The Little Cowboy

Loss of Dreams

The Little Cowboy

Unabated Regulation

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

                When I headed out, it was just me and the little cowboy.

                He has never been much of a communicator giving himself to work on an as needed basis. Wind or rain, he has been a trooper. It was no different this time.

            We are continuing to rebuild part of a corral making it reasonable for both us and the cattle. It has been slow go, but water and other factors take priority in May and June New Mexico. Digging fence post holes, setting posts, and reconfiguring alleys have taken a secondary emphasis, but progress must be made.

On this morning it was just Chris, me, and the little cowboy.

            We gathered on the north end of the pens and prepped the little fellow. Making sure his joints were lubricated and free is always important. Like me, if his breathing passages aren’t clean, his endurance is lessened. We worked around him as if he was center stage.

            Finally, we began removing a section of corral fence. Short work and no complaints was the early byline.

            Like so much country in our neck of the woods, caliche is abundant, and, when we started digging post holes, only the first two were without problems. It was on the third hole that Murphy made his first appearance. The little cowboy suffered an injury and it required a quick trip to Hatch to get the proper first aid supplies.

            Back on the job an hour later, the digging continued. We set the posts in the first radius, retrieved and cut some drill stem for the next gate post and brace points, and broke for a drink of water.

            The little cowboy waited patiently.

            As often happens, we talked ourselves into modifying our approach, and decided to use another gate in what will become our loading tub. So, we pulled the 12’ post we had set nearly three feet into the ground and made the move. The little cowboy dug another hole without complaint. He didn’t even question our mark on the ground. He assumed we knew what we were doing.

That job was accomplished and it was time to conclude the corral work for the day. Cattle and water concerns demanded at least cursory runs to key locations. The decision was made to leave the little cowboy where he sat for the night.

The little orange 24 horsepower Kubota backhoe didn’t complain or even suggest he was afraid of the dark, but, as mentioned … he has never been much of a communicator giving himself to work on an as needed basis.

            Unabated regulation

            The unabated march toward regulatory straight jacket status continues.

            The 27 updates coming out of this administration’s federal agency Star Chamber rulings are hitting the heartland with a vengeance. For the uninformed, these are laws being written and promulgated by nonelected agency administrators and applied to the citizenry on the basis of interpreting legislation created by Congress. These are being added to the other 157 similar mandates created and enforced by these same proxy councils. Collectively, the new demands will cost the nation another $80 billion annually to comply. These are taxes in every sense of the word.  

            It is also a national debacle and a continuing threat on our existence.

            The details are tyrannical. A total of $33.1 million of the new burdens will come from added requirements to put labels on vending machines. The idiots who must be spoon fed calorie counts or nutritional data will be offered yet more dosage of detail to go along with the reams of detail they already ignore or can’t read.

            Another $18.7 million (which some sources suggest that the actual decimal point is off to the tune of 1000) will be spent on new insurance requirements for the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. The acceleration of spending in that national disaster continues to demonstrate it will have no bounds.

            Mandates are always popular with the agencies. A total of at least $141.5 million will be required in added emphasis of energy efficiency mandates. This will be added to another $44.3 million in energy efficiency hardware such as public lighting and light bulbs.

            The refrigeration industries are going to be hammered. That assault starts out with $246.4 million on safeguards to existing technologies. That will be added to some $486.6 million that will be required to be spent in walk-in freezers and coolers. Safety matters in freezers are important, but so is reasonableness.

            The automobile industry will be expected to fess up to its normal annual expansion of extortion spending in the amount of b’s as in $billions. A total of $1.42 billion will come from more stringent emission controls. To that total, some $583.6 million will be spent on updated regulatory demands for rear visibility in vehicles.

            And, the beat goes on according to the allegiance to social priorities and progressive environmental demands set forth in counsel with the agency partnerships.

            The federal rule by unelected officials, though, is not the only regulatory game across the fruited plain. From the left coast, California must have its day in the suffocating environmental web. The most recent indication is the quiet departure of the family tree of my little cowboy.

            Kubota with its Credit Corps segment has quietly announced it will leave California to the more friendly environs of Texas. In a statement by Kubota America CEO, Masato Yoshikawa, the stage has been set to differentiate between the current California interest in economic viability and that of the real world.

“This restructuring and location to Texas aligns with our strategical business objectives to strengthen Kubota’s brand in the U.S. marketplace, enter new industry segments, and to position our company for long term sustainable growth in North America.”

California loses another major corporation, and, with that loss … demonstrates another stride toward the model of terminal exclusion in the matter of real sustainability.

            Dream loss

            Meanwhile, the little cowboy sits ready.

            He also represents the outgrowth of social engineering factors that forces any industry segment toward automation. We have said he is worth 3-4 actual cowboys. No, he doesn’t ride or work cattle, but none of us should be so shortsighted to discount the ability of his family hierarchy to fix that problem as well.

            This whole matter of drones has my attention.

I have heard comments from my friends and colleagues about it. Most of them are negative and have suggested they wouldn’t be caught dead with one of those things, but I am not so sure. As these canyons get deeper, mountains higher, and flats broader, I sort of like the idea of sitting at my laptop and fly around to check things or to bring a pair of two off the highest points.

            The problem is, though, if we don’t fix the debilitating expansion of sycophantical, unelected, and tyrannical forces regulating productive citizenry to the minutest details, all of this is nothing more than waiting for the final collapse of the dreams of an America that actually believes in freedom and independence.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “As I write, the little cowboy awaits …”