Don’t let the snarl of the bear fool you, Mr. Fox, the Sheriff is just a bitch for the king and, if you don’t believe me, here’s a little history lesson for you:
Sheriffs have served and protected the English-speaking peoples for a thousand years. The Office of Sheriff and the law enforcement, judicial and correctional functions he performs are more than 1000 years old. The Office of Sheriff dates back at least to the reign of Alfred the Great of England, and some scholars even argue that the Office of Sheriff was first created during the Roman occupation of England.
Around 500 AD, Germanic tribes from Europe (called the Anglo-Saxons) began an invasion of Celtic England which eventually led over the centuries to the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon England as a unified kingdom under Alfred the Great late in the 9th Century. Alfred divided England into geographic units called “shires”, or counties.
In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons and instituted his own Norman government in England. Both under the Anglo-Saxons and under the Normans, the King of England appointed a representative called a “reeve” to act on behalf of the king in each shire or county. The “shire-reeve” or King’s representative in each county became the “Sheriff” as the English language changed over the years. The shire-reeve, or Sheriff, was the chief law enforcement officer of each county in the year 1000 AD. He will still have the same function in the United States in the year 2000 AD.
Who is the King in Madison County? Definitely not rotten outsiders from North Carolina, like the 12 year old child of a Christian missionary who was held at gun point when a confrontation with a local went south. After meeting Josiah in person outside of Bernice’s Bakery and testifying to this trio how the Sheriff of Missoula can euthanize and execute black men with zero consequences, he air-dropped me this image of what the “men” with badges in Madison County did before using Child Protective Services to kidnap him from his father.
The virtue-signalers in Bozeman who recently duplicated Missoula’s legalistically dubious adoption of the PRIDE flag had conservatives fretting online about how to stop local leaders when they feel entitled to flout state law. Here’s an example:
When I called in my public comment today to the committee tasked with talking about 100 million dollar hotels I had to deal with several distractions, including being interrupted by the committee chair because my general comment about the idiocy of reactionary virtue signaling veered into specifically referencing Averill Hospitality LLC. Since the meeting is still going on as I write this, I’ll wait until my next post to clip my constructive contribution to council’s performative “discussion”.
While Averill Hospitality moves forward with their BIG financial investment in Missoula, someone was just shot this morning about a mile or two from where they will soon be breaking ground. If that doesn’t inspire investor confidence, check out how Missoulians were recently reminded that our city can’t even water trees without making thinly-veiled threats to local property owners about their responsibilities:
Just like people need more water in the hotter months of summer, so do Missoula’s trees, which is why the city is asking for help watering them.
“We don’t have enough annual precipitation and also our soil doesn’t have water-holding capacity like other places do,” said Marie Ducharme, City of Missoula’s urban forestry specialist.
Even though the city may own the trees you see along sidewalks and throughout neighborhoods, Ducharme said being a resident includes pitching in to support leafy neighbors.
“They’re a community asset, and that’s why the code has been written as such to encourage and require adjacent property owners to water the trees because they are direct beneficiaries of the shade and that cooling,” Ducharme said.
This wishy-washy bullshit reported on by morons allows the city to pussyfoot around the fact it’s apparently a REQUIREMENT IN CITY CODE for property owners to water the trees. And in case you’re not angry enough about that dumb shit, remember that the city CHARGES MONEY for water usage, which they definitely need after spending about as much money as a fancy hotel costs to build for the eminent domain acquisition of our decrepit water infrastructure.
Is there any other entity you can think of that is able to coerce unpaid labor in order to use a monopoly-controlled product because that product creates the alleged benefit of “shade”? Unless you’re talking about a prison or a concentration camp, the scenario above, as described, seems almost intentionally offensive. But hey, you voted for this, right?
If your reaction is to declare NO, I DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS then let me ask a follow up question: who are you talking to? Are you talking to your online echo-chamber? Because, if that’s all you’re doing, I should probably ask myself why I’m doing what I’m doing, and if it’s still worth it.
Is it?
