I have a message for northeastern Colorado politicos threatening to start their own state: Y’all are nuttier ‘n squirrel turds.
There is, of course, another explanation for why a band of rural government big shots would want to secede from Colorado and create the 51st United State: They’re just dumb as bait. Take your pick.
I come from a long line of hicks, and I’m proud of that. My cliche-flinging forebears homesteaded the Arkansas Valley in southeast Colorado and western Kansas. Even here in the Front Range, I grew up tipping cows in Farmer Jones’ pasture. His name really was farmer John. J. Jones.
Like most hicks, I learned what’s what from an endless barrage of down-home zingers spun from my down-home tribe. If I were to tell them that a bunch of country politicians around Sterling were so riled up about laws we’ve been passing that they wanted to break out on their own, the proverbial wisdom would be: They’re too dumb to pour pee out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
They gotta be. First off, they’re peeved not because we city dwellers are trying to gouge farmers just to make life easier on ourselves. No, they’re mad because the state is passing toothless regulations on the oil and gas industry; because the state has recognized its homosexual residents as humans; and because the state has passed some wimpy gun laws that essentially affect nobody. For generations, none of the sheep or cattle ranchers nor watermelon farmers in my family ever needed or wanted a 50-round clip for the guns they always carried in their pickups. Folks like GOP Congressman Cory Gardner, and most of the Weld County commissioners, told the Denver Post a couple weeks ago that, “the governor and his Democrat colleagues in the statehouse have assaulted our way of life.”
If stupid could fly, Gardner would be a crop duster. Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway says that northeast Colorado folks aren’t getting their fair share of the state pie compared to what northeast Colorado folks are pouring in.
Seriously? Good Lord, folks. You gotta hide your crazy. Contrary to what he’s telling people, the gas wells out there on the plains are not the biggest source of state income. Of the state’s $25 billion budget, about $300 million comes from oil, gas and mining revenues from all over Colorado. The state’s big bucks come from the feds and paychecks — our paychecks. He and other northeast Colorado county payrollees want more money for local roads, schools and other services. Don’t we all? Sheesh. Conway couldn’t hit the ground if he fell over twice. Rural schools in places like Logan County get almost double the per-pupil funding from the state as we do here in the Aurora metro area. If you honestly believe that disappearing farms, struggling ranches and some gas wells around Yuma are subsidizing Front Range cities, you are not just sadly mistaken, you’ve got a handful of wishing in one hand and poo in the other just waiting to see which one fills up first.
Granted, the state is serious about ensuring that gas companies pay to take away a resource that Colorado will never get back, but just because your cat has kittens in the oven, that don’t make ‘em muffins, dude.
Let’s just say the impossible happens, and Weld folks get to create the Great State of Anxiety. Immediately, taxes for those kidnapped by the Bonkers Rebellion would skyrocket. Given what these folks have said, this would be a 21st-century confederate state, a place where gays are out and guns are in, Mexican immigrants are chased off and the new state guvamint puts a gas well in every yard. Do they think there are no gays in northeast Colorado right now? No Mexican-Americans? And do they think people from outside of The Great State of Anxiety would want to send their kids to college in Greeley or Fort Collins after the takeover? No. No they would not. And do you think that the tens of thousands of political independents and Democrats who live in northeast Colorado would want to live under such a cavalcade of comedy? No, no they would not. All of Colorado has graciously subsidized the northeast part of the state for well over a century, and we will continue to do so. It’s as much Colorado as is Vail and Lamar. But just because a handful of folks wound tighter than the girdle on a preacher’s wife at a pancake supper decide they don’t like gays, gun laws, taxes or the color of the sky, that don’t mean squat. It just goes to show you that when some people got nothing to say, they sure can say it.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
No, Dave never resorts to petty name calling or irrational arguments.
People just want to feel their voice is heard. When the liberal cities far outnumber the conservative rural folks, there is going to be a difference of opinion. Unfortunate, the way forward will always side with the liberal majority in those cities. I can’t imagine why rural folks feel their voice is never heard.
Dave, you seriously lack the ability to put yourself in the other guys shoes.
“When we get piled upon one another in
large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe” Thomas Jefferson
“Even here in the Front Range, I grew up tipping cows in Farmer Jones’ pasture. His name really was farmer John. J. Jones.”
no you didn’t: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tipping
You’re absolutely right, Jones. As kids, we were pretty wary of the cows, as they were of us. The only thing we actually tipped were patties and crawdads. The one thing we did like to do with the cows was feed ’em my pal’s mother’s sugar cubes. We learned early on that they did not care for Space Food Sticks, but neither did we. We referred to cow tipping as any unapproved activity out beyond the barbed wire.