Texas (Ex-) Mayor Tells Frozen Town's Residents They Now Live In Galt's Gulch, So Stop Whining

'Your on you're own, loosers'.

The (ex-) mayor of the small West Texas town of Colorado City, Texas (population 4,000), was sick of people on a local Facebook group complaining about how there was no power or water following the catastrophic arctic weather that hit the region this week, and asking whether the town or the county might open up a warming center for people without heat, and figured it was time to add his own two cents. So yesterday, Tim Boyd posted a very important message on the page, informing residents that town government and the utilities have no obligations to keep people from from freezing or starving, because this is America, you idiots. And don't go looking to your elected leaders for leadership, either, sheeple: The strong will survive, and that's just how it is.

It's quite the message ! Boyd started the post as you'd expect a good (ex-) mayor would, in a crisis: "Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute!"

See? That's how you know he's gonna get real.

Boyd's message continues, with the sort of righteous spelling and punctuation that prove Boyd isn't about to be bound by Man's rules, but by the creed of self-reliance:

No one owes you are your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it's your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I'm sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout! If you don't have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal without and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish.

That's the sort of libertarian self-reliance that made America great, you know. As The Founders knew, governments are established among men for the purpose of not doing a damn thing when things get rough, and the whole point of paying utilities for power and water is that they are not obligated to provide you those services in bad weather, or even to tell you when the services will be restored. If you want help, maybe go to the Catholics, as the last line suggests.

And as the Washington Post   points out, his call for people to be self-reliant "did not offer any further guidance, such as where safe drinking water or reliable electricity could be found." Of course not, because that would just be a handout of information. 

It's like the guy heard a summary of the Hobbsian state of nature — a battle of all against all — and stopped listening before the part about how civilization is supposed to prevent that. (We haven't seen any photos or video of Mr. Boyd, so while he's definitely nasty and brutish, we can't say whether he's also short.)

Then Boyd moved to his astute diagnosis of the problem: This is what you get when you don't force everyone to fend for themselves as preindustrial subsistence farmers. If you were foolish enough not to prepare for every possible natural disaster that might come along, well then he has nothing but contempt for you, you damn Marxist.

Folks God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I'll be damned if I'm going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and meshed them in to one group!! Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!

Bottom line-DONT A PART OF PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!!

We like how he's taken what's often a call to collective action and reframed it here: To be part of the solution, you need to stop thinking your problems matter to anyone else. Sharing is weakness.

Unfortunately the Post  notes, some people just didn't seem to understand what morality is all about, and continued to enable the laziness of others, by

 offering to trudge through the snow to pick up supplies for neighbors or share water from their private wells. And as critics pointed out, even trying to access the emergency preparedness guide on Colorado City's official webpage led to an error message. 

Well, look, if you actually provide working links on the city's emergency preparedness webpage, a bunch of takers will probably move to town. Besides, any fool knows that "community" is the root of communism .

Oddly, Boyd's stirring call to the good old American values of self reliance and fuck everyone else didn't go over so great, and as the internet started telling him what it thought of his perfectly reasonable call for anarchy, Boyd realized maybe he'd gone a little far. A few hours later, he posted a second missive (both are deleted now) in which he explained that he'd already resigned as mayor, so stop being so mean to him, and besides, he was right, mostly.

The really fascinating thing about this one is that Boyd seems to think the main problem with his original message is that it was taken "out of context," although we're not at all sure he knows what that term means, just that it's an excuse you can use when you think people are unfairly calling you an asshole.

(transcription available here ) 

Boyd insisted he never meant to suggest "the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves," because apparently they shouldn't be included in the phrase "Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish." Instead, he explains, he only meant that "those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout." And if you don't know how to get electricity to your frozen home, you need to work harder, lazybones.

Also too, he claimed he was actually only speaking as a private citizen, not as the mayor, although as the Dallas Morning News   points out , it's not clear when Boyd actually resigned, and that he had been scheduled to lead last week's meeting of the City Council.

My favorite part of the message, though, is Boyd's contention that if he had it to do over again, he'd have kept his mouth shut, but if he had said something, "I would have used better wording and been more descriptive."

Ah, yes, because the problem wasn't what he said, just how he'd said it. Sorry, Mr. ex-Mayor, being a horrible person is actually different from writing an English 101 paper. Being "more descriptive" probably wouldn't have helped. Nor did you need better transitions or a stronger intro. And the font didn't enter into it, either.

To be sure, if you revised your life's thesis statement, that might have helped a bit.

[ Dallas Morning News / WaPo / KTXS-TV ]

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