Understanding the Culture in Color Country
Published by DanM December 30th, 2007 in Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions, Southern Utah People, Southern Utah Places.A Continuing Series
You can sometimes understand Utah by looking at how we act as a state. We’ve been doing it from the very start. For example, Brigham Young … who, for most purposes was Utah for twenty or thirty years starting about 1850 … made Fillmore, Utah (in Millard county, just to make sure nobody missed the point) the territorial capital in a fairly obvious obvious attempt at flattery for the 1856 presidential candidate of the Know Nothing Party. (Seriously! Look it up.) When it was pretty clear that it wasn’t going to help much (because Millard Fillmore, one of our most forgettable presidents, disappeared from national politics), they moved it to Salt Lake in 1858.
Utah is well-known as being an unfriendly place for those who enjoy alchoholic beverages too. (It’s getting better. When I first started drinking, the renegade county I lived in, Carbon County, was one of the few places where you could actually get a drink. We managed that because we pretty much ignored laws we didn’t like. Today, you can get a drink legally throughout the state if you follow the “mother, may I” rules.) But did you know that Utah was ‘the’ state that cast the deciding vote for the amendment abolishing prohibition? Just like making “Fillmore” the capital, it was mainly for show. Two other states voted to repeal earlier that same day. There was no question anymore about what would happen.
By contrast, Utah is one of only four states that never has ratified the 16th Amendment that allows the income tax.
I relished my time in CC. Always felt as though I was returning to the USA when returning to school.
That was in 1971-2
BTW Fillmore was a sort of escape from the established capitol in SLC due to fed pressures at the time. Fillmore was never intended to be a firm emplacement for the capitol. But was useful in removing by distance from the feds, the officials of the Utah govt/church from the feds.
Yes the name was to stroke the ego of Fillmore, yet the church would eventually spend around 125K for positive press to attain statehood. The buy out worked, won’t work for Mitt in 08, but such is another reality.
In the process gave up 2/3’s of what is now Utah for such as well. Oh so much more from the original Utah territory which encompassed most of what is now CO, NM, AZ, NV and of course all of Utah. then as today, the Mormons desired so much they were willing to sacrifice so much.
Vote Mitt!
I’ve been considering doing a blog on the recent Iowa caucus results, but I decided against it because I don’t want this site to become a “politics” site.
We have enough of those already.
But since you brought it up …
For the first time in …. well, “ever” …. I think an election process turned out just about perfectly. And since I’m a realist, that’s unusual. (Other people call me a “pessimist” - they just don’t understand how bad things really are.)
Let’s look at the Democratic side first.
That was OK. I like Obama. I like what he says and I like the fact that he called the Iraq mess from the start. I think it would be cool for the nation to finally start looking at people for what they are instead of what color they are. But I pretty much liked the other top contenders too.
But the Republican side is where it really gets good!
Huckabee’s win tickles me pink. There is absolutely zero chance that an evangelical preacher with neo-liberal tendencies can be elected President, so there’s no need to worry about a “Huckabee administration”. But he can, and he is, pounding a whole lot of Republican money down a rat hole. In particular, he’s pounding a whole lot of Romney Republican money down that hole. And that’s money that can’t be spent defeating good Democrats in the fall.
It reminds me of 2000 where another candidate who had no chance of being elected, Ralph Nader, condemned us to these eight long and horrible Bush years.
And being Mormon has nothing to do with it. I would vote for the best candidate — Mormon, black, or female. Kennedy was Catholic and was a pretty good President.
I’m against Romney for the same reason the Concord, New Hampshire Monitor is:
“If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we’ll know it. Mitt Romney is such a candidate.”
I ran into his kind of pseudo-upstanding rectitude a lot in my business career. Yah … He’s a phony.
Dan, I was rather joking with the Mitt thing. He is as reliable as snow fall, as well comprised of flakes. Didn’t think the mere mention would cause a shit storm.
BTW have you seen that somewhat recent cartoon on the net? This one; http://bp2.blogger.com/_yHHyDmKhTIg/R3oyWSGhUOI/AAAAAAAACHg/5gsFdR8wqoU/s1600-h/cornflakes.jpg
Though religion and or color should NOT have anything to do with this electing of a POTUS, it does and will. Too many willing to fail to understand that by the time anybody has risen to this level, probably has no real god and very little to attain to one either.
Their soul is owned by others. Right, wrong, good or bad.
Hardly a storm in the hyper-political climate we live in today. I was looking for a good opportunity to write that anyway. (But I’m pleased to hear that you’re not one of the “My Romney, right or wrong!” people.)
And your cartoon was pretty cute too.