Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
From my vantage point as an editor at seemingly the only publication with the star-spangled balls to hold the rotten status quo accountable, at least as far as I can tell, I watch the elected leaders in southern Utah smear their feces all over everything — themselves, each other, the citizenry, and the now the very Constitution of the United States of America itself.
It’s Independence Day. This is the day that we remember and honor the brave dudes who stood up to a mob of power-hungry thieves and said “We will fight for what is right.” I don’t feel too bad honoring a military event in this case as the Revolutionary War is one of the seemingly few legitimate wars this country has fought.
Apparently, few descendants of the people who stood firm in those days made it out here to southern Utah, but we need that kind of person here now more than ever.
How ironic on this day to note that Washington county Commissioner Dean Cox would advertise himself as a “constitutional conservative.” He’s been in charge, and look where we are … neck deep in conspiratorial bullshit between the City of St. George and Dixie State University with a shrouded-in-secrecy Lake Powell Pipeline looming on the horizon.
How ironic on this day to note that the Tea Partiers, with all their bravado and chest-thumping, aren’t up in arms calling for the removal of commissioners, the mayor, the president of DSU, the attorneys associated with it, and every other leech who has attempted to suck blood throughout the shameful Varlo Davenport ordeal, which has reached the boiling point in regards to unconstitutional behavior — not to mention the renegade and lawless “Posse” of Utah commissioners and their behavior over the past few years.
How ironic on this day to look forward to a Western “Freedom” Festival planned in Iron County, thrown by that pack of pocket-Constitution-wielding yahoos that routinely circumvent the law rather than upholding it.
How ironic that only days before the celebration of men who, unlike the Mormon pioneers, didn’t tuck their tails and run away like escaped convicts but rather stood up and said “We will fight for what is right,” Judge Karlin Myers — King of Mice — would attempt to censor the press in his courtroom in a frightened, desperate attempt to save the gangrenous career of Biff “the Spliff” Williams, who himself appears to have engaged in First Amendment retaliation, and bow to the will of the revolting theocratic oligarchy that is the St. George regime.
What a disgrace.
To blatantly attempt to censor the press is straight-up unconstitutional. It is to crumple up the First Amendment and throw it in the trash. It is simply un-American.
It is un-American, and we should not tolerate it.
We will not tolerate it.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. —Thomas Paine
St. George is growing, and as it does the subcultures that our wealthy and powerful “leaders” wish didn’t existed grow bigger and stronger every day. Southern Utah isn’t just growing — it’s changing. Quickly. The breeders can’t keep their children brainwashed forever.
What The Independent does is what everyone else, already bought and paid-for by the criminal elite, seems afraid to do: We will kick the stinking hornet’s nest — you know, the one that spews hornets who do everything in their power to subvert the law and cheat and steal the middle and lower class of their money and their constitutional rights and piss all over the law of the land — until that nest cracks and falls.
Then the hornets will scatter and die, unless the federal government — the one established by the men who fought the British a quarter-millennium or so ago, the same federal government that held the original thieves of this land accountable for perpetuating Joseph’s Smith’s mandated polygamy, thereby saving countless lives from the misery and abuse proscribed by that delusional sadist — gets to them first.
And if and when it does, we’ll throw a party outside their jail cells.
To the plutocrats who rule this land I say this: You can destroy a man, but you can’t destroy an idea. You’re still trying, and you’re still failing. Miserably. Embarrassingly. You and your ancestors have mocked the laws that govern the rest of this country for too long. You are the antithesis of the spirit that the rest of my country holds dear on this day. Shame on all of you. The people of southern Utah deserve better than you.
And when justice finally comes, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will never be able to put you and your sad machines back together again.
Happy Fourth, and remember that this is the United States of America … not the Kingdom of Deseret. You have the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Use it wisely, and use it often.
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Great job on this piece, Jason. I would like to quote one sentence, “You can destroy a man, but you can’t destroy an idea.” That brought to mind the problem we are facing with the so-called ISIS. We can keep on blasting away at them and killing them, but the idea is still there. Amazes me how anxious some certain politicians are to see American body bags coming home again.
I couldn’t agree with you more, sir.
I read with interest your opinion on DSU and Varlo Davenport, and also The Independent’s opinion on Professor Lewis’s status. I applaud The Independent’s courage to bring to light injustices. I appreciate knowing the truth. But I have a few thoughts on your mode of self-expression.
First, you threw in Dean Cox’s name without telling us exactly how he is responsible for the “conspiratorial b***s*** between the City of St. George and Dixie State University.” If I have missed a column previously published by The Independent regarding Dean Cox’s failings, please cite it and I will inform myself. Concrete information is the raison d’etre of journalistic liberty.
