by William Skink

At Monday’s City Council meeting yesterday Mayor Engen made a proclamation. Here is how the Missoulian reported on the Mayor’s words:

Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, with no end in sight, Mayor John Engen proclaimed at Monday night’s Missoula City Council meeting it’s time to shop small.

One of the “whereases” in Engen’s proclamation states that, according to the Small Business Administration, 62% of small businesses in the U.S. “reported that they need to see consumer spending return to pre-COVID levels by the end of 2020 in order to stay in business.”

Another: “65% of U.S. small business owners said it would be most helpful to their business(es) to have their ‘regulars’ return and start making purchases again.”

As I read these words and numbers my mind glazes over. We are at the start of an economic depression 10 years in the making because our last president prioritized Wall Street over Main Street, and we are less than two months to a presidential election that will more than likely be contested by both sides as we slip further into social unrest.

But Mayor Engen thinks now is the time to use his empty words to impotently compel his serfs to direct discretionary money at local businesses.

If you have discretionary money in your pocket, the first thing you should do is be thankful. The second thing you should do is buy something useful, like a firearm or generator, because when social unrest comes to your town, you will either be prepared to defend yourself, or you won’t.

Instead of our Mayor’s useless proclamation (as his policies extract more taxes from his serfs), you should read this harrowing account of a woman’s experience in Kenosha.

People always think it can never happen in their own town, so when it does they aren’t prepared. I won’t be one of those people.

Will you?