I lease horses for a living.  My job is recreation and I come into contact with a lot of people with a lot of money.  The thing that keeps whacking me over the head is that when they finish the 20-30 years of the rat race and their rat has won, what they do is what was free all along.  Fishing, hunting, hiking, floating down a river, camping outdoors, pretty much all the things that homeless people do…they aren’t dressed as well and smell different but I think that’s really a moot point.  So, why do we do what we do?  If it’s not money, why am I doing this?  It’s not fun anymore and it’s the same work I’ve been doing for 30 years.  I am as successful as I am going to be at this job.  I’m 45 and I can’t get better at it, or younger, and I am the best.  So if I’m doing the math correctly …carry the 3…..it’s only costing $50,000 a year to “stay”.  O.K. that pisses me off, but look at the majestic beauty of a hundred head of horses running down the mountain and the dust rising slowly in the air…you can see this 20 miles away, it’s so clear.  Now, I know you can’t eat scenery, so is that worth $50,000 a year?  I guess maybe if you had the $50,000.  There are also some imminent zoning changes heading this way, brought to us by the good people of Bozeman, that will take away most of the value our land currently has.  We are lobbying against them but aren’t making much headway.  It will be put to a vote by our county commissioners and that will be that.  An instant “taking” of 95% of our land’s value.  That means I’ve wasted the past 20 years, and my wife’s, if we don’t sell before these changes take affect. 

I’ve noticed that all the people against sub-division, live in them.  I’ve also noticed that most are from somewhere else, like California.  So the translation, to me, is crystal clear.  “I love it here and I want to make it so no one else can do what I just did.  I live on what used to be farmland and because the farmland next to me is still in production, and I like the open space, I want some laws made to “protect it” from others exactly like me.  That way, me and these other good ecologically minded people don’t have to pay for it!  We can just quietly take the development rights from these dumb ole ranchers, increase the value of our own land, increase the taxes on his, and never have to tolerate any new neighbors… because it will be ILLEGAL for the farmer to do anything but farm that land.  I love democracy…provided we have the right person in the right chair voting the right way.  These farmers and ranchers are good people but they just don’t know any better and I’m actually quite glad they took as good of care of this land as they did, before our glorious arrival.  We got here just in time!” 

In case you missed the “frying pan in the face” point of that last paragraph, I’ll sum it up for you in the only three words you need.  These three words are the demise of our county, our state, our country, and possibly the world.  They have become a way of life, the way politicians get elected, our population has become obese and inept, and why All American business men and women are looking toward a more business friendly location.  They are also the template for why lawyers are doing so well.  Lawyers cost our country 2.2% of our total GDP every year and going up. Too vague a number, how about  $865 billion annually or $2.4 billion every day?  Still too vague?  Well for perspective, in dumbass cowboy numbers, $2.4 billion is 480,000 horses, valued at $1000 each, marching off a cliff into the ocean every day…probably not quite as beautiful and majestic as mine running down this hill because I’ve heard Bo Derek and Willie Nelson and most of the public are against horse death.  For more perspective, it is more than 27 times the annual budget for homeland security and the irony is, this is terrorism.  This is a “tort tax” of $9827 per U.S. family of four every year.  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that the three words are…SOMETHING FOR NOTHING!  When hurricane Gustav wipes out N’arlins again, we’ll see if our “below sea level” brethren learned anything.  Any bets?