I'm delighted at the response of a Wyoming legislator to a nanny-stater correspondent. The Blaze reports:
Rev. Audette Fulbright had emailed all state legislators, including Republican Rep. Hans Hunt, earlier this month to say she and her husband had just moved to Wyoming and were “seriously reconsidering” their decision amid the proposed expansion of gun laws.
“Ample evidence has shown that schools and guns do not mix, and in particular, guns in the hands of amateurs/non-professionals is extremely dangerous, especially in any highly-charged situation,” Fulbright wrote. “To expose our children to greater risk in their schools by encouraging more guns on campuses is something that we cannot allow.”
Fulbright also said she was concerned about “the profoundly serious dangers of fracking” and said the question of whether to leave was “wrenching to all of us.”
“I know of other new-to-Wyoming families in similar contemplation. Your choices matter. It would be sad to see an exodus of educated, childrearing age adults from Wyoming as a result of poor lawmaking,” she wrote.
Hunt’s response? “By all means, leave.”
“I’ll be blunt,” he wrote back. “If you don’t like the political atmosphere of Wyoming, then by all means, leave. We, who have been here a very long time (I am proudly 4th generation) are quite proud of our independent heritage.”
There's more at the link, including the full text of the messages exchanged.
So tell me . . . how do we transplant Rep. Hunt's vigorous independence of spirit to representatives in other states, not to mention the Federal government? Can they - and he - be cloned, perhaps? Meanwhile, a gleeful "Attaboy!" to him from this blogger (and, I'm sure, from many of my readers as well).
Peter
Having lived in Wyoming for a short while, I'm not surprised.
ReplyDeleteThe people I met there are very independent minded. They don't like being told what to do, and they don't like to tell other people what to do. As long as you don't hurt anyone else, they will support your right to do what you want, even if they personally dont like it. From my experience, it's almost impossible to get anyone in Wyoming to say "it's wrong that you can do that", unless it's something that hurt someone else. And carrying a gun is not one of those things.
I heard several stories of the feds coming there offering cash for various projects, and Wyoming responding with various versions of "we dont want your money, if we need something done we will pay for it ourselves, and if we cant pay for it, we'll do without."
One of the funniest stories (which is probably not true) was from when the feds offered to pay for more highways if Wyoming would only raise the minimum drinking age from 18 to 21. Wyomings response was "so what? we allready have two roads, North to South and East to West, we dont need any more anyway"
Coming from the Scandinavian countryside, where local people are very similar to that, I really enjoyed my time in Wyoming.
If you came there and talked to them as a guest in their area, and treated them as equals, they were the friendliest people I've ever met. The people that came there with big city attitudes got the "why don't you just leave?" treatment.
Born there, lived nearby most of my life. The state's greatest accomplishment is enough economic growth to keep their children from having to leave to find employment.
ReplyDeleteI sent an "attaboy" email to his office.
ReplyDeleteIf CO, WA, OR and a bunch of other formerly red states had done this in the first place, they wouldn't be the communist hellholes they are today.
ReplyDeleteYee-hah! Now that's America talking! Realtors in that state (and most others) should have signs stating "Californians and New Englanders need not apply".
ReplyDelete