From protests to politics: Montana is producing a lot of intoxicating whines

In case you hadn’t noticed, Montana is a heavy whine-producing state.  The vintners are many, from the Marxist professors and ranting radicals brought onto our campuses, to the farmers, corporate welfarists and chamber of commerce types, looking to government for special favors, subsidies and protections from competition.  Montanans are intoxicating our politics with cases of expensive whine.  Witness the “Republican” legislature’s latest budget bill (HB 2) that imposes on us an 18 percent increase in future spending.  Another session where, thanks to the unholy alliance between Democrats and liberal Republicans, whining wins and freedom loses.  We’ve made sots of our legislators.



When Bernie Sanders and “AOC” arrived in Missoula in their private jet recently, to lecture us on the evils of wealth-producing and environmental-polluting capitalism, these ultra-elitists decried the “oligarchy” of a democratically-elected president, who is actually trying to get a handle on profligate federal spending – including the billions of tax-funded largess going to their radical friends. Like all dedicated authoritarian leftists, Sanders and Cortez preach the gospel of envy and hatred, as true believers that everything good in society flows from government, and everything bad is the result of individual action by people who are entirely too free.  As usual, they lied about the wealthy not paying their “fair share” of taxes.  (Fact: the top 1 percent pays 46 percent of all federal income taxes.)  Their sign-waving admirers believed every word of it. 

Ambling through the crowd of 2,500 at Bozeman’s 4/19 Hate Trump Protest, the whining signs and banners were so thick that it was hard for me to see their faces.  Not a lot of love there – mostly profanity, swastikas and hatred.  Spooky, really.  Group-think to the extreme, while the frequent chant from the microphone was, “This is what democracy looks like!”  A better chant might have been, “This is what Marxism looks like!”  Unlimited government taxing and spending – while branding and slandering anyone who might try to bring spending under control. 

This didn’t look much like democracy to me – and certainly not like the free republic we once called America.  Cynicism, skepticism, fear and distrust were all around me, aimed at anyone with a different point of view.  That’s the message that rings out these days, and there is a chilling, spirit-killing aspect to it that is increasingly reflected in the politics of both parties, not just the Democrats.  The whiners are winning, and the true heroes with their thumbs in the dike are few indeed, and deserving of our praise. 

Once there were legislators like Senator Casey Emerson -- creator of King Tool Company and the Montana Inventors Hall of Fame.  Casey was the epitome of the American Spirit, who never quit believing in America.  He always had a dream in his heart, an idea in his head, a bounce to his step and a sparkle in his eye.  Most of his dreams in the world’s eyes did not succeed, but that only spurred him on all the more.  He never whined, and I never once saw him carry a sign.  All he desired – demanded – was freedom.

Compare this to the floor comments you frequently hear from the GOP Government Solutions Caucus and their perennial leader, Republican Llew Jones of Conrad, explaining how much the teary-eyed recipients of their generosity need their help.  Their latest “help” is a revamped House Bill 2 collection of slush fund accounts, designed to make it much easier to spend much more of our money.  Their “generosity,” of course, isn’t based on personal giving, but on forcibly taking the earnings of others and bragging about it later.  That’s what government does.

We hear this kind of rhetoric all day long in Congress, our state legislature and from the governor’s office.  I have some breaking news for these people.  We don’t need paternalistic politicians telling us how much we require their help.  Freedom is quite enough, thank you very much, along with a healthy measure of respect for our constitutional rights, our personal property and the liberty to be left alone.

Let’s put our whine bottles down, and drink heartily from the fruit of freedom instead – nourishment for the soul that never runs dry.

Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner. He operated a Bozeman small business for 37 years.