Several of the most remote and sparsely populated counties in ND were included on a list of municipalities across the country alleged to be “Sanctuary Jurisdictions” by the Department of Homeland Security.
This came as quite a surprise to the generally law abiding citizens of Slope, Billings, and Golden Valley counties. Those counties are just to the south and west of where we live. Slope County has a whopping 703 residents, and boasts the second least populated county seat in the country with a population of 24. (Brewster, NE beat them out with a population of 17.) There is no police department in Amidon, the county seat. There is a police car parked on the side of the road on the main highway into town, with a mannequin seated in the driver’s seat. It always reminds me to slow down when I drive through! I guess that is how all those immigrants are sneaking to and fro.
Golden Valley County has 1700 residents. Billings County has 1000. These are mainly ranchers and farmers. Townspeople are the service providers for the agricultural sector. Some of the towns don’t even have schools. I am sure they are all scratching their heads wondering where all the immigrants are hiding. The sheriffs of all three counties are demanding apologies and retractions from Kristi Noem. She used to spend a lot of time in Pierre as SD governor, and you would think she would know something about southwest ND. I hope Clyde can comment today, as his daughter was the pastor for several churches in those counties and he is familiar with the places.
What laws are you most likely to bend? Do you obey the speed limit? What is the population of your county seat?
Trail Baboon 
On the interstate highways, I’ll go 5 -7 mph over the limit. Driving the limit can be dangerous! Other than that, I keep the speed down.
Lebanon, Ohio is around 21,000.
I often use Slope county when debating Trumpists about all the counties they won compared to Democrats. As if the population of Slope is identical to Los Angeles county. 🙄
LikeLiked by 4 people
I routinely drive a bit over the speed limit too. I also jaywalk when it’s safe to do so. I’m sure I break many laws I’m not even aware of (because we are overwhelmed with laws). But I’ve never even gotten a traffic ticket so I guess I qualify as law abiding. *shrug*
Chris in O-town
LikeLiked by 3 people
It is hard not to speed on the interstate here, and now the speed limit is going up to 80. I try to keep it at about 82. I only had one speeding ticket here, and that was in town!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, I would have been legal all those years I was driving 80 on the western interstates!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Our veterinarian says that rural folks here are ranchers who farm, as opposed to the eastern part of the state where they are farmers who ranch.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Here in the Cities it is almost impossible to drive the speed limit on the freeways/major highways – you’ll get run over (unless you are caught in road construction – then you barely move). I try to keep my speed 5 to 7 miles over the posted limit. I’ve had a couple of speeding tickets when going the same 5 – 7 miles over the limit on local roads. I do jaywalk when it is safe to do so.
I live in Ramsey County – population of about a half million.
LikeLiked by 3 people
St. Paul is the largest city in Ramsey County, and it is listed as having a population of 287,000. The website also lists our mayor as Norm Coleman, so that tells me it hasn’t been updated in several years. I’m pretty sure St. Paul is in fact the largest city in Ramsey County, and I’m equally sure that Melvin Carter has been our mayor since he was first elected in 2017.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Wikipedia lists the 2020 census population of St.Paul as 311,527. Presumably that includes Mayor Carter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some people might think I’m stupid for this, but you asked. I resent the seat belt law. Who am I hurting, besides myself, if I don’t wear my seat belt? I choose when to wear it, but sometimes, like on rural roads, I clip a doggie seat belt tether into the seat belt thingie to make the dinging sound stop. I do wear my seat belt on freeways and when driving in the metro area where traffic is heavier. I just don’t like being told that I have to wear it at all times. I am a seatbelt scofflaw.
I used to drive too fast, but not anymore. I do keep it close to the speed limit, except in traffic where everyone is going 75, then I just try to match the speed of the vehicles around me.
My 2024 Toyota Cross has sensors all around it that tell me where other vehicles are around me. It starts braking on its own as I approach a vehicle ahead of me. It tends to start braking way out there – as if I won’t do it on my own. It also keeps me in my lane by vibrating and pulling the wheel. I’m getting used to that, but I don’t always like it. It pulls against me if I want to drive close to the center line to avoid a bicyclist on the side of the road. It can see everything else, why can’t it see the bicyclist I’m trying to avoid?
LikeLiked by 4 people
I forgot to say that Faribault is the county seat of Rice County, population just under 25,000.
Northfield is the second largest town in Rice County, with a population of 21,316.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh that would drive me nuts, those sensors in your car! Are they mandatory in the newer cars?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know about ‘mandatory’ but I doubt you could find a new car without them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You forget to say that the court house in Amidon is exactly that—a house. My daughter, along with another pastor, served four churches, one of which was in Amidon. It had a much larger membership than you would expect. She was once filmed there for CBS Morning Show on the scant population. Their parish, which has broken up, was about 90 miles from end to end. The home base was Bowman, which is the large city of SW ND. She met an interesting bunch of people there.
My theory is that North and South Dakota is wrong. East and West would make more sense.
