No room for a difference of opinion

Submitted by Phil Anthony
Posted 2/20/24

Dear editor:

In March of 2022, I wrote a letter to your paper (“GOP using intimidation and exclusion” — March 24, 2022) expressing my dismay that Park County Republicans were …

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No room for a difference of opinion

Posted

Dear editor:

In March of 2022, I wrote a letter to your paper (“GOP using intimidation and exclusion” — March 24, 2022) expressing my dismay that Park County Republicans were perfectly happy not having to “endure”  listening to folks with differing opinions. Now, having read an online “WyoFile” article entitled “Climate change denial heats up at Wyoming Capital,” I see that trend spreading to the state legislature.

As dependent as Wyoming is on fossil fuel extraction as a revenue source, I can certainly understand resistance to the explicit threat climate change mitigation represents to our economy. But for chairperson Cheri Steinmetz to hold a committee meeting excluding any perspective but her own (“CO2 good, science bad,”) supported, I might add, by our own Sen. Dan Laursen (R-Powell), is not simply bad government, it is anti-democratic.

I’m not writing today to point out the prevalence of “Flat-Earthers” in our legislature. Rather, I want to point out a tendency in a certain demographic to be intolerant of differing points of view. As I mentioned two years ago, this is a step down the path to fascism. 

Phil Anthony

Powell

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