“Sometimes I feel like Oklahoma is one big dementiatown, suffering from some cerebral disease that is impeding blood flow to the brain.” – Russell Cobb, Oklahoma native and author of The Great Oklahoma Swindle [page 25]

Well, mark me down, too, with Russell because I couldn’t agree more. He later laments that we folks are an amalgam of Native Americans [forced here]; whites who ran here for free land; immigrants, legal and otherwise; and more recently returnees from California fleeing high property taxes, smog, fires and too many of each other.

So why, on the 4th of July, was I in the middle of reading Cobb’s brutally critical book about my state, your state, our state and finding myself on page after page in almost total agreement with his devastatingly negative assessment of our current plight?

The answer may not be simple and certainly not obvious; I’m trying to figure out, with all the myriad of advantages our state has [and I will shortly list just a few of them], can we be so damn bad in so many categories that measure and quantify the definition of a “quality of life” environment.

You know the lists. Bottom five in really important stuff like education, health care, over-incarceration, infrastructure, arterial connections, protecting our natural resources, to name just a few.

Why so when we have a number of built-in advantages compared to other states, such as central location, abundant water, natural gas, oil, sun, the second most lake shorelline miles in the nation and wind power. That should give Oklahoma a massive advantage in the race to be a Top 10 state.

But it doesn’t.

Then, besides natural resources, throw in what ought to be other beneficial factors in our fabric such as the mixture, heritage and complexities of our people. No other state, or even nation, was created out of whole cloth like ours. Native American tribes, from both the east and the west, were sent here, followed by hundreds of thousands of other Americans of all stripes, wealth, heritage, creed, colors and national origin who were in search of not just land but free land.

But even these human attributes have not been able to consistently keep the 46th state from being the butt of late-night comedy skits, degrading jokes and derogatory monologues.

So, what’s the problem?

Actually, I think it is me and my fellow members of the political class who have been entrusted with the state’s treasures as measured by both human talent and natural resources.

Frankly, when asked to be, other Oklahomans are most generous, tithing at their churches well above givers in other locales. They are brave as measured in uniform, whether it be the military or your local fire and police departments. Okies volunteer like crazy when disaster strikes as it does so often – from floods, fires, tornadoes and even at the hands of evil humans.

But I believe the ruling class, politically speaking, does not ask enough of themselves, which leads to cynicism, doubt and distrust among those who elect them. We often compromise down to the lowest common denominator; squander more tax money than need be; self-deal and self-promote to excess; and lack the basic courage to being willing to fail in the pursuit of excellence, not just adequacy.

That was my view as I put my book down to watch the fireworks in Washington, DC, and New York City. At least whoever put those shows on knew what the word perfection means.