Montana values: What does that really mean?
In a recent guest column (Daily Inter Lake, Oct. 27), Montana GOP Chairman and Whitefish resident and business man, Don Kaltshmidt, implored us to vote for candidates who represent “Montana values.” He then articulated some of those values, including, rugged individualism, responsible management and conservation of our landscape, fiscal sanity, and defending gun rights, and claims that these values have been abandoned by Democrats who are now feverishly preoccupied with “undoing the 2016 election,” referring of course to the current presidential impeachment inquiry. (Impeachment does not “undo” an election, but that’s a subject for another time.)
Don is well known and liked in Whitefish, including by yours truly. He has served his country and his community. He is, by all accounts, a man of reason and his brand of conservatism, like the man himself, is respected in this progressive community, even if not always agreed with.
When I read Don’s very generally worded list of “Montana values” my first thought was these are American values, and progressives like myself have not, and never will, abandon them. However, a closer examination of these values will reveal that each of them means something entirely different to a liberal and a conservative.
Take the example of gun rights. To a conservative, it means keeping the largely ineffective system we have now, and opposing all attempts to expand background checks or close loopholes. It includes allowing people with mental disorders to legally purchase firearms, which President Trump did by executive order shortly after taking office.
But to me as a liberal, it means closing the registration loopholes, creating a national firearms registry, better tracking and sharing of information among jurisdictions, and possibly a series of gun buy-backs like Australia has done. None of this “infringes” on anyone’s right to own a firearm.
Another example is the 2017 corporate tax reform, which we progressives call the 2017 GOP tax scam. Don likes it because it gave more tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Don is a wealthy and successful businessman and more power to him, but his personal and corporate taxes went down while mine did not. The promised “trickle down” didn’t work (it never has) and while tax reform has been credited with some business investment, it hasn’t produced nearly the amount of reinvestment touted by the Republicans. What it HAS done for us is blow a $1 trillion hole in our annual budget deficit, and allowed corporations to buy back more of their stock to prop up the share price----as correctly predicted by most non-partisan economists.
“Recent calls for the President’s impeachment,” as Don K. puts it, have not come without good cause. Don supports the President, but does the President embrace Montana values? Is Trump’s thumbing his nose at the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution a Montana value? What about obstruction of justice and Congress? Blackmailing a foreign government by holding up a Congressionally approved appropriation to dig up dirt on a political rival, then inviting China to join in the digging too? No, I don’t think even Don would claim these as “Montana values.”
Our friend, Don, is absolutely right when he says “Montanans work best when we work together.” I would add that we work together best when we understand each other. So, by all means, take Don’s advice; ask the candidates you support to explain their Montana values, but ask them to explain in detail, not in platitudes. Ask them what they really mean when they say they support gun rights, good management of the land, or fiscal responsibility. And listen critically to their answers, because once they are really explained, they may not be Montana values at all.
—Robert Horne, Jr., lives in Whitefish