Reading Rone Tempest’s comment about my column in WyoFile got me thinking about the different ways folks disagree.
Rone, one of WyoFile’s founders, wrote: “This [column] is refreshing in our polarized country when people on [the] right and left seem content to yell insults at each other without attempting to rationally justify their positions.”
Opinion
Rone’s observation rings so true in many parts of the country and even in Wyoming on occasion. However, it doesn’t have to be, and isn’t always that way in Wyoming, especially in our small towns where I lived and worked for almost 50 years.
In Wheatland, and I dare say in many other Wyoming towns, “yell[ing] insults at each other” is reserved for only the most important of matters, like dividing water at the headgate or cutting a corner across some old codger’s well-manicured lawn. Thankfully, in Wyoming, most Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, don’t “yell” (or even whisper) insults about firmly held beliefs, and if they do forget their manners, there is usually someone around to remind them. Violating that norm runs the risk of being ostracized from the community, a serious penalty in a small town.
So, what is there about our Wyoming communities that makes those living in them reluctant to toss insults back and forth over belief systems and political matters and to disapprove of those who do? I think it’s the smallness. All Wyoming communities are small, but the smaller the community, the less likely argumentation will be marred by poor manners. The reason is simple.
It’s so much more difficult to be rude and “to yell insults at each other,” when you are sitting next to that person at Lions or Rotary, in church, or at a high school football game. I have found that familiarity is just as likely to breed respect as contempt.
Former Democratic Governor Mike Sullivan is credited with the oft-repeated description of our state as “a small town with long streets.” For my money that’s a pretty fair portrait of Wyoming. We don’t have to yell to be heard. We know and respect each other, even when we disagree, which in politics is frequent.
It is possible to disagree, even disagree vehemently, and still be respectful and courteous. Think of the Wyoming Cowboys. They scrimmage most every week, blocking and tackling, physically beating each other up. Does that make the offense and defense hate each other? It better not! The team, not the individual, is the focus. In many respects, all who live and work in Wyoming are members of Team Wyoming.
Another example: Some of the most enduring friendships I have today, were made in the course of arduous, hotly contested and emotional trials, sometimes over large sums of money or public policy disputes, even over life and death matters. Leading up to and during the legal proceedings, the contesting attorneys were trying to win for their clients. After it was over and we had (hopefully) gotten to know, trust and respect each other, it was hard not to be friendly. That’s the Wyoming way!
Thinking of all these things caused me to recollect the late Bob Harmon. He was a retired school teacher with a small cow-calf operation northwest of Wheatland. I didn’t know him well until one day in 1972, an election year. Bob was Chairman of the Platte County Democratic Party. I was Chairman of the Platte County Republican Party. Both county parties had dinner meetings scheduled at the Platte County Fairgrounds’ 4-H Building; the Republicans’ Lincoln Day dinner on Friday night and the Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on Saturday night.
The County Commissioners had rules for use of the 4-H Building. When an event was over, all decorations were to be removed. It seemed a needless waste to throw all the bunting and flags and other non-partisan decorations away, when the next night the Democrats would be putting similar decorations back up.
I called Bob and proposed that the Republicans would leave our decorations up if he would see to it that the Democrats removed them after their dinner. Bob agreed and proposed that we jointly purchase the decorations, splitting the cost. And so, in 1972 the Platte County political parties cooperated to achieve mutual goals — successful but cost- conscious gatherings.
Bob and I were never close, but after that event in 1972 we were always friends.
The goodwill and common sense of Bob Harmon is still to be found in Wyoming, its small towns and alongside its long streets. It’s the “Wyoming way.”
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