To the rabble at the Zephyr who can’’t leave well enough alone: As both a devout Mormon and heathen, I thought your MAHBU article hit the mark. You mapped out an impossible course for the American West, but it's the only course if the good guys are going to win. As one more Westerner who believes in the impossible, I say let's get started. My young family has settled political ground that inspires us, but neighbors seem to be few and far between. We read Abbey, Snyder and Wendell Berry, and we also read Moses, Brigham Young, Jefferson, and Louis L'Amour. All inspired documents that seem to teach the same principles. American principles. The same rough-hewn lessons impressed in our hearts scrambling up a new mesa, feeding cows, watching deer, or hoping to find water in some unnamed canyon. I don't know how the sage and ponderosa do it but they seem to teach a deeper, sharper level of quiet. A kind of freedom. Not a placard carrying, shouting brand of freedom, but a spiritual combination of competence, humility, and hope. The dusty, quiet self-reliance that will go its own way and doesn't much feel like talking about it with knuckleheads. When God leaves us messages - whether they be inscribed on paper, golden plates or desert varnish, I say let's embrace them. Recklessly, and with a full heart. The ranching side of my family tends to vote Republican because we value independence, strong families, local rule and less government. We can be blind, however, to dynamics that threaten those values. I don’’t mind people taking what they need to survive but I cringe whenever soft-handed folk in expensive clothing talk about severely impacting an ecological community, the inherent value of which they barely perceive. Typically from out of state, or out of country, their goal is to make money fast, externalizing the real costs and leaving local citizens to deal with their long-term effects. As a rule, I think that is a poor way to care for land and the needs of our communities. Why not push down the Salt Lake Temple and sell the bricks for paving stones? Same mentality, but they don’’t get it. On the other side, my blood heats up when an urban bureaucrat tells Grandad the best way to run his cows or care for his ranch. What gives them the right? Where are the strong hands, the hard-earned wrinkles? More importantly, where is the big heart that grows from a life lived close to a piece of good land? Even more essential: where is the willingness to endure consequences? Freedom means making choices, taking risks, and living with the long term results. When the chute-gate opens you make your ride. The relentless discussion: urban-style exploitation vs. urban-style regulation. The two camps are at an impasse. We’re too far down a slot canyon with no rope; can’t go any further and can’t climb back up. We’re all busted up from past battles lost. We peer at the ribbon of gray sky above us and think about thunderstorms. Personally, I’ve seen enough of this canyon. I’m looking for a new route up the side. Given current trends, I hope there continues to be a genuine home for old-style Americans in the Grand Old Party. I couldn’t join the Ds, well-intentioned as they are. Too much nagging; too few dusty pickup trucks. And they don't know how to fix things with haywire. So where do lost souls go who distrust government power almost as much as they dislike corporate power ---yet want to be effective participants in community decision-making? Are we destined to muck about, used and abandoned, in the no-man’s land between the two fighting giants? It's not that there are internal contradictions in our beliefs, it's that historic quarrels have so gerrymandered and polarized issues that a lot of good people find themselves wondering which side, if any, to join.

Which side, if any, to join.…… Isn't that the essential and exact question that inspired Joseph Smith's crucial walk to the woods? Maybe we all ought to walk to the woods. Figuratively and literally. And sincerely. If you’re short on woods, find a patch of sage and kneel on the grama grass. Maybe, like young Joseph Smith in 1830, our answer will be neither side is right - although both sides are partially right. Maybe we’ll find a Western Restoration waiting to happen. A new remembering of what we’ve lost. For our communities to endure, for the word liberty to have any meaning, there must be room in policy-making dialogue for folk who are inspired by, and love, simple America; the land and the people, and the free republic for which we all stand. Perhaps MAHBU is a good start.

Ric Cantrell serves on the Executive Committee of the Salt Lake County Republican Party. He chases flash floods down slot canyons and freelances as a guide for MAHBU Adventure Tours. Ric can be reached at rcantrell@theriver.com.

(To read IT’S TIME FOR M.A.H.B.U.---Mormons & Heathens for a Better Utah, visit the Zephyr web site at: www.canyoncountryzephyr.com.)