[neverdem]

"When everybody has a gun on his hip, they tend to avoid confrontation."

[bnelson44]

I live in the West and South Dakota is no where near here.

[Last Dakotan]

The Westerners in this history survived by learning to get along...

They damn sure weren't socialists either.

[jocon307]

That's the line! Great to see that in the Times, lol!

I love Deadwood, it has really inspired in me and interest in the old west that I didn't have before.

[Gunrunner2]

>>Nor is it like the previously fashionable history depicting the settlers as heroic individualists who tamed the frontier by developing the great American virtue of self-reliance. <<

Really?

What were these brave men and women to strike out, alone, or in small groups, to settle a wild land, far from civilization? Urbanite drones?

These settlers were rugged individuals. They had to be self-reliant to survive.