I’m a sucker for the
cowboy. My bookshelves sag under the weight of Cormac McCarthy and
Larry McMurtry novels. I have spent summer wages on Ian Tyson CDs
and Willie Nelson concert tickets. My favorite Clint Eastwood film
is Unforgiven, not Million Dollar
Baby.
But even I was surprised when the 2005
Montana Legislature drew its six-shooter and plugged two great
icons of the mythical West: the smoky old saloon and the beer can
tossed in the ditch.
The dust is still clearing, but it
looks like Montana will phase out smoking in public places,
including bars, by 2008. And this year Montana will become the 49th
state to ban open containers of alcohol in automobiles.
Sakes alive, what’s next? A bag limit on coyotes?
Of course, being a cowboy isn’t about cows. Cowboys are about
freedom. It’s about not being fenced in. Following your own
trail. Doing right, ‘cause its the right thing to do, not
‘cause some smarty-pants from the government told you to.
The Cowboy Way has a libertarian streak as wide as I-90.
After all, Montana is the state that for more than a year had no
numeric speed limit. We could drive as fast as we wanted, as long
as it was “reasonable and prudent.” Montana eventually imposed a 75
mph speed limit, but only because the feds threatened to withhold
millions in federal highway funds that keep our interstates from
reverting back to buffalo trails.
Freedom is still a high
card in the political poker hand. But a new card is in the deck:
Responsibility.
When the Legislature first considered
banning smoking in bars, casinos and restaurants, there was the
predictable roar of opposition. “Private property rights!” bellowed
the Marlboro Men. “If folks are afraid of a little smoke, they can
stay outside.”
Of course, pink, healthy lungs are private
property, too. And the single moms slinging hash and serving beer
have a right to avoid unnecessary trips to the oncologist, and they
deserve a chance to bear healthy, full-term babies.
Truth
is, the writing was on the wall. Polls showed that, even in
Montana, voters were more than happy to ban smoking in public
places by ballot initiative. The Marlboro Men knew what was good
for them: phasing in agreeable regulations instead of getting
walloped by a ballot initiative.
The debate over open
containers was as perennial as bunchgrass on the northern range.
Libertarians said there was a difference between
drinking-and-driving and driving drunk. If a fella wants to crack a
Coors on the long drive home from cutting hay or fishing or
watching the high school football game, what’s the harm, so
long as he stays sober?
That was the theory. The reality
is that Montana motorists too often didn’t stay sober. The
unspoken tradition in Montana is to plow into a six-pack or twist
the cap off a bottle of the hard stuff while cruising our wide-open
spaces. Montana graveyards are full of folks who pay the ultimate
price for this particular libertarian habit. And very often, they
aren’t the ones in the cars with the open containers.
Montanans are increasingly fed up with it and sent a clear message:
Keep your parties off our highways.
“This is one of those
laws that will start the cultural change that we need on the
highways of Montana,” said Mike Tooley, deputy chief of the Montana
Highway Patrol. “We hope that just the existence of the law will
make a difference.”
As for me, I think a little dose of
responsibility won’t hurt the Cowboy Way and will make
Montana the better for it. Think of it as a new trail that could
lead us to greener pastures. A place where real cowboys, for
example, raise their stock for better prices and higher returns,
and raise them in ways that don’t exterminate native wildlife
and where folks irrigating their hay leave enough water in the
creeks for a few fish. A place where neighbors get along a little
better, and the people, and eventually the land, are healthier for
it.
Ben Long is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org).
He is a writer in Kalispell, Montana.
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