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For the week of  September 12 - 18, 2001

  News

Utah town doesn’t know what ‘tyrannical government’ is

Commentary by PAT MURPHY


The tiny Utah town of Virgin is the latest to develop the "us against them" syndrome by enacting a law requiring residents to keep a gun and ammunition in their homes.

What’s sad is the ordinance’s rationale — for "protecting citizens from street thugs and tyrannical government."

With a gun in every homeowner’s hands, is tiny Virgin preparing for a shootout with the ill-defined "tyrannical government" that Virgin considers so menacing?

And who is the "tyrannical government" the town of Virgin loathes — such benign entities as Utah’s congressional delegation, Social Security, the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Institute for Health, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration? Who?

Virgin’s political leaders must’ve been asleep during civics classes in school.

Ordinance No. 2000-06-15 claims that "Federal, State and local government appear to be content to allow special interest groups to be the deciding factor in what the private citizens can and cannot do."

Someone should’ve told Virgin’s elected officials that laws determining "what private citizens can and cannot do" are written and enacted by elected officials, not by "special interest groups."

Oh, and Virgin also detests the Grand Canyon Trust, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Utah Wilderness Coalition. So, it adopted Resolution No. 99-05-20D declaring them to be "persona non grata (not welcome) in our community." So there.

The unhealthy paranoia about "tyrannical government" is the handiwork of self-serving politicians and institutions that exploit simple-minded fears and gullibility, and go far beyond intelligent criticism.

The National Rifle Association arguably is the most responsible for creating a mentality that leads otherwise genteel citizens into preparing for some mythical action by government against Americans.

Remember the NRA campaign calling federal law enforcement agencies "jack-booted thugs," using images strikingly similar to photos of Hitlerian Storm Troopers on the march and words suggesting American liberties were about to be canceled by government?

A few politicians who constantly run against Washington add to this "us against them" mindset. In recently announcing his retirement, U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican, said "I do not like government" — although he has spent more than half his adult life in Washington, and will retire with a government pension worth millions of dollars. Gramm obviously didn’t dislike government that much to hang around that long.

President Bush the Junior does his part to create doubts by regularly denigrating the federal government — although most of what he has today he owes to his father, Bush the Elder, who spent virtually his entire adult life at the public trough as part of the federal government as congressman, CIA director, envoy to China, vice president and president.

The folks in Virgin, Utah, don’t know what "tyrannical government" is, unless they’ve visited any of scores of countries where free speech, free elections, a free press and freedom of religion are banished, and people who’re thrown into rat-infested prisons for merely criticizing the government have no court system for appeal and can be executed on orders of an army general.

The only explanation for Virgin’s aberrant attitude is that local politicians (a) are simple-minded dunces, (b) they’re forgetful and ungrateful for freedoms that people the world over cherish or (c) they’re all the above.


The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.