Articles written by Jim Elliott
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Montana Viewpoint
The ability to have a say in government by voting is the bedrock principle of democracy. Because of that, every vote should be of equal value and carry the same weight. That is true for every...
Montana Viewpoint
I wrote the following article 9 years ago, on February 23, 2015. Some of the terminology is outdated, but the thoughts are not. My father and his brother, younger by 20 years, were both ardent...
Montana Viewpoint: Laws, compassion and common sense
Remember the Biblical story of the Judgment of Solomon (I Kings 3:16-28)? That’s the one where two prostitutes, living together, have babies three days apart. On waking one morning one of the women f...
Montana Viewpoint: Acting like a nation
I am reading a history of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and their role together in the creation of America. It depresses me greatly. It depresses me because of the stark contrast with the...
Montana Viewpoint: A rube arrives in Trout Creek
I had been eyeballing a piece of property in Trout Creek for about a year. It was cheap enough, I had the money, why not? So, I bought it. It was what around here people generously call a stump...
Montana Viewpoint
As I write this, it is Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We have holidays to celebrate great people and great accomplishments. As time passes the great people seem to become even greater, but the...
Montana Viewpoint: Happy face history
Laws in several states have criminalized criticizing American history, even when that history contains criminal acts. It is sort of like putting a happy face on American history. Look, I love my count...
Montana Viewpoint: A way to address high property tax
I just read an editorial called “Let's end the property tax blame game” by Kendall Cotton in which he begins by blaming local governments for property tax increases, echoing Governor Gia...
Montana Viewpoint
Four times in my life, after I have been working a job for months or years, I have had a small revelation that says to me, “Hey, I know what I’m doing, and I am doing it well!” It only came once...
Montana Viewpoint: Critical Rage Theory
Earlier today I thought I would study up on Critical Race Theory—which I have to admit I know little about—but I made a typo in my search query and I entered “critical rage theory” by mistake...
Montana Viewpoint: A bad recipe
Well, the local elections are over in Montana, and I’m sure there will be some controversial results, even if there are not any. I mean, it just seems that somebody’s got to find fault with som...
Montana Viewpoint: My uncle John
When I was 45, I went to my family’s second reunion. The first reunion was for my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary and I was five years old for that one, so at an average of forty years between...
Montana Viewpoint: Francis
On a table in the front hallway to my house is a photograph of two men who look like they are enjoying each other's company. It's not obvious in the picture, but they are reclined on a short two-step...
Montana Viewpoint
Last Sunday, September 17, was the anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. I want to think of those giants of history, the founders of America, brave, wis...
Montana Viewpoint
In the 1970s you didn’t see many new pickups in Trout Creek, and when you did you knew who it belonged to. Now you don’t see many old pickups and when you do you also know whose they are. So tim...
Montana Viewpoint: A moral dilemma
I don’t know where to turn. Yesterday I saw a public display of what I am sure is gender related wrongness and think I need to report it, I just don’t know what government agency to call. Und...
Montana Viewpoint: Freedom has a cost
President Biden is asking Congress for $24 billion to support Ukraine. There will be a fight over this request, I am sure, and the reasons will be we are spending too much money, period, and if we...
Montana Viewpoint: The goose hisses
(A French finance minister of long ago compared collecting taxes to plucking a live goose. The object was to get the greatest amount of feathers with the least amount of hiss. Dogs growl, geese...
Valuing the American worker
About once a year I deal with an outfit out of Boise called General Gear or tractorparts.com. I use them when I need parts to repair my crawler tractor which is almost as old as I am and a damn sight...
Montana Viewpoint: Celebrating America
We celebrate America on this Fourth of July because we are a great nation with great dreams, great ability and great heart. None should feel this more than Montanans, who cherish the notions that...
Montana Viewpoint
So far there are about a dozen Republican candidates wanting to be President of the United States of America and most of them are as incensed over the legal threats facing Donald Trump as only a...
Montana Viewpoint
America could almost balance the budget if we collected the taxes that billionaires and big business cheat us out of. Currently the deficit for the 2023 fiscal year (October 2022 to today) is...
Montana Viewpoint: The mayor of Alberton
I hadn’t seen Joe Hanson for a few years. Mutual friends were saying that I should get over to Alberton to see him because — you know — he’s getting up there in years. Aren’t we all, I thought....
Montana Viewpoint: Political purity
A couple of months ago former Republican Governor Marc Racicot was labelled a RINO and formally drummed out of the Montana Republican Party, this in the face of the fact that he was responsible for...
Montana Viewpoint
Every little once in a while I am reminded that laws are created to protect us from ourselves, or more particularly from our faulty memories, or from forgetting history. For instance, years ago we...