[Vision2020] Toleration

[Phil Nisbet]

Here on the weekend I would love to reflect on some things that I have noted 
recently.

At one of the public meetings I attended recently, I was told by a person 
who shall remain nameless, that I should go back where I came from.  As a 
Jew that’s not an atypical response that we tend to get when we voice our 
opinion, but this particular comment struck me as funny.  The person who 
uttered the comment is of recent extraction, to whit, an immigrant of 
European stock who, though having lived on the Palouse for many years is 
assumed to be 'from' here.  I, on the other hand, trace my family to the 
Boise Basin of the middle 1860's and my great great grandfather Rueben is 
buried down in Nampa, but obviously I am the person who should 'go back 
where I came from'.

And that got me thinking how totally 'cosmopolitan' and so free from petty 
parochialism this town is. . .

Then there was the toe the line letter, republished here by the services of 
certain folks, which stated that 'some people' needed to stop making the 
majority angry.  How foolish of me to think that as a Republic, the view of 
the minority was to be protected from the raging of the majority opinion?

So I got to thinking how tolerant and urbane this little burg really is, so 
accepting of the feelings and thoughts of others. . .

And its not the old time old line farming folks, though they can be crusty, 
that are the ones who back bite and hurl so many wondrous comments around, 
it’s the folks tied to the institution of higher learning.  The very people 
who should be more understanding, dare we say more liberal in their 
attitudes, are the people who seem least able to handle disagreement.

And those of you who spend so many hours thinking of the next attack phase, 
do you seriously think that the bulk of the lurkers on this list, the silent 
majority of very long term, life time residents are simply rustics who need 
to be taught a lesson in diversity?  Because from my experience, those 
ranchers and farmers and loggers in our rural areas are head and shoulders 
more tolerant, more willing to listen to the other guy and just down right 
more friendly than I have seen of late here in Moscow.  And just for a news 
flash to some, most of them laugh their butts off reading the squabbling 
that goes on here in Moscow.  And from what Debbie found when she meet with 
economic development folks down there in Boise, they are not the only ones 
laughing.

Because you see, all I have to do to ‘go back where I came from’ is head 
outside the immediate vicinity of Moscow, where the ‘majority’ of the people 
are nothing like the folks here.  Some of you might learn something about 
comity; learn to play well with others, from those farmers and ranchers and 
loggers and miners and paper workers and the lot who live in the rest of 
Idaho, just a few miles outside the environs of this town.  And considering 
how dependent this community is on the good will of the majority of the Rest 
of the state to see that funding happens right here at the University of 
Idaho, that the people who need to learn not to make the ‘majority’ unhappy 
are sitting right here in this town?


Phil Nisbet

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