Is Utah always best, or maybe just a little arrogant sometimes?
Businessman and Utah Senate President Stuart Adams recently reminded America's other 49 states that 'Utah is the greatest state in the nation' due to its high ratings in 'management, the economy, and happiness.'
Not only that, but the 'Rising Utah' project plans to grow Utah economically from being the current 'Crossroads of the West' (the title of which was already claimed by Indiana) to being the 'Crossroads of the World' just in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics games here.
In his annual State of the State speech in 2024, Gov. Spencer Cox adopted a modernist Tower of Babel orientation. He said, 'Now is a time for building,' and 'We're not done doing big things. And we're not done building.' The key to Utah success is not education, apparently, but building: 'For 180 years and counting, Utahns have been building our way out of problems, even when things looked impossible.' In another nod to Utah's greatness, he said, 'Our home has become the envy of the earth.'
However, Utah's young people, like elsewhere in the country, don't know much about how to work, having never seen or experienced a family farm in their lives. Nor do many high school graduates even want to work. Many are depressed and anxious and addicted to screen time. Wages are low; banks charge incredibly high interest rates on the working poor; corporations act like robotic authoritarian managers of worker lives; and many young people are afflicted with mental health issues keeping them from being productive workers. Too many lack college degrees and technology skills. The Salt Lake Chamber adds a lack of sophisticated workforce training, out of control housing prices, transportation shortfalls, and expensive energy to that list of challenges. How great is it to be a little bit better than one's neighbors at rowing a lifeboat if one is on the sinking American Titanic?
Utah's state motto, 'Industry,' seems well tailored to its current boasting about being the best economy now and forevermore. On the other hand, we would be wise to learn from the state mottos of other jurisdictions across the country. Missouri has one particularly well suited for Utah to learn from: 'The welfare of the people is the highest law.' Utah has an aggravated problem of homelessness, poor historical commitment to civics education, and progress-blocking monopolies in its communications industries and political parties all harming the general welfare.
North Carolina's motto could be put to good use in Utah: 'To be, rather than to seem.' In other words, let your actions do the talking, rather than constantly boasting of greatness. How about a little humility, Utah, rather than constantly publishing political administration mottos like 'Life Elevated,' and 'Keep Utah Great.'
How about Oregon's motto, 'She flies with her own wings.' Wouldn't it be nice if Utah made it easier for women to get involved in leadership in corporate, government, and church affairs? Women have wings to fly if we just give them a runway to take off from. Instead, Utahns subscribe to the idea that 'childless cat ladies' are the bane of American life. They must be barefoot and chained to the refrigerator to be effective women. It might be a source of pride to point out as our local media does that Utah leads the nation in Halloween decorations, but is that the best way for women to be spending their time?
Maryland's motto would be a good look for Utah if we could ever climb off our high horses: 'Strong deeds, gentle words.' A lot less bragging, more humility, and a lot more results would go a long way toward getting things done. Wouldn't it be nice to see not nearly so many Republican party advertisements of election candidates pointing rifles, firing them off into the blue, and reloading. 'Gentle words' people, not fireworks displays and visions of Second Amendment grandiosity.
My grandmother has some advice for Utah's political leaders today. As a young woman at the turn of the 20th century over a hundred years ago, she sang in the Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. She married an Idaho college graduate and moved back east where the couple got involved in worldly national corporate economic affairs on Wall Street in New York City. She often would say, 'If I could buy him for what he's worth, and sell him for what he thinks he's worth . . .'
There are plenty of social issues to bring Utah down to earth, if it ever realizes its current value is not as great as it thinks: teen suicide; high divorce rates; a focus on luxury housing rather than affordable housing; what to do about gun control; a civically underinformed higher education system; plunging Medicaid availability; a dearth of union collective bargaining; how to humanely handle people in the country without documentation who commit crimes; whether to be banning books or tolerating them; how to deal with the current philosophy of making vaccines voluntary rather than mandatory; and how to build back trust in all three branches of government.
Folks, 'The welfare of the people is the highest law.'
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