Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 121

on political books
aggressive local bears. The libertarian
battle cry of "Nobody tells me what to
do!" drowned out all other political debate, at least temporarily, and the results of their blindly anti-government,
anti-authority mind-set were both
troubling and predictable.

ongoltz-Hetling presents the
Grafton experience as a rollicking tale of colorful rural characters
and oddly clever ursines. The Free
Towners' wacky political views, like
their eccentric clothes, their rusting
pickup trucks, and their elaborate facial hair, present him with seemingly
limitless opportunities to display his
own cleverness.
Certainly, the author is not alone in
finding cause for amusement in Grafton's funny little basket of deplorables. For years now, reporters and pundits have chosen to focus on the style,
rather than the policy substance, of
the growing libertarian right. Again
and again, we read stories of rural
rubes clad head to toe in MAGA swag,
hunched over chipped cutlery in dingy
diners, wielding biscuits to wipe the
last of the sausage gravy from their
oversized plates while vociferously
proclaiming that taxation is theft and
inveighing against the nanny state.
In choosing to shoot these red, white,
and blue fish in a barrel, HongoltzHetling is in very good company.
But had the author not chosen snark
over substance, his book could have
served as a peculiarly timely cautionary tale, because the conflicting philosophical principles that drive this
story are central to understanding
American politics today. The differences between the libertarian stumblebums who moved to Grafton and
the staff of the Koch-funded Cato Institute are mostly sartorial. And the
sad outcomes of Grafton's wacky social experiment are now being repeated in American communities every
single day.
If it seems unkind to slam a writer for indulging in a bit of a laugh as
he slogs his way through a story that
basically boils down to fundamental-

ly divergent views of tax policy, consider the chapter in which HongoltzHetling drags his reader into an ultimately unsatisfactory discursion
into the political dynamics of Frenchoccupied Tunisia. In the chapter, he
references the work of the Oxford University professor Daniel Butt, a noted
scholar of colonialism. In his discussion of Butt's academic work, Hongoltz-Hetling brutally torques his sentences to produce the phrases "Butt
heads," "Butt wipe," "Butt cracks,"
and "Butt (w)hole." Oh, how devilishly cheeky.
Look. I get it. Snark is to reporters
what salmon is to bears-they thrive
on it, and many can't survive without a lot of it. But back in my crimereporting days, our city
editor routinely tossed
back any sophomoric
attempts to inject witticisms into odd little
crime stories by asking,
"Would this be funny if
it happened to you?"
Hongolt z -Het l i ng 's
chronic prioritization
of style over substance
brings his reportorial
judgment and diligence
into question at multiple points throughout
the book. He lightly
glosses over one character's conviction on 129 counts of child pornography, and later compares Grafton's
troubling influx of sex offenders-
from eight to 22 in four years-with an
equally disconcerting drop in the tiny
town's local recycling rates. Later, he
chuckles about a man found "in questionable circumstances with a preteen"
who was "[asked to] leave in an impolite manner involving a very visibly
wielded baseball bat." I raise this issue not solely because I am a midwestern mom who is absolutely unamused
by child sex abuse, but also because
Hongoltz-Hetling does not mention
that pedophilia and child pornography are profoundly schismatic issues
for the American libertarian community. Mary J. Ruwart, a leading candi-

date for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2008, wrote,
Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right
to make that decision as well, even
if it's distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor
choices just as some adults do in
smoking and drinking to excess.
When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children
against their will.
In 2008, the party refused to vote on a
resolution asking states to strongly enforce existing child pornography laws.

The author is not alone in
finding cause for amusement
in Grafton's funny little basket
of deplorables. For years now,
reporters and pundits have
chosen to focus on the style,
rather than the policy substance,
of the growing libertarian right.
The author takes a similarly lighthearted approach to his account of the
Unification Church's establishment
of a summer retreat in Grafton in the
early 1990s-a lengthy episode that
buttresses his portrayal of Grafton as
a weirdo magnet of national proportions. In fact, there are numerous villages across this country where religious leaders have walked into town
and proclaimed, "This is the place,"
regardless of whether that place was
already occupied by nonbelievers. The
resulting conflicts between townspeople and the invading faithful can
be deadly serious. When the Indian
guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh founded a commune of 2,000 followers in
Oregon's rural Wasco County in the
1980s, for example, the group's resisWashington Monthly 121

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

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