A majority chose a conservative. They did not get one.
The same pattern repeated in the Secretary of State's race. This was not a rejection of conservatism. It was conservatism divided and conquered.
Come November those voters will vote for Barlow as the lesser evil. They will win the office.
They will not have won the governor. That distinction will define Wyoming for the next four years.
Edmund Burke observed that the people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Wyoming voters on August 18 were under no delusion about the Freedom Caucus.
But there is a deeper delusion — one that predates this election and will outlast it.
The comfortable belief that Wyoming is not already far down the road toward the tyranny of an all-powerful state.
Friedrich Hayek called that road serfdom.
Not tyranny imposed by force — something far more dangerous: the slow, voluntary surrender of freedom by people who found dependency more comfortable than self-governance.
The road to serfdom is not a cliff. It is a gentle, well-maintained slope — and the people on it rarely notice they are descending.
Look at Wyoming on that slope. Honestly. Without the mythology.
Approximately 45 percent of Wyoming's state revenue derives from federal sources.
Government employment accounts for one in five Wyoming workers — a constituency for limited government that shrinks with every hiring cycle.
The University of Wyoming has drifted from serving Wyoming's culture to importing ideological fashions it has no business emulating.
Our health department expands its budget and authority while the health of Wyoming's people worsens.
Every agency that fails its mission and is rewarded with a larger budget teaches the lesson Hayek warned about: the state, once invited in, does not leave.
A Republican who votes for government growth endangers Wyoming's freedom just as surely as any Democrat.
The threat does not arrive wearing a donkey pin. It arrives in a budget line item, approved by a Republican legislature, signed by a Republican governor, celebrated as responsible governance.
If Eric Barlow's administration guarantees the bureaucracy remains in charge — agencies grow, dependencies deepen, hard questions go unasked — the Freedom Caucus will have been defeated but not refuted.
There is a difference. It matters enormously.
To the traditionalist Republicans who won: you were not given a mandate for the status quo.
You were given a mandate for competent, ethical, incremental conservatism. Deliver the half-loaf honestly. Then go back for more.
To the remnant of the Freedom Caucus: you are not finished. You are chastened.
Slow down. Build coalitions. Bring people with you. And next time — do not hand your enemies the weapon they use to destroy you.
Wyoming is the last place in America where the cowboy culture — self-reliant, plain-spoken, contemptuous of dependency and pretension — remains not merely a memory but a living possibility.
The people comfortable on that slope are not your enemies. They are your neighbors — people who made rational choices within the incentive structures government built around them.
They cannot be argued into freedom by contempt. They can only be led there, one demonstrated success at a time.
This article was written as a faithful wound — because Wyoming conservatives deserve the truth more than they deserve comfort. The road to serfdom has no U-turns.
Only the long, necessary work of turning around — one honest victory at a time. Wyoming is worth that work. It may be the last place where that work is still possible.
Do not waste what remains.
Fred Harrison can be reached at: Fred.Harrison@fjhlawoffice.com
