RIMSHOTS: This cowboy on wrong end of leash

Life above ground too risky for some

By Noble Collins
Gazette Columnist

The Gazette is no more. The paper version , anyway.

I’m still wrestling with this fact as I take a long walk with my faithful Chihuahua companion, Cowboy. He pulls hard on the leash as we crunch deeper and deeper into the Ponderosas, putting everyday concerns more and more into perspective behind us.

“Come on,” he seems to say, “let’s get to a place where we can look at this in reality.”

“Did you do harm?” he asks

“I don’t think so. Certainly none was intended. I tried to inform and entertain as much as anything.”

“Were you true to your understanding of the truth?” he continues.

“I hoped to represent the truth, no matter what it revealed,” was my reply

“You seemed rather eager to challenge misunderstandings and false statements.”

“It’s because I want 'truth' to prevail in any society in which I live,” I answered.

“How can I believe in and enjoy my life if it is not true?"

(I know dogs don’t actually speak, but this one channels mighty well.)

Ultimately, there are only two sides to Mankind’s Progress. One side wants continued improvement to what has been accomplished and proved true over the eons - a slow, but steady improvement to Life in all its vast array of “awesome wonder.”

The other side is troubled. It is afraid. It lacks the self confidence needed to allow anything risky to be presented.

Their world is full of Devils.  They actually believe that at any point in history, they have the Universe captured in a bottle, and they desperately guard the top from coming loose.

Compromise, accommodation, examination or inquiry are far too risky to attempt. To their rigid world, this represents chaos.

Understandings different from their narrow, nervous Status Quo are fought off.. Examination, study or research are dangerous. Worse, they are heresy in a strange belief system invented to “protect” them from the “overpowering” forces they fear they are too weak to withstand.

In the past, millions of people died not knowing that the earth is round and that it revolves around the sun. Cholera was long accepted as being a punishment for sins. Capricious gods ran the universe. Attempts at discovering the truth were punished severely. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does its modern counterpart. It still goes on.

“Here’s the thing, Cowboy,” I tell him.

“I like the world we live in a lot.”

I think the world has improved decade by decade for many generations, and it’s a pretty good place in which to live for the most part. Of course, there are huge problems left to overcome, but look how far we have climbed due to the efforts of many good people.

Fluoride didn’t lead to Communist domination after all. Galileo’s discoveries, or Newton’s or Einstein’s didn’t condemn us to eternal Hell. There were no witches in Salem, after all. Communism didn’t infiltrate and take over our government, nor Socialism, nor Fascism nor a Dictatorship.

Our system of government seems to have held up pretty strong in spite of angry challenges. People who see it crumbling are shortsighted in my view.

It isn’t perfect. It never has been. It merely acts in a way far superior to any other system ever devised.

We VOTE, and we even allow idiots to have a say. The flexibility of our government is what makes it stand apart from all others, in my view. The Principles never change.

As long as Good Men and Women are in the majority, we will survive, as we should. If The United States fails, what is there left on earth to hope for? Isn’t that what that radical social engineer, Abe Lincoln, had to say?

The Dark Side dealt with Abraham and John and Bobby and Martin (and Galileo and Newton and others), and they may yet be assembling a plan to deal with the latest threat. Their ant chamber has been disturbed once again. Reason and discussion are being shunned like the poison they represent to these programmed souls. Life above ground is too risky for them. Too uncertain.

“Well, hopefully it’s like this,” says Cowboy.

“There are eight billion people in the world. Not all of them are bad, and the ones who are don’t all have access to weapons of mass destruction. History shows that Light eventually overcomes Darkness. The sky can’t be shouted down. Darth Vader can make life miserable for a time, but The Force resumes its rightful place in the end..”

Sometimes I think Cowboy is on the wrong end of the leash.