A Hill Worth Dying For

Back in high school I had a quirky teacher who taught a class called “Principles of Democracy”.  We didn’t see eye to eye politically, but he challenged me in a number of ways.  I believe (hope) he appreciated me because, even then, I cared about my country and had strong political opinions that I was more than willing to share.  He allowed me to do that and I’m appreciative of his professional discipline.  Still, I was young and ignorant and therefore didn’t really have the knowledge or experience to properly form arguments and/or defend them.

One common flaw of mine that this teacher pointed out to me was that my blaming “the government” for anything or everything wasn’t well defined.  You hear it all the time, “The government is too big”, “The government wastes too much money”, etc.  On the level of sentiment we may get across a common understanding; that our government, in various forms, is bad in some way.  It is important to understand that this type of argument is juvenile and doesn’t help in defining flaws or making corrections.  In fact, I accept as true that these general arguments hurt the cause of the limited government movement.

Americans are and have always been abused by certain forms of government whether it be the British Crown or the home grown institutions set up by our citizens.  Too often when those abuses come we thwart our discontent toward a phantom foe – “the government”.  The problem is that “the government” is nobody, and everybody – either way, both are impossible to successfully fight.  It is for this reason that we should define specifically what entity has brought us injustice.

In my last “Case of the Mundays” post, I spoke of a lemonade stand that was shut down in Midway, Georgia.  The general response is that “the government” is out of line; but that gets us nowhere in defending these mistreated kids.  What government?  Shall we go to Obama?  Congress?  The State?  Should we just piss and moan about “the government” and their overreaching hand?  Sadly, those are usually the first responses from the right.  We grumble and we throw audible stones at only the most recognizable entities in our government.  Friends, this is lazy and part of the reason we’re now suffering numerous abuses.

In the case of the lemonade stand the people of that county should be working with their municipality’s board of directors and/or mayor to get this absurdity resolved.  There is no doubt that people, like me, will bellow about how this type of government intrusion is representative of our out of control government; but that sentiment dies if we do nothing about the local quandary.  Unlike the happenings behind closed doors in Washington, we can and do have a more tangible power in our local governments.  Our voices can be vividly heard in those halls.

It is imperative that we understand that our federal government, the body that we focus so much on, cannot be changed from the top down, but from the bottom up.  This is a founding principle.  We do not put people into office on Capitol Hill so that