By High Plains Grifter
Listen up, neighbors. Now that you know the cast of characters: the Crestedcrats, Aspenauts, and various flavors of Trust Fund Environmentalists, it’s time to name the tools they use to rearrange your life. These ain’t just words. They’re the fancy phrases they trot out at “community input meetings” right before they approve yet another limit on your freedoms.
While they’re up in Boulder dreaming up new ways to save the planet with your money, us porch philosophers are down here observing what actually happens on the ground. Observation is still the best way to define reality, and reality says most of these shiny terms translate to the same three things: higher taxes, fewer freedoms, and more lectures from people who couldn’t change a tire if their next manicure depended on it. So here’s the rest of the glossary, the policies, the slogans, and the bureaucratic smoke screens, straight from the front porch, no sugar, no chaser:
- Electric Preferred (adj) – Local ordinance that means “the Nanny State is alive and well, and we are going to do your thinking for you-but don’t dare ask why we do things, we don’t know”. Usually passed right before the grid starts wheezing.
- STR Tax (n) – Short-Term Rental tax. The ingenious way we punish people for having extra bedrooms while solving the housing crisis by making damn sure nobody can afford to build new ones.
- Freedom Greens™ (n) – Local greenhouse operation heated entirely by legislative hot air and campaign promises. Very sustainable until the first February cold snap, then it becomes “Freedom Frozen Spinach.”
- Polisbill (n) – Any piece of legislation that sounds wonderful in a Boulder press release and feels like a boot on the neck in Salida. Comes with free side of “data does not support” your complaints.
- Equity (n) – Magical word that means “make sure the working stiffs pay the same rates as the second-home owners… but get half the service and twice the lectures.”
- Front Porch (n) – Last remaining place in Chaffee County where common sense is still legally allowed after dark. Now monitored by Boulder like it’s Area 51.
- Data Does Not Support (phrase) – Head Tater’s favorite get-out-of-jail-free card. Translation: “The numbers look terrible but my donors would be upset if I admitted it.”
- Hillbilly Ways (n) – What Denver elites call it when you want reliable electricity, honest elections, and to keep your truck that actually works when it’s twenty below.
- Commissioner Speak (n) – Dialect of English where “yes” means “maybe,” “transparent” means “we’ll tell you after the election,” and “public input” means “we already decided, thanks for playing.”
- Green New Deal Lite (n) – Colorado’s version: same terrible ideas, slower rollout, way higher taxes, and three times the self-congratulatory studies.
- Virtue Signal (v) – Posting on social media about saving the planet while your own second home’s furnace heat signature can be seen from the International Space Station.
- Ranked Choice Voting (n) – Fancy new way to make sure the candidate the Crestedcrats like wins even when they lose. Democracy’s participation trophy.
- Affordable Housing (n) – Government program that builds units nobody who actually works here can afford or qualify for, then blames the market for their own stupidity.
- Wood Stove (n) – Racist heating device according to Boulder. Perfectly fine if it’s in an Aspen vacation home worth three million dollars.
- Transmission Line (n) – Invisible infrastructure the green crowd never mentions when pushing more EVs and heat pumps. Apparently electricity just appears by magic and good intentions.
- Chaffee County Values (n) – Code for “we’d like to keep the lights on and the government out of our business.” Now considered a hate crime in certain circles.
- Outdoor Recreation Economy (n) – Official excuse for turning working ranch land into Instagram backdrops for people who couldn’t tell a cow from a condominium.
- Stakeholder (n) – Anyone with more money and opinions than you. Their input magically counts triple.
- Community Input Meeting (n) – Two-hour event where you get three minutes to speak while they nod politely and do whatever the hell they planned six months ago.
- Sustainability (n) – Word that now means “make rural people pay for urban fantasies while we fly private.”
- Hot Air (n) – Primary renewable resource produced by the Colorado legislature. Excellent for heating greenhouses, inflating egos, and absolutely nothing else.
- EV Mandate (n) – Order that your next truck must cost twice as much and work half as good when it’s twenty below. Because freezing to death is apparently better than climate change.
- Redaction Fee (n) – Small fortune you pay the county so they can hide public records from you. It’s like paying the mafia not to break your legs.
- Election Integrity (n) – Conspiracy theory according to Crestedcrats. Mentioning it is the fastest way to get labeled a domestic terrorist.
- Working Stiff (n) – Taxpayer who actually produces something besides press releases and feasibility studies.
- Second Home Owner (n) – Species that votes for higher taxes in Colorado because it doesn’t affect their primary residence in California.
- Boulder Brainworm (n) – Parasite that causes otherwise sane people to support policies that hurt mountain counties while feeling morally superior about it.
- Grid Reliability (n) – Mythical concept the utilities mention right before they enact another rate hike.
- Carbon Footprint (n) – Only measured for peasants. Politicians and Aspenauts get a lifetime Diamond-studded Pass.
- Public Comment (n) – The sound of one hand clapping in an empty room while the board votes yes anyway.
- Housing Crisis Solution (n) – More regulations and taxes. (See also: “making it worse while pretending to help, then blaming Republicans.”)
- Stakeholder Engagement (n) – Fancy term for ignoring the people who actually live here while pretending to listen.
- Rural Equity (n) – Taking money from mountain counties to fix Denver’s self-inflicted problems.
- Energy Transition (n) – Polite way of saying “we’re shutting down what works and hoping fairy dust and unicorn farts replace it.”
- Public Private Partnership (n) – Corporate welfare dressed up as progress and sprinkled with buzzwords.
- Diversity Hire (n) – Person chosen for looks or politics over competence. Never questioned by the press unless it’s politically inconvenient.
- Wildland Urban Interface (n) – Fancy term for “we built houses in the woods then act shocked when it burns.
- Tourist Economy (n) – Business model where locals get priced out so visitors can take pictures while paying astronomical STR taxes.
- Fact Checker (n) – A far-left intern paid to protect the narrative at all costs.
- Misinformation (n) – Anything the Grifter writes that the Crestedcrats don’t like.
- Disinformation (n) – Same as above but with more dramatic pearl-clutching.
- Malinformation (n) – True information that hurts the approved story. The most dangerous kind.
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