Next, you dwell on the “theocracy” in your vitriol and I feel your inclusion of the word reflects a misunderstanding of how the majority church works. You seem to criticize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the ultimate cause of individual human error and corruption. As a member of this organization, I know it does not function in this way. Unless the leaders of this church send a letter down through the proper authorities suggesting certain actions, every single member and leader in every church role are left to act as they see fit, and are encouraged to participate in local government as responsible citizens. The mistakes of the membership (sometimes deeply tragic, remembering the Mountain Meadows Massacre), reflect on the church, but we should not judge a 15-million member church by the actions of a few, just as we resist the Trumpian urge to blame acts of terror on Islam. The history of the pioneer settlers is the history of the world but we remain humans nonetheless, responsible primarily for our present actions and only secondarily for a past no lever or fulcrum can shift.
I, like you, prefer law and due process, and celebrate human achievement on this July 4th. I wish I had the power to do something to make right the injustices you mention. If you know how an average citizen could aid in this effort, please let me know.
Hi Carolyn,
I don’t have anything against Mr. Cox in particular. beside the fact that he is a part of the collaborative institutional machinery that has allowed things to degenerate to this point. You’ll notice that those hollering from the right tend to dwell on the Constitution. Constitution this, Constitution that. It doesn’t have much meaning when it’s not backed up with something concrete. When the things that are happening in this case (only for example) are getting no friction from the County Commission, it becomes implicated in the violations, among them being Constitutional violations. Hence the irony of one calling oneself a “Constitutional conservative” while doing nothing to actually defend it. Is there an “unconstitutional conservative?” My criticism was not directly of him so much as an observation of the irony of unconstitutional behavior happening on his watch. I haven’t heard him object to Judge Karlin Myers trampling the First Amendment, have you?
As for the southern Utahn theocracy in which we live, I could write a very long essay on this. I most certainly do not see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the ultimate cause of individual human error and corruption. However, as a primary source of power and wealth in this area, when there is political corruption, the church (and I primarily mean its legislative organization, not the 15-million member body) is implicated by the behavior not only of its members who are players in the scenario but also by the political environment that it has helped cultivate. I would suggest reading Chris Zinda’s opinion pieces on our site. I think he illustrates the problem pretty well, certainly better than I can summarize here.
What can we do? Speak up. Think for ourselves. Look deeply, and look again. Be skeptical. Don’t allow ourselves to be told what to think, what to do, what to believe, or who to vote for. Don’t allow ourselves to be silenced. Don’t allow the majority to speak for us, even if we belong to it. Smile. Breathe. Keep on keepin’ on.
The world of Gottfried and Hyland (and by association The Independent) is populated only by the good guys and the bad guys. This is a world without nuance or ambiguity, and where facts and evidence are sparse and only welcome if it supports the narrative. It is indeed a world of mostly vitriol and vilification. The opinion section of The Independent is a disgrace. It is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Marius, I have said it to you before, and I will say it again, it is impossible to get a man (or his wife) to see something when his paycheck depends on him (or her) not seeing it.
I am grateful for the only voice in Utah to my knowledge that will continually put it out there that a state religion here in Utah or anywhere in the world is more troublesome than anything when it comes to management and or government process than any other man made creation you or I could name.
The state religion known as Mormonism is problematic as it is the underlying thought processes being laid out in legislative actions connected to everything we take for granted here. Especially here in St. George…IMO the mindset is powerful that virtually anyone with a more progressive mindset is “allowed” a moment to vent but then there is always the “savior” of church principles that must ride into the battlefield to repair any and all possible discordant/ harmful words. ( See above for a full representation of my thesis in black and white)
As a last thought to this writing, how about a world where people manage or govern themselves without religions telling them how to manage themselves. Just a thought to my dear fellow citizens.
I agree with you, Greg, and much of what I have read about Mormon culture written by people who were on the inside (and I have read a generous amount) indicates that the church quite consciously encourages the idea that the law of God (as translated and dictated by the church, of course) supersedes the law of man. It has historically subverted law in order to satisfy its own agenda time and time again. I support freedom of religion, but as it has been said before, that freedom ends where another’s liberty begins. People should absolutely have the right to be Mormon if they choose, but when the ensuing groupthink behavior tramples the rest of free society, we have a problem.
Some of the largest congregations in Southern Utah are also of the Born Again sect who surprisingly often use the same rhetoric as atheists.
The Born Again religion is a splinter group of ‘Morminism’.
Another fun fact: those little b&w booklets with cartoons about how one philosophy/religion is correct and another is wrong are all produced by the same company and available for nearly every philosophy/religion. Joke’s on you!
PS — Buddhism IS a religion… the Dali Lama said so.
6% of the populas in Southern Utah read newspapers.
The rest just believe the schlocky Kim Kardashian-tranny- catch-phrase politics on the ‘trusted’ internet.
That’s interesting about the Born Again movement, I don’t know much about them but would like to know more. However, the Dalai Lama said that his religion is kindness, not Buddhism. Care to provide a source for when he said that Buddhism is a religion? While his scholarly knowledge of Buddhism is astounding (I’ve read several of his books), he is part of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan/Vajrayana Buddhism (there are three other Tibetan schools), which does not speak with authority for the many, many other traditions of Buddhism in the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. So really, no, Buddhism is not a religion (and I say this as a practicing Buddhist myself), although I’m sure we agree that anyone can turn anything into a religion if they mangle it badly enough.