Save the Cowboy, Save America

My grandfather is a certain kind of man, the kind that is harder to find these days. Special Forces, Border Patrol, CIA, Smokejumper, and truly as cowboy as they come. He’s the kind that has stories no one has ever heard, and never will. But the ones he has told shouldn’t be taken as just stories. They ought to be taken as lessons in how to live, how to love, and how the world has changed. There’s a silver string that ties him together: the Code of the West. This Code has long stood as the unwritten principles of living, and it epitomizes American traditions. In his own words, my grandfather describes it as such:

Ride hard.

Shoot straight.

Tell the truth.

Side with your partner.

Ride for the brand.

Care for the herd.

Earn your wages.

Be tough, but never mean.

The Code of the West, often referred to as the Cowboy Code, has always served as just that: a guide of ethics for cowboys. The cowboy is free to ride, and he does so with all he has, but he is anchored to the responsibility of caring for his herd. He is ruggedly individual, with profound recognition and gratitude for the One who made him. It is a clear understanding that he didn’t make himself. He rides with integrity and accountability to close gates behind him and leave the world better than he found it, doing so with honor. He doesn’t shy away from strength, but wears it humbly like a shield, knowing it is better to earn his provision with weathered hands than to whine for it with entitled ones. He stands by his loved ones, he listens even to those who oppose him and, with an open heart, he remains firm on his values. The core tenets of the Cowboy Code, we find, are courage, integrity, authenticity, respect, loyalty, toughness, and honor. It’s about finishing what we start, doing what must be done, despite what feels good right now.

There’s a certain tug I feel in my chest when reflecting upon the Code. It’s the tug of nostalgia from growing up as a cowgirl. Then it’s a tug of longing for the way things used to be. Finally, I realize that tugging is the necessary feeling that comes from an anchor, tying the soul to duty, responsibility, and values. To live unanchored is to blow away in the wind, eventually rolling away like a tumbleweed into purposeless and aimless oblivion. It hurts to realize, but the rope burns that come from a life tied to something bigger than ourselves are far better than having no scars, no accountability, and no Code keeping us from blowing away. Because what is liberty without responsibility? What is freedom without gratitude? It’s a licentious slavery and endless disappointment when life’s inevitable unfairness strikes. It’s a weakness of the soul, until it’s so weak, it fades away.

Weak values breed weak societies. Entitled progressivism feeds a future of soullessness. Abandonment of accountability is a deal with the devil. A cowboy without his cattle is lost to the wind, just as is a society without moral conviction.

The winds of Woke are blowing in, stronger than ever before, and the solution isn’t surrender. It’s strength. The Code of the West stands on strength, its foundation is faith, and its walls are discipline. The Code ought not to be just for the cowboy and his cattle. It goes further than the the range. It’s the prescription for how life was meant to be lived, how the heart was meant to be shaped, and the principles to which society should adhere. 

Just because the American west is still the American west now, it won’t be forever. There is a faction which seeks to abandon the Code altogether. Forces of evil and victims of ignorance hate the principles beneath the Code. They deny the importance, the necessity of the Code. Somehow, strength is supremacy, weakness is wisdom, and the Code of the West is for fake cowboys on TV, and that’s all it should be: fiction. It may soon become fiction if we allow it. That’s why we mustn’t. The Code of the West gives us the opportunity to reflect upon what we need to restore ourselves, not just as a nation, but as a people. It is the blueprint for a strong nation, tied to duty, responsibility, and moral conviction with a faith in God branded on its heart. It belongs to more than the cowboy way. The Cowboy Code is not only necessary in preserving the Western way of life. It’s the solution to saving America. 

-Paige Rasmussen