To my fellow citizens in the Beehive State: I hope you may continue to find the motivation and the capacity to do good for our communities and build bridges with one another. I admire you for your attempts to do so.
I am deeply concerned about the number of leaders in this state who have no interest in actually nourishing our communities but rather providing giveaways to themselves and their fellow travelers in ideological and industrial dominance. They don’t care about people outside of their box and have little incentive to do so. They can preside over pressing decisions that affect us all in smug comfort, knowing that they and their associates are safe (and what’s even worse, more “righteous”).
I’m weary with the contempt these people show for health, for fairness, for the poor, for animal life, for historical preservation, for homemakers, for teachers, for children and for nature. We don’t want to live in a congested, uninhabitable world of “productivity” as it has been sold to us by the rich and cruel. And yet, somehow, we’re deemed the unreasonable and uncivil ones for not liking the program.
All of this is to say that things are not well in Utah, and judging from the cheerful corruption and asinine measures that each legislative session passes through their supermajorities, things will not be so for some time.
I say this as one without all the answers and as one who loves their state and its people. Please keep this in mind if you read them, whether you are a voter, nonvoter, or in a leadership role. I truly don’t think the above concerns are fanatical or extreme, and to characterize them as such betrays the coldness that has long seeped into our hearts.
We are capable of so much more.
Wes Long, Murray