At LaSalle Elementary, North Valley Middle School, and Valley High School, I was taught good, old-fashioned Civics. I vaguely remember something called the social contract. It sounds like the thing Boulder academics mumble about between sips of kombucha, but at its heart, it’s just common sense. Something you won’t find in Boulder.
Here’s the bargain: You give up a sliver of freedom so society doesn’t collapse into Mad Max. We agree—together—to follow certain rules so we can walk the streets without a baseball bat and a doberman pincer. In return, the government promises to protect our God-given rights, enforce laws, equally (not “equity” – equality) seek justice, and generally keep things running smoothly. Not a signed piece of paper—just the invisible handshake that keeps civilization from eating itself.
And the law? That’s how the social contract shows up in real life. It spells out what’s allowed and what’ll get you cuffed. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Fair laws, enforced equally, keep the wolves at bay. They protect the powerless and stop the powerful from turning the rest of us into chew toys.
But there’s a catch: the whole damn thing only works if everyone plays by the rules. That includes both citizens and the people in power.
When politicians, judges, and bureaucrats bend or flat-out ignore the law for their own convenience, or when they brutally dictate new “laws” for political theater, they’re not just skirting the rules—they’re setting the social contract on fire. I believe that is what has happened under the Polis administration in the Colorado General Assembly.
Just this year, legislation like HB25-1312, SB25-003, and SB25-086 are introduced both for the enactment of personal agenda and for the performance in political theater. These awful, downright evil pieces of crap, er, legislation have collectively fueled that fire started by the destruction of the social contract.
And when everyday folks witness elected representatives breaking the social contract and becoming tyrants, well, then everyone decides the rules don’t apply—smashing windows, dodging responsibilities, treating court orders like junk mail—they’re tossing fuel on the aforementioned bonfire, too. Once enough people do that, the structure doesn’t just crack. It collapses.
I’ve told my son, Jack, more than once: Rules don’t exist to ruin your day. They exist so you don’t wake up one morning in a society where might makes right and your neighbor’s idea of “justice” involves a tire iron. Chaos doesn’t explode overnight. It creeps. It rots. Kinda like Denver over the last six years. And once trust dies, resurrection is a tall damn order. The Colorado General Assembly has destroyed all trust I once had in the institution.
The law matters. Not because it’s flawless (spoiler alert: it isn’t) or because we love every single statute (we don’t). It matters because without shared rules, freedom becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet for the ruthless. Without that social contract—freedom becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet for the ruthless.Liberty without order is just anarchy with a cheap American flag cape.
But what happens when the social contract is broken—truly broken—not by the people, but by the very institutions meant to uphold it? What do we do when laws become tools of control instead of justice? When God-given rights are stripped in the name of convenience or security?
That’s when a free people have to face an uncomfortable fact: We owe zero loyalty to tyranny. And the ruling Democrat party of the glorious Denver/Boulder axis have become the tyrants.
The same contract that asks us to follow just laws also gives us the right—no, the duty—to refuse unjust ones. To stand up—firm, unapologetic—and say, “No. We will not comply.” Not out of some schoolboy/schoolgirl (sorry if I misgendered or deadnamed you) need to cause trouble, but out of allegiance to a higher principle: the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Our forefathers understood this. They didn’t pick a fight for the hell of it, but when the contract was shattered by King and Parliament, they stood firm. They resisted. And they built a nation on the radical idea that government answers to the people—not the other way around.
So let’s not sleepwalk through history. Let’s hold ourselves—and our so-called leaders—accountable. And when the system breaks faith (which in Colorado, it has), let’s have the spine to say No. The future of our families, our communities, and what’s left of this once great state depends on it.
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