Letter to the Editor: Kane commissioners are patriots

By Sun Advocate

Editor:
The five leading daily newspapers printed in Utah have run their editorial comments or articles in large print with bold highlighted lettering making their articles an attention catcher to their readers. Their bold written articles, with a definite attitude of disapproval concerned the actions taken by Kane County Sheriff Lamont Smith and County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw. As I read their articles I was dumbfounded that our newspapers, the voice of America, could forget so quickly and censure those officials in Kane County for taking exactly the same position those handful of men on April 17, 1775 took, making their first active move of protest against the British encroaching on the rights of the colonists living in Concord.
These few men stood on our side of the River Concord by the bridge that spanned it and took sniper shots at the British who was marching up the road on the opposite side intending to use the bridge to cross the river into the city of Concord to physically search every house with their intention to confiscate every weapon, bullets and powder including swords from the established peaceful residents in the town of Concord.
These handful of men defied over 3,000 British soldiers and forced them to retreat. Giving those people in Concord and surrounding areas the time they needed to arm themselves and be prepared for the next charge, by their actions of that day, every law abiding citizen today can keep a powder firing weapon in his home legally. I ask the editors of their papers, is there a difference between the encroachments of rights by the British on those people at Concord than that of the BLM goaded and prompted by the environmental groups against Kane and Garfield counties?
The roads the sheriff and the commissioner removed the signs from were RS 2477 roads that were built before 1976 and authorized by an act of the congress of the United States in 1876. The law passed then, Act RS 2477, states that the Congress of the United States does give and grant all counties that right to build roads for the citizens of that county to use. I would hope the commissioners would now send out a road patrol and grade it. Is there a difference in the spirit and intention these two Kane County men took, than that of a handful of American Patriots who on Dec. 16, 1773 boarded three ships in the Boston Harbor throwing all the tea on them overboard demonstrating against the British and their self levied high export taxes on tea?
I was disappointed when Governor Mike Leavitt turned his back on Kane County. I am glad President Bush called Governor Leavitt to take another political position.
I cannot help but recall a comment made by Thomas Payne a revolutionary activist living at that time when the two above incidents took place. He wrote “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier, the sunshine patriots will shrink from the service of his country”
Those two men from Kane County did not shrink from the service of their country but responded with a positive patriotic spirit that does not fit Payne’s classification. The BLM’s tyranny is not easily conquered and neither is extreme radical environmentalism.
To those other silent county commissioners, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people but rather the appalling silence of the good people.