Ramona and I delight in ranch life in the Gallatin Gateway community. There are immense social and environmental benefits to this rural setting, notably friends and excellent access to the urban qualities of Bozeman and surrounding outdoor treasures.

We have many long-term neighbors we like, admire, and trust. Most are farmers and ranchers with whom we share much history and culture. I see these folks socially and at meetings of the Kleinschmidt Canal Company.

The canal meetings provide a classic American demonstration of voluntary cooperation cultivated by a framework of civility and clear property rights. When rights are clear, conflict is minimal and harmony fostered.

Unclear or threatened rights produce arguments, agitation, and angst. Today this sorry situation afflicts our community in unprecedented ways. And no unguent will sooth the sores brought on by threats of zoning.

Many other friends and neighbors, far more in number than my farmer and rancher friends, live on smaller holdings or in Gateway proper. Few of them are here by accident of birth; they selected our community as home. They appreciate our quiet rural setting and hope zoning will preserve it.

I can’t even imagine a better place to live. The trials of spring mud are the price we pay to enjoy the remainder of the year. We increasingly invest in our community and treasure local friendships.

Alas, friendships with large landowners and other neighbors are threatened by zoning. A major cause is an erosion of trust in government officials. Gateway suffers collateral, leak down damage from national politics. When individuals fear a pernicious, extractive government, civility declines at every level. Every new policy is a threat.

The Obama Administration generated high hopes. Many people expected transformed, open, honest, inclusive, financially prudent policies. This was promised time and again. Lies all?

Not entirely, America is indeed being transformed—into an entitlement society philosophically alien to American traditions. The rules producing these entitlements mimic the political thuggery and payoffs of Chicago. Lobbyists, of course, are doing well as government expands. Despite promises to the contrary, Obama appointed at least two dozen lobbyists to high positions and 89 DC lobbyists earned over a million dollars in 2009, a 30 percent increase.

No surprise here. Politics transfers wealth and preferential opportunities to favored interests. All now fly under the banner of fairness and “economic justice” while ever more citizens are made dependent on government. The middle class is recruited into underclass thinking. Duplicity reigns.

Since hypocrites are despised like liars, Republicans too are a sorry lot. An April 5th Gallup Poll showed a Congressional Job Approval Ratings of 16 percent, a historic low. Only voter ignorance keeps it this high.

National distrust and disenchantment infects our Gateway community as it wrestles with the zoning designed to protect its bucolic character. No level of government is trusted. Large landowners fear that zoning is a plot by the many to take from the few. They feel besieged with property at risk.

I empathize but thought we were immune from zoning conflicts. We represent nine generations in agriculture, and a decade ago began putting our place under a conservation easement. (But didn’t take Open Lands Bonds to pay the cost of doing so.) And our agreement with GVLT is far more restrictive than any contemplated zoning.

Apart from a few acres around our buildings, some 97 percent is permanent open space for agriculture and wildlife. What could we have to fear from zoning? Something important it turns out, the disapproval of friends over zoning conflicts.

The vortex of Gateway’s dust-up involves new gravel pit regulations, specifically the proposed Southern Valley Zoning Regulation. Proponents say the goal is to control nuisances such as noise, dust, and truck traffic. Opponents believe it is a slippery slope toward state control of our lives; freedom is at risk.

Here’s the fundamental problem, both sides are right.