In which I say what I am really thinking...and damn the torpedoes!

Well, the sun has come up and gone down, so it seems that the world will go on even after the election.

I’m trying to take comfort in that.

But I must admit I was looking for this online: A Way to Make the World Go Away

And for the first time ever, I thought, “Where can we go?” I am not inclined to think such a thought. I LOVE this place. It is my HOME – and I am in love with home. I will do anything to make home, and to keep home. I firmly believe that Whatcom County is the best place on earth for me.

But I feel betrayed that we can’t get, or keep, people that represent my point of view in our county government. We are down to one (God bless you, Mr. Crawford!) who does, and I can’t imagine the frustration that is ahead for him. I fear that the progress made in the last four years, when there was fairly balanced representation on the council, will soon be erased.

The mindset that carries the elections today, is not the mindset that created this county. Loggers, miners, farmers, entrepreneurs put in the hard work and used the resources of this land to make Whatcom County. There were numerous times that it was uncertain that Bellingham or Whatcom or Fairhaven or Sehome would survive, but the use of the land secured our history.

Today, that would be impossible. The industries that make Whatcom County available to middle class working families are under attack. Agriculture, a mainstay of our economy, is sagging under the burden of regulation and water issues. Land use policies are impinging on freedoms to farm, to build, to maintain the value of property which is the middle class’ main investment.

So much of the prevailing thought is nonsensical in my opinion. The logical consequences for their policies are poor, and for some people they will be devastating. Voters are willing to choose by emotion, not by thoughtful consideration. Voters leave themselves ignorant and vulnerable to emotional manipulation. Certainly, candidates propose good motives for change, but can their plan actually accomplish it? Voters don’t know. They don’t ask questions. They don’t think.

Those of us who do the research are held hostage by their ignorance. We are punished by their self-righteousness as they equate feeling good with doing good. The majority are so busy with exploiting the advantages of our lifestyle that they have no idea how it came to be. They expect to have everything – or at least more – and expect that there should be no cost to anyone to create this land of no risk and no need.

It doesn’t work that way. There are costs to everything, and in time, the anti-growth, environmental worship, government-should-provide policies will suffocate the productive industries and economies that are the foundation that makes this county work.

I resent that my voice has been drowned out by the self-righteous and nonsensical. I resent that I will have to share in the consequences when they come. I resent that, after generations of hard work and productivity, I will not be able to see my descendants carry on the legacy my ancestors began…because too many voters are ignorant of the facts and vote by their emotion.

Today, I AM bitter…but, as I said, the sun rose again this morning. As often as we say that things are so different nowadays, it is also true that there is nothing new under the sun. I feel that we must work that much harder to inform, and I feel badly for those who have given so much to that effort and saw no reward. It’s discouraging to look forward, and believe that you must give more… How? And sometimes, the thought is Why?

But this is the process of a representative republic…It is at times ugly. It is full of disappointment, and sometimes without compromise between its ideologies. It is The Grand Experiment, this land of liberty. Perhaps we will come to its logical end in this world full of sinners…So far, it is still the best system this world of sinners has seen.

And so, I won’t give up. I’m trying to take the long view and remember that the pursuit of liberty is not a straight progression, or a settled process that is formulaic. Americans preceding our generation have been in situations just as threatening to freedom and have persevered. We need to find the will to do that again, and right here, in our lovely, blessed Whatcom County.

Ever forward, but slowly…