It was a classic fin-de-siècle American protest: a staged telegenic moment steeped in Western symbolism.
Yee-hah!!!
The week before I visited, two county commissioners feuding over floor time at a public meeting had to be physically separated by the sheriff, and the former publisher of the local paper expressed his civic spirit by shooting an officer’s dog in the middle of town.
“They are neglected by the state and by the federal government, and they’re mad,” says Eric Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada. “They’re out of the loop; decisions get made for them. It’s not unlike inner cities, whose needs don’t get heard until there’s violence.”
“At what point do we cease to be free?”
So when my grandkids ask me, "Grandpa; what did YOU do July 4th, 2000?", I can point them to...