Western North Carolina
I wasn’t going to write this piece, but a number of friends asked me to do so. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by being one of those “hey look at me” virtue signalers. I really didn’t do that much. I feel guilty, as I could have stayed longer and done more.
I drove down to Boone, North Carolina where Samaritan’s Purse (SP) had an operations center at Alliance Bible Fellowship, a large non-denominational church. Yes, I felt “called” to go help, but I don’t feel like I did an adequate job answering my calling! The first day I helped unload and load trucks. I also took an orientation class with SP and became authorized to work on a hazardous work site. The number of volunteers at SP was huge. The second day, I and 100 others were assigned to a work site, which was an extra hour away from Richmond. It seemed that the site was well covered, and I had clients who unexpectantly needed my counsel, so I decided it would be a more productive use of my time to return home with hopes of quickly making it back down to Boone. You can see why I feel a bit like a “cheat,” and feel especially bad when folks commended me for going down there. I didn’t do that much.
My ex-wife has people in Rutherfordton and Lake Lure. Wonderful people. I always appreciated the extreme hospitality they showed me, and especially the hospitality they showed my children. Cousin after cousin who had children my children’s age would invite them over. I remember this practice when I was a boy. My parents did the same. Back then there was a prevailing hospitality. People were proud of where they were from and wanted others to feel welcome when visiting. The hospitality was not just for visitors, but for neighbors and friends, even strangers. Our house was always open. Anyone could stop by, help themselves to the fridge, sit by the pool, spend the night, etc. The same was true with the Coggins, the Morrises, the Cardens, the Edwards and others. It was a nice culture. Western North Carolina is like this. I’m convinced that every community in the United States has the capability to be this way.
If you’ve read my writings, you may know that I am a limited government guy. My belief is born from experience and intellect. We don’t need Leviathan to do what we are clearly capable of doing for ourselves. When de Tocqueville visited America in 1831, he was most struck by how Americans organically formed associations to provide for the common good and fix societal ills. Schools, churches, libraries, hospitals, mutual aid associations and a million other things that we now expect the government to do for us. I’m convinced that the hospitality I experienced growing up was very much a function of a self-reliant people who were “in community” with one another. Society has gotten colder and less personal as government has grown enormously larger. Such omnipotence squeezes out the natural convention to just do things for ourselves, until the prevailing ethos among the majority of the population is it is the government’s role to do “that thing.” Personal responsibility is abdicated in favor of the faceless government with its avaricious appetite to tax productivity and become larger and more controlling.
What I saw in Boone was amazing. The church people were incredibly nice, articulate, efficient and thankful. People rolled in all day with donations and a system of efficient ergonomics unfolded with natural energy. The unloading, separating, compiling and distributing back out goods received rivaled anything Chick-fil-A could do. There were hundreds of volunteers, and to a person everyone was smiling.
It seems our country is divided into two classes of people. Those who start a policy conversation with the pronoun “we,” and those who start with “I.” The academic and government classes blather in the collective and use terminology that avoids any personal risks or costs and say “we need to do this or that.” While the people helping out in Boone say “I will do this or that.” These are my kind of folks. Just to remind you, the people rescuing others, clearing roads, feeding and sheltering the homeless and holding prayer vigils are not getting paid, indeed they don’t want to get paid. FEMA employees are on the government dole, and they cannot possibly do with any level of proficiency what de Tocqueville’s North Carolina folks can do.
de Tocqueville stated “[t]he American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
I’ve said in past writings, and I am perfectly serious that America would be much better off if all the public schools were disbanded. All across the country the government has ruined education by “taking over.” The government has bribed the public with their own money, “we will educate your children for you!” One must, absolutely must study history and understand the way things were. Before the United States was even formed, children were educated in a fraction of the time spent in public schools, with virtually no public resources and were mastering Greek and Latin as 12-year-olds. If you don’t believe the same could be done today, go to Boone. Meet these smart, talented and caring people. Shut the schools down and these type of folks will form associations and make it work, far better, for a tiny expenditure of what is being spent today. Witness what these people are doing in North Carolina and one can easily see the futility of government and how so many programs can easily be eliminated along with the tax money that would do much more good in the private sector.
Yes, the people of western North Carolina are special folks, but every community is capable of being self-reliant and throwing off the shackles of government bloat. Recently, I attended an after-church presentation at St. Thomas, an Episcopal Church at 53rd and 5th Avenue in New York. Few people realize that Manhattan was mostly a manufacturing center in the 19th century. The needs of the urban poor were staggering, but so were the number of philanthropic associations. They fed, they clothed, they educated, they took care of the sick and gave moral guidance. St. Thomas was a leader and its outreach was phenomenal. There were no government programs. Take a deep dive and read the way it used to be done.
de Tocqueville also said that “liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” The people getting it done in North Carolina do so because of their allegiance is to a higher purpose. This is where the greatest good is always done. Before the 16th Amendment, almost all of the great institutions still held in high esteem today were founded by similar people.
Governments don’t have a soul, but people do.