When they moved to this area, on their first grocery shopping trip all the ice cream choices overwhelmed them. They just bought vanilla.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Like your idea about up-and-down Dakotas, rather than North and South..
LikeLiked by 1 person
What works in the east doesn’t always work in the west. This is especially true in SD.
LikeLike
The distinction is truly East River vs West River. Things are really different depending what side of the Missouri you are on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Renee. Is the coal seam fire still burning in Slope County?
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, I think it is out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m in the 5-7 miles over the limit group, and I jaywalk all the time. I’ve gotten a couple of traffic tickets in the past decades – one was when I ran a stop sign when it was blocked from view by a bus… and got a warning on I-80 south of Clear Lake/Mason City (a speed trap).
There was that shoplifting incident during finals week 1968, but that was anomaly, and thankfully the judge thought so too. He dismissed the changes and mused, “What is it that happens to you kids during finals?”
Winona itself is about 26,000. I just checked the county, which is almost 50,000, but includes twelve towns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I seldom speed anymore, not that I did unless the traffic flow required it and I drove all over the country. I think the point at which I should quit driving is not that far off. Vision issues and losing track of turning signals. If I turn my head too far to the left, my vision becomes double. About nerves in my neck. As a bike rider I made a point of obeying the traffic laws. Stupid bike riders pissed me off then and now
LikeLiked by 2 people
I ripped the tags off a couch cushion once and I even dug a hole without notifying the power company.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Snort!
LikeLike
You miscreant!
LikeLike
After dark, of course.
LikeLiked by 2 people
When I’m feeling fractious I go in the out door at Menards.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just to be safe I walk in backwards.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I thought about the powerline and the whole digging as YA and I got the stump out on Saturday. But since i had dug there when I did the original landscaping 35 years ago, I figured it was still OK.
LikeLiked by 3 people
If you have the area marked and there are utility lines there, the safety recommendation is not “don’t dig there”, it is “only use hand tools when you dig there”. And it really isn’t a law if you are not charging anyone to do the digging.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am subscribed via my insurance (Erie, which is amazingly cheap) to a monitor of my driving habits. I have never failed to get $5.00 every two weeks for good driving. The app allows me that 5 Mph over.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Speed On, Baboons,
My crimes are similar to those of Chris and Bill–low grade speeding and tearing off tags from cushions and pillows. My intention is to be law abiding, so if I am not, it is because there is a law I do not know of, and I am breaking it.
The ND counties included on the watch list are similar to the ones in Minnesota which are leaving people scratching their heads. I suspect the names on that list reflects the incompetence of the administration, and not the law abiding nature of the counties listed.
Minneapolis, my county seat is listed as having a population of 459,000 people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
PS, today I am 4 weeks out of hip replacement surgery. So glad to be done with that! I am starting to walk without a cane, slowly, but without much pain. Today at PT I started on a treadmill, and I will finish my PT this week, then transfer activity to the gym.
Last Friday Phoebe found her first nest of baby bunnies in the back yard, and did some damage. Since then she has been driven to get out of the house and finish the job. We don’t let her out back there, and will not until they are gone. There may be some help from Mother Nature. This morning I heard a hawk calling and it was circling above our roof. The nest was uncovered and I think the hawk had spotted the nest. I am trying not to think about that too hard and let nature take its course.
LikeLiked by 4 people
If it’s early early morning, say 5 AM and it’s still dark and I don’t see any other cars coming in a new direction, I do not sit at the long stoplight at 54th and Lyndale
LikeLiked by 3 people
On a Wednesday donut run?
LikeLiked by 2 people
The donut run is at 6:30 AM when the sun Street opens. There’s always at least some traffic at that time of day so obey the lights. Sigh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Remember, if the sign had white around it it’s optional.
I have a heavy foot. Been a long time since I got a speeding ticket, but some of that is just dumb luck.
Olmsted county, with Rochester being the third largest city, has a lot of people. I can tell you Haverhill Township has a population of about 1500.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m usually under the speed limit, and if not, no more than a couple of miles above. I drive for fuel economy, so I don’t have a heavy accelerator foot.
Leviticus 19:19 outlaws the wearing of clothing made of mixed materials like wool and linen. It doesn’t mention spandex, but I have developed a fondness for jeans that have some spandez content. They are so much more comfortable than the pure demin ones that were biblically approved.
LikeLiked by 2 people
im a 9 1/2 mile per hour over the speed limit ever since i ssked a cop giving me a ticket what is allowable and he told me 9 will never get you a ticket 10 might 15 will for sure.
i dont stop at stop signs in parking lots ever if no cars, or in neighborhoods where it can be seen no one is around
i have not recieved my 100th ticket yet but im a criminal for sure. multiple seat belt, talking in the phone , speeding , alcohol, tix with a bunch of never thought about that one before tickets
im a north dakota boy from the giant metropolis fargo.
county of 700? im not sure i get it. think id move the county lines
LikeLiked by 3 people
I knew we could count on you for something out of the ordinary, tim.
LikeLike