A GOOD DAY TO BE WASTING YOUR TIME ON THE WESTERN SLOPE

Sept. 12, 2000 - Last Saturday was one of those fine 200-mile days - a good
day to be on our roads. The weather was clear, most of the scrub oak had
already turned red, and a few golden aspen sparkled on the mountainsides,
harbingers of what ought to be better-thanspectacular by the end of this week.

The day started at the annual Club 20 fall meeting in Grand Junction. It
was an event that Doug Bruce didn't think was worth attending, even though
he had been invited to speak on behalf of his Amendment 21. Bruce declined
with the explanation that 80 percent of Colorado voters reside between Fort
Collins and Pueblo, and so why should he waste his time on the thinly
populated Western Slope?

That arithmetic didn't stop other political types from appearing in Grand
Junction. The morning started with a debate between Scott McInnis, the
incumbent Republican congressman from Colorado's sprawling Third District
(it's bigger than Florida) and his Democratic challenger, my friend and
neighbor, Curtis Imrie.

Given that McInnis had a million dollars in his campaign fund at the start
of this year (his spokesman said they were worried that some California
trustafarian with a chateau in the Rockies might run for Congress), and
that McInnis is smooth and fast on his feet in any candidate face-off,
there's not much question about the outcome.

Imrie did point out that he opposes the War on Drugs, while McInnis said it
should be "intensified." Just how any small-government conservative can
support the War on Drugs is a mystery to me - here's an invasive,
expensive, failing program if there ever was one, and it's getting worse
with our involvement in the domestic affairs of Colombia.

During lunch, the good people of Club 20 had to endure a 30-minute speech
from me about the political history of America's public lands. Afterward, I
had a chance to meet another person who wasn't as smart as Doug Bruce, a
fellow named Art Olivier, the Libertarian Party candidate for vice
president of the United States.

But I had to pass on that, because I needed to get to Montrose to hear from
another political type who was wasting his time on the Western Slope: Ralph
Nader, Green Party candidate for the president of the United States.

This was not a campaign speech, though, since he was speaking to Western
Colorado Congress, a non-profit group which can't endorse or support
specific candidates. Nader was instead speaking in his role as a consumer
advocate and an opponent of "corporate globalism."

That's an issue that ought to come up in the presidential election - just
how much control do we have over our lives and communities when major
decisions can be made in secrecy by an unelected three-judge panel in
Switzerland? - but of course it won't, since neither the Libertarian nor
Green candidates will be included in the televised presidential debates.

Like the major party candidates, Nader had something to say about
education: that our schools do a poor job of "civic education." Our
children are not taught how to be active citizens, he said. They don't
learn how to write letters to the editor, or to speak to an issue at a
public meeting, or to organize and lobby to advance their interests.

By and large, he's right. Our theory of representative government is based
upon a public willing to supervise and hold the boards, commissions,
legislatures and the like accountable for their decisions. And in all the
years I've gone to small-town meetings, I've never seen a school class on a
field trip to see their governments in action.

But then again, that sort of civic in volvement is what Western Colorado
Congress does, and it's what Club 20 does, and they're both thriving
organizations. Often they're in disagreement, of course, but they both
represent the civic involvement that Thomas Jefferson thought was vital to
a republic.

It's different from the latest Bruce proposal, Amendment 21, which in
essence says, "You don't have to pay attention to how your local
commissions and boards are spending your money and acting in your name.
I'll just cut their funding by $25 a year every year, with no opportunity
for you local voters to make your own decisions about these matters,
because you can't be trusted."

This probably would save some time and, after all, that must be important
to Doug Bruce, who's so busy that he couldn't find the time to explain his
proposal to us hicks in the boondocks.