Toning down the rhetoric on library materials. Are you entitled to live in a certain place with a certain lifestyle? If so, who ensures that? An update on the rancher vs. the oil company.
Thoughts on library materials.
One of the major culture war issues has been over books at libraries. What should the libraries have? What should they not? You're likely aware of it; how could you not be with coverage aplenty on it from both sides.
One little corner of this fight is over who is asking for books to be removed from libraries. That is, a major contention by those on the leftist side of the fight allege that it's not actually parents asking for books to be removed, it's national organizations reaching in to local libraries.** If not, it must be local people acting on a push from national organizations.
Such is the substance of the segment from the Next program linked below. They interview Garfield Public Library's Director James LaRue on the topic of trying to have books removed from libraries.
Watching this I got a little concerned about what Mr. LaRue was saying. The words he used have, to me, allusions that are a little beyond hyperbolic and unsavory. I also wasn't quite sure whether he was referencing strictly the case of when outside groups come in to ask for books to be removed or whether he was including local parents requesting a removal in his remarks.
I looked up his work email and sent him the questions you see in screenshot 1 attached.
I got the response you see in screenshot 2. When I followed up because he didn't answer about whether or not he included local parents in his remarks, I got the email you see in screenshot 3.
Mr. LaRue and I overlap in some ways and not in others.
He and I agree on the fact that parents have the right to oversee the library use of THEIR children, but (outside of obviously beyond-societally-acceptable things like a book extolling the virtues of being molested to children) not to oversee what others read.
I am not at all interested in telling another parent or adult what they can and can't read. And when it comes to libraries, I want more ideas and not less. Still, I do want a say over what my child can access there.
He and I disagree strongly about his heated rhetoric and how he approaches this issue, however. It is not (repeat NOT) okay in my view that he would characterize those he disagrees with in the way he has.
The issue here is more than semantic too. Thoughts become actions. "Othering" people you disagree with has a long history (and a long history on the Next program for conservatives), almost always with bad outcomes for all. If you see
We can all disagree on some things and agree on others. What you see with extremists (from whatever perspective you choose) is very much on display here: extremists are just opposite sides of the same coin.
Lost, apparently, to Mr. LaRue is just how much his own rhetoric could be reflected back at him by people on the other side of the issue (with just as nasty a set of consequences for us all). Lost is how much his own words echo those of the other side, just with the roles reversed.
Just as I don't want someone telling me what to check out, I do not want someone who has an attitude like the one Mr. LaRue seems to display running things because it would be all too easy to imagine his passion getting the better of him if a case arose where he had the chance to go around a parent.
Maybe it wouldn't. I would hope it wouldn't. Still, his words make me wonder.
You know what I'd like to see? You know what I'd like to see?
Why on earth can't we have books that require parental permission for a child under a certain age to check out? If someone wants their child to read the (frankly bizarre and, to me, disgusting) books that you hear quoted often, let them. It's their child. I could affirm that I don't want my child getting any of those books though.
Not perfect, but I think it lets people decide for themselves and for their families and I think that is all reasonable parents are wanting.
When you cut through the culture war noise, I think that's all they're wanting.
**I don't know if you recall, but this is precisely why the editor of a local mountain paper was suing to get ahold of the identity of someone who was asking for a book to be removed from the local library. Getting the identity of the requesting party has been an ongoing court fight that is at the level of the state appellate courts if memory serves.
Are you entitled to live in a certain place with a certain lifestyle? If so, who ensures that?
The Sun article below profiles people who are living in an RV because they can't afford a home.** As anyone who has read enough of the Sun could probably guess, the profile plays up the struggles of people who live in RV's and, of course, details the horrible trials they go through. If the topic is of interest, give it a read.
What I want to touch on with this post is the question of whether or not you're owed a particular way of life in a particular place. I would say you're not, but the tone (and even words sometimes) of articles and people in this state make me wonder if perhaps others think you are.
Think about all the articles like the ones below that deal in how this or that could solve the housing crisis while allowing people here to live their best lives. Often, these solutions would also require some form of government intervention or help--either with money, relaxing rules, or suchlike.
As I sometimes do, I take the questions I have, the things I wonder about, and flip them inside out or turn them around in my head to look from a new angle.
In this case, this leads me to the question whether or not we SHOULD be trying to shoehorn people into this state and ease the burdens of living here. Is it morally right and is it in the best interest of everyone?
Perhaps it is a mark of my encroaching middle age, but when I was younger, it feels like this was not assumed. When I was younger, and I'm sure some part of this is nostalgia so please speak up to correct me if you know of counterexamples, the way I was raised was to essentially follow the rule "you can have whatever kind of thing or life you can fund."
This guided my choice of living space and location. This guided my choice of job. This guided everything: if something was too expensive or difficult, I didn't try to do it (or I learned a lesson of why I shouldn't have tried).
In the article below, a young couple (woodland firefighter/paramedic and nurse anesthetist student) are profiled. They sold their house because the nurse anesthetist student knew she'd have to do lots of clinical rotations in different places and they knew renting would be expensive and difficult.
Buying an RV seemed like a good alternative, but it's turned out to not be all its cracked up to be. For example, from the numbers quoted in the article, they're pouring our cash to fund a trailer space at a park in the mountains and not really getting good service for their money.
Others mentioned live in vehicles because it's too expensive to buy or rent where they want to be. Regulations about where and how you can park said live-in vehicle are making life hard for them.
I sympathize. I've not had these particular troubles in my own life, but my life has been far from free of problems I assure you. My past is also littered with what seemed brilliant but were really bad ideas. Bad ideas that were costly and wasted a lot of my resources.
The thing is, the expectations, the orientation to life and how to live it, that were given me when I was young were such that if I wanted to be a nurse anesthetist and couldn't afford to do it in and around the mountains, I would either change my plan in some way (maybe go to school out of state where it's cheaper, maybe rethink my career choice). And, if I couldn't afford a home in Colorado and wanted a home, I'd find a different place to live.
What I mean is that I wouldn't stick so hard to the idea that it had to be here and it had to be now. The conversation wasn't "housing is so expensive in Colorado that people can't afford to be here and [fill in the blank], and someone needs to do something", it was "if [fill in the blank] is your dream, how can you make it happen?"
Our country's founding documents list "the pursuit of happiness" as a right. It wasn't simply "happiness", and I think this choice is not without reason.
If you start down the road of saying that we should expect things will be a certain way, we soon expect someone to ensure or guarantee that, a guarantee or surety means a guarantor, and we all know that all roads that start there lead to said guarantor being the government.
And that's a bad idea.
I'm not advocating for hurting people, keeping them suffering or keeping them down, but, you know what? If mountain towns (or the Front Range) and the lifestyle to go with them climb in price, that's a signal.
That's a signal that opportunity might exist elsewhere. Maybe it's not opportunity that checks all your boxes, but it's still opportunity. It's a chance to seek it. That's all that we're guaranteed and that's all that should be guaranteed.
**In an interesting coincidence, I have read and listened to quite a lot of books about letting go of a permanent home and living in RV's as a nomadic lifestyle. Been something of a fascination since I was a kid when, for a "life skills" class in high school I set up my life as being one where I would have a big 1 ton pickup and 5th wheel trailer instead of a house.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/09/29/can-rvs-help-solve-homelessness/
A quick update on the rancher who sued the oil company
I wrote a bit back on a rancher who had sued an oil company over an oil spill and the dead/sick/contaminated cattle he had as a result (along with some other problems).
I saw the update below and thought I'd share.
The upshot is that the former Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (which is now called the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission--I've told you in the past about how the Left are deft managers of semantics) approved a fine for the oil company, but the rancher thinks it's too small.
Additionally, the rancher has a civil action against the oil company which has yet to go to court.
More details below.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/10/05/oil-spill-fine-eastern-colorado-ranch/