To 99
percent of readers, the words “cattle guard”
conjures an image of a pipe grate spanning a
roadway. Today’s story concerns the one percent who
mistakenly pictured a blue-gloved TSA agent,
twirling a lariat in a feedlot. Their error does not
occur out of ignorance, but from lack of familiarity
with commonplace things from a different
environment. I have seen this phenomenon first hand.
When we started our cattle drive business in the mid
‘90s, we knew there were risks to placing guest
cowboys in new surroundings. We planned for all
possible mishaps, but in terms of accidents, we were
not as good at guessing as our guests were at
surprising us. The perfect example occurred one June
morning while trailing the herd up the West Pass
Creek Road. A cattle guard marks the Montana /
Wyoming state line, so an open gate in the borrow
pit allows the cattle to plod off the road, through
the gate and then back up on the road. The pace
trailing momma cows and calves can be unmercifully
slow and on this morning a guest had fallen fast
asleep on his horse. Normally this is okay because
then the horse can make all the important decisions
without first having to debate the issue with its
rider. Unfortunately this morning, the horse was
also asleep and he ambled right into the cattle
guard. Luckily, the cattle guard was so full of road
dirt it did not pose much of a leg-breaking threat.
The clink of horse shoes on the pipe startled the
pony and he froze long enough for me to swing off,
grab him by the bit, and back him off the cattle
guard. Crisis averted. I mentally scribbled a note
to add cattle guards to our
things-cowboys-should-know lecture. This same
handicap of unfamiliarity also occurs when normal
people engage bureaucrats in a battle of wits and
this brings me to my point.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)
proposed regulations blocking farm and ranch kids
under 16 years old from operating power equipment
and those under 18 from working around livestock.
Agriculture families and trade groups rightfully
went ballistic, just as the DOL anticipated.
Countering with points such as 6, 8, or 10-year-old
ranch kids are old enough to trail cows mistakenly
validates the premise the DOL belongs in the middle
of the child/parent relationship in the first place.
They do not! Once this initial point is conceded,
all further negotiations simply tighten the noose of
big government around the necks of American
families. As predictable as the sun rising every
morning, the DOL soon softened their stance and
agreed to work with the Department of Agriculture to
modify their new rules. Thinking they had scored a
victory, agriculture supporters cheered,
figuratively swung back into the saddle and
unknowingly rode right off into a cattle guard. We
are relying on one bureaucracy, the Department of
Agriculture, to rein in the expansion of another,
the Department of Labor. This will not occur because
they are on the same team—both divisions of the
executive branch established by the president to
purposely grow the central government.
The street fighter guide to politics suggests three
options:
First, elect congressional representation who will
jerk the purse strings and jerk them hard. The
federal government is $16 trillion in debt and the
DOL has 17,419 employees with a budget of $12
billion per year. Pink-slipping half of the DOL
employees will save $6 billion annually. The DOL has
the economic power of a bake sale and it generates
nothing but paperwork and regulation so halving it
will scarcely be noticed. Second, replace our chief
executive with someone who favors limited government
as expressed in our “Declaration of Independence”
rather than the massive central government described
in the “Communist Manifesto”. This would be
beneficial on multiple fronts. Third, establish a
strong state legislature with the will to nullify
unconstitutional federal overreaches of power.
A strong American family is the backbone of our
republic. My children joined our family workforce in
my veterinary clinic or on our ranch well before the
age of ten. By their teen years they held positions
of responsibility guiding guest cowboys trailing
cattle up the Little Horn Trail. Their work
environment could be hot, cold, wet, dark, windy, or
snowy and every tough moment developed their
character and work ethic. Today all three are
gainfully employed and are busy raising eight little
American patriots. Politicians desiring to create a
nation of helpless dependents despise citizens with
self-reliance, but now you understand the true
motive behind the DOL decree.
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