[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -This is NPR, National Public Radio.

-From studios at Montana State University Billings, this is KEMC and KBMC Bozeman, KECC Miles City, and KYPR Gillette.

♪♪ And a good Friday evening to you, and welcome to "Your Opinion, Please," where, for the next 30 minutes, approximately, we welcome your views and those of your neighbors on any subject that is on your mind that can be discussed in public, and, of course, you'll have to decide that because we can't advise you up front.

No prior restraint in this program.

♪♪ ♪♪ 657-2941 here in the Billings area, 1-800-441-2941 outside of Billings.

We have a caller from -- -Livingston.

-Livingston, good evening.

Bozeman, good evening.

We have a caller on the line from -- -Helena.

-Helena, good evening.

Miles City, good evening.

Glasgow, good evening.

Lewistown, good evening.

We have a caller on the line from -- -The Shields River Valley.

-Shields River Valley, good evening.

-Good evening.

I'm wondering what your listeners prefer, a, uh, president who lies about his sex life, or a president who lies about the reasons for invading another country.

-[ Laughs ] We really have to make that choice, huh?

We have a caller on the line from -- -Stillwater County.

-Stillwater County, good evening.

-When I go to vote in the school in Absarokee, I get handed a paper ballot and a rather dull No.

2 pencil and I make a little "X" in the box.

And there's no mistake about that.

-Sure.

-You know, I mean, oh, God, we have to be so high tech and everything has to be so rapid, so fast.

What difference does it make if it takes 3 days to count all the votes, if all the votes get counted?

-In order for us to continue using the Pledge of Allegiance, we need to change or delete any reference to God.

Uh, for example, we could say "One nation under many deities" as opposed to "one nation under God."

That way it would reflect our many different, diverse beliefs and our many different cultures... -Wouldn't that -- -...and it would still say that we are united.

-Wouldn't that just offend everybody, saying "under many deities"?

-Offend everybody?

-'Cause everybody believes that their own God is the one true, don't they?

-Oh, well, you know, that -- that's true.

That's true.

Well, then maybe what we do is just -- is just get -- I was trying to do this so that everybody would be, you know, happy, but maybe -- you know, I never thought of it that way.

-We could choose Jefferson's words and say, "under one God or no God."

-Well, that's true.

That might work, too.

-[ Chuckles ] -Helena, good evening.

-Hi, guys.

How you doing?

-Pretty well.

-So I called you guys some years back and asked you if you could help me figure out what in the heck poetry was... -Oh, my.

-...because I had, uh, been trying for years to, uh -- to figure out what poetry was, and based upon some suggestions that you guys had made, such as saying a whole lot with not very many words... -Yeah.

-...things like that.

I've been listening ever since and decided that that doesn't work, either.

-I have a question for the people.

Can a representative democracy survive in America with the ongoing effort to eliminate reflection and deliberation as part of the legislative, judicial, educational, and social aspects of our country?

Those two words increasingly are not part of the dialogue, "reflection" and "deliberation."

And I don't believe personally that it can survive without them.

-Thank you.

Good question.

People, think about that.

Deliberation and reflection.

I might amend his question.

In a nation of 300 million people approaching, can we talk about democracy or can we strive for accountability?

Is -- Is democracy a reasonable aspiration in a country of 300 million people as diverse as ours is?

-Since your previous caller asked about poetry, a friend e-mailed me a haiku, which was, "Letters dabbled.

Frame on page.

A picture.

Not too many, not too few."

-Mm.

Good.

-I'm -- I'm -- I'm more or less a Democrat, but mostly I'm -- I'm a free floater.

-Yeah, independent.

Sure.

-Well, not even truly independent, because there's a group that calls themselves independents.

-Oh, really?

Okay.

-And -- -They're not organized.

It's like Will Rogers once said, you know, "I'm not a member of any organized party.

I'm a Democrat."

-Oh, I like that.

[ Both laugh ] -Adlai Stevenson even came up better than that.

He said, "The Democrats fight like cats, but, fortunately, when the fight's over, there are more cats."

[ Both laugh ] -You read other things than I do.

[ Both laugh ] -I think those are good comments.

-I like them.

I like them.

I like the program, too.

-Thank you much.

-People talk about, "Gee, I want to live in Montana, but I also want to get paid like I live in California."

Living as we do, and, in some sense, not seeing change take place is the only way that we're going to preserve our natural resources.

Salt Lake, Denver, all the places that I knew that used to be separated by 20 miles from town to town, now it's one contiguous urban sprawl.

-Yes.

-And, you know, living here in Bozeman, I live right next to a development where I've seen 400 acres go on houses just in the last six months.

The only way to preserve Montana is, really, to, in some ways, keep it in the dark ages.

-About a month ago, this lady called in, uh, who had -- had gotten some food poisoning, and, uh, I hope she's feeling better now.

Um, garlic helps, uh, if you do a lot of garlic if you suspect food poisoning.

-Garlic helps treat food poisoning?

-Oh, absolutely.

-Oh, that's good to know.

-Oh, my, yes.

-I just was so thrilled to hear the woman say that she thought Bush was like Napoleon.

She's the first one that I've heard express that.

And I say, yes!

Amen!

She's right!

-What is it about him that -- that makes you think of Napoleon?

-Well I think he is -- is so petty and so little and so small-minded, yes so grandiose.

And, you know, he's going to conquer the whole world, I guess, all by himself.

And I'm thinking, uh, "Doesn't he know about Napoleon?"

-Well, I-I -- My view of Napoleon has been considerably changed ever since I found out that when he's holding his hand inside his coat, he's really holding up his pants.

-[ Laughs ] -And I didn't know that, so.

Thank you.

-Hello.

I was just commenting from our, uh, would-be poet friend that he might, uh, really kind of like, uh, limericks more than poetry.

-Uh-huh.

You cooking outdoors tonight?

-Uh, going to be soon.

-Yeah, good, good.

-As soon as this little drizzle stops.

-Cause that's what I -- that's what I remember.

When you first called this program, you were usually barbecuing at the time, you know?

-Uh-huh, and then we'd float down the river and catch fish.

-That's right.

-Uh-huh.

You've actually had live trout caught on "Your Opinion, Please."

-[ Chuckles ] -In fact, I was one of your first callers on this show.

-You were.

-Going by when you started, and I believe it was 1997 or '98.

-Oh, my heavens.

Really?

That long?

-One of the first things you and me talked about was electric deregulation and the consequences we were going to have from this fleecing, but that isn't what I wanted to talk about.

-The issues never change, do they?

-No, they never do.

-Montana, I think we call ourselves "The Treasure State," but the vast majority of Montanans don't realize that the main treasure left in this state that has not been plundered is intact natural landscapes... -Mm-hmm.

-...and public lands.

-Great Falls is growing.

Bozeman's growing.

Missoula.

Kalispell.

Every one of our cities is growing right now because people like to come here.

And with these tax rates that they put on, it's going to be one heck of a burden on the people that are building houses.

Every time the state or the federal government puts out a text break, my taxes go up.

[ Voice breaking up ] -We-- We're -- We're losing you.

We're losing you on the phone.

Do you have a cellphone?

-No, I don't.

Um... -Oh, okay.

Alright.

You're back again now.

Okay.

-Okay.

I know what happened.

My wife turned on the, um, turned on the microwave.

The Supreme Court ruled against medical marijuana and medical marijuana users.

-Mm-hmm.

-Supposing that Max Baucus is going to protect us from senior citizens with arthritis on skateboards with dreadlocks.

-The smoking ban has once again reared its ugly head.

-This has just been a very frustrating week of trying to deal with our state government.

-I'm a -- kind of a Republican person.

I support the president and all the Marines and Army and Navy and the Air Force.

-I was calling to talk about the current immigration situation and, uh, how it affects the workforce.

-We now have a bill that is going to be signed into law, which will declare, uh, harm to a fetus to be harm to a citizen or a person.

-The amount of money that Clarence Thomas has accepted is very upsetting.

-Please explain to me why we got in this war in the first place.

-How angry do you get when you see that somebody is in court again for their sixth DUI?

That makes me damn angry.

-Most people are in favor of developing the COVID vaccine.

But they're gonna turn the river into a sewer.

-There's a lot of misinformation out there, and some of this misinformation is being put out there purposely.

-I had such a good day, being back in my classroom with my children, and I have enjoyed my profession so much today... ...and I wanted to thank you for making me stretch my mind.

I listen to you as often as I can.

Keep it up.

-Wanted to let you know that I had gotten a book on poetry, and I was reading it, and I would make a -- a good-faith effort to figure out what the hell poetr-- -Mm-hmm.

-I'm -- I'm sorry.

I can't say that on the air.

-You can't.

Yeah, you did already.

That's okay.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

What the heck poetry is.

What I'm hoping to do is to increase my own, um, knowledge of the world and never realized that poetry itself might be able to bring all that into focus.

-Yeah.

-So I'm having a lot of fun and -- -Good.

-And I'll be in touch.

-Thank you.

-I think the most, uh, crucial thing about being a human on the Earth is that you must remember we are completely interdependent, uh, I mean, until you can actually grow your own semiconductors and cast your own engine blocks and all those other kinds of things which we take for granted.

We are completely dependent upon others and, uh, part of the creation of this country had to do with recognizing that.

It is our collective duty to, uh, watch out for each other.

And I think it's very important that we remember that as we go through life, rather than swearing at each other and calling each other liberals or conservatives or whatever it is we happen to use as a pejorative.

Um... -But it's so much fun.

[ Both chuckle ] -Good evening.

May I change the subject?

-Go ahead.

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