Country kids are raised on euphemisms and phrases like “it’s a long way from your heart” are the nurturing words I heard as a child. A more accurate phrase would have been “it’s a long way to the emergency room,” so unless a bone was actually sticking through the skin and getting caught in the sagebrush, few injuries warranted a half-day trip to town. The greatest thing about growing up on a ranch was being so far from town you could play with reckless abandon without suffering the scrutiny of Child Protective Services. Few childless government officials sympathize with the therapeutic benefits of “shake it off.” Hence, America has become a nation of pansies.

My two brothers and I used the same rosy terminology of our childhood when our city kid cousins visited the ranch. For example, one Saturday morning we invited Cousin Miles to join us for some bucket calf riding. “Join us” itself was a euphemism and we explained to Miles we had ridden earlier, so we were letting him have our turn; ranch kids are naturally charitable about such things. We dumped a bucket of oats in the feed bunk in the barn and Bessie, the nurse cow, came running and poked her head through the stanchion to eat the grain. A simple flip of a wood block locked her in position. With our bucking chute secured, we jerked open the orchard gate and let the bucket calves come running for breakfast. Vigorously sucking calves competing for open teats are oblivious to little things like small boys slipping a short nylon lariat around their girth. While one of us held the makeshift rigging the other two boosted Miles on the calf’s back cheering him on by saying, “It’ll be fun…” or “… you’ll be a cowboy just like in the movies.” Miles came from lineage obsessed with the silver screen so the “just like in the movies” euphemism worked magic. With the contestant on board we pulled the calf’s head away from the udder and kicked open the barn door. The calf took two steps towards the daylight and then panicked at the feel of the city kid strapped to his back. There was a six-inch drop from the wood floor of the milking parlor to the dirt leading out the door. Coupling this drop with a spin from the bucking stock, meant very few cowboys ever rode far enough to discover the narrow barn door was also short. Miles did. It seemed we always ran out of cousins before we ran out of bucking stock.

A half century later, I have learned politics is filled with euphemisms, half-truths and even outright lies as recently broadcasted in the State of the Union address. Because we unwashed commoners accept and even embrace the lies of the ruling class, the truth remains elusive. People complain about lying politicians all the while giving atta boys to the very same lying politicians. We are the problem and this brings me to my point.

Montana’s I-168, the dark money initiative, is a world champion euphemism and I mention this for the third time because people still do not get it. Because everyone knows bad guys wear black hats, while good guys wear white, logic dictates dark money must be bad. Reflexively, misinformed voters will cast a ballot to stop the evil; exactly as the authors euphemized. You will hear responsible Republicans and liberal Democrats claim I-168 will promote transparency in the election process. Yes, the dark money initiative is about transparency—the removal of it. More accurately, I-168 should be termed the TEA Act; the Transparency Elimination Act. Here is why. Nationwide the Tea Party is under an all-out assault by Democrat activists, the IRS, the Justice Department, and here in Montana, the Commissioner of Political Practices (CoPP). Initiative-168 empowers and incentivizes the CoPP to levy and then pocket portions of fines four times greater than any contribution they deem illegal. Because the CoPP is appointed by the governor their natural allegiance is to support the executive’s ideology while attacking those opposed. It is not coincidence the recent targets of CoPP investigations are liberty minded public servants such as Mike Miller, Scott Sales and Art Wittich. Socialists will escape scrutiny. Passage of I-168 will be nirvana for the Main Street Republicans and other progressives who will spend America into third world status.