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Comment by jacurtis | Hacker News Reader

A lot of this is the fault of the politicians and public education.

Both are largely influenced by one overwhelming organization with nearly infinite money. If you live in Utah you know who i'm talking about.

They don't care about the environment and they aren't overly concerned with public health. Yet most politicians in Utah will only get and stay in power with their blessing and approval. Thats why Utah has had the same senator for 42 years.

We need the utah public to wake up and vote with some intelligence to get people in power who want to and can actually make change and care about these things.

I lived in Utah for almost 2 decades (as an adult). I moved out 5 years ago and it was the absolute best decision I ever made.

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Though I'm no fan of the LDS church's dominance in Utah politics, your assessment of their stance on the environment seems off base.

Example: This recent donation of agricultural water rights that they owned, to divert the water into lake preservation instead.

https://naturalresources.utah.gov/dnr-newsfeed/church-donate...

Literally nothing you describe is unique to Utah or the LDS Church.

You can cherry pick anything to suit a narrative.

Orin Hatch served 42 years; his successor is serving only one term. What does that mean?

Literally nothing you describe is unique to Utah or the LDS Church.

I agree that it isn't unique, but why does it matter? The point isn't that it is a unique situation, the point is that Utahns are being underserved by their officials.

It matters in understanding root causes

> We need the utah public to wake up and vote with some intelligence to get people in power who want to and can actually make change and care about these things.

I live in Oregon where the majority of people live in a tiny corner of the state (the Portland Metro area) which is Democrat heavy. The rest of the state is mainly populated with rural Republican-leaning conservatives. The rural portion of the state is essentially constantly mimicking you about how the entire state government is controlled by Democrats and how “We need the Oregon public to wake up and vote with some intelligence to get people in power who want to and can actually make change and care about these things.” It has gotten to the point where they want the majority of the counties in the state to secede and join themselves to Idaho. Of course, there is no more chance of that happening than you trying to convince the majority conservative Utah population to not vote for conservative candidates. And, the Oregon liberal majority will keep voting for liberal candidates.

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