Guest Column: Wyoming
Western Politics: “Cowboy Ethics” an Official Wyoming Law?
What does it mean to legislate a moral code? In the Rocky Mountain Wild West, it's an official question.By Matthew Taylor, Guest Writer, 3-09-10
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Cowboys may be irrelevant, but their ethics matter.
So much of Wyoming is synonymous with the cowboy. But surely we’re the (unofficial) Cowboy State for much more than the fact that cowboys are cool. Cowboys represent an idealized ethos of a bygone era. In a world where there are more fake Louis Vuitton purses than real, cowboys embody authenticity. Their vocational role in modern society might be diminished, but their ethics - honesty, hard work, perseverance, prudence - are more relevant today than ever before.
So relevant in fact, that our Wyoming Legislature is contemplating adopting “cowboy ethics” into law. Sponsored by state Sen. Jim Anderson (Converse/Platte Counties), the bill draws inspiration from a 2004 book, Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West.
When I first read this, I thought it was a joke. I question whether perhaps Cheyenne could (and should) be tackling other more substantive legislation such as reforming our health system or tackling energy policy.
While I think it a noble effort by Senate Majority Leader Jim Anderson and others in our state Legislature to introduce a “cowboy ethics” bill, it seems more appropriate for discussion and debate at the family dinner table. Does it not? I believe Pope John Paul II put it best when he said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world.”
Morality cannot and should not be legislated. In fact, it should be the exact opposite. Our morals and values serve as the foundation and framework to guide lawmakers as they craft legislation. Introducing a bill suggesting a code of ethics for an entire state is backwards. Ethics shouldn’t flow from the state capitol, they should flow to the state capitol.
I’ve read the Cowboy Code of Ethics and embrace it wholeheartedly. I suspect most everyone in Wyoming would agree with its Ten Principles. However, let’s be honest: this legislation is merely symbolic. My hope is that our politicians recognize that Cheyenne’s creeds are only as good as the rest of the state’s deeds.
If leaders in our statehouse truly care about preserving and advancing a code of ethics, let’s forge a coalition of citizens to adopt and promote this effort instead of symbolically signing it into law.
The “cowboy ethics” legislation sits in the statehouse as a proposed law of the land. But it seems to me that ethics are more about laws of the heart - those which are deeply personal and intimate.
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Comments
While the literary side of my brain adores Ranger Doug and Too Slim and The Cowboy Way as much as anybody, the historical side has to stop and realize that the Old West and the New West (an unnecessary redundancy, really) are both pretty heavily invested in preserving feudalism in American history.
The cowboy was pretty much a homeless migrant worker who was dependent on a small ruling class of land barons who amassed wealth by stealing that which rightly belonged to all the people, both native and immigrant.
As indigents, the cowboys displayed a lot of grit -- given no choice -- and, like the equally-gritful banjo-playing jigs of the Old Sowf, gave us the kind of colorful narrative that's so useful today, like when one's LLP needs to misdirect the public's attention while one drains another thousand years' worth of natural resources from yet another BLM tract.
For those of us in the east, fake cowboys are rather easier to spot than fake Vuittons. Sometimes they start off at Yale and then mysteriously reappear clearing brush in Texas. At best, they eventually run out of brush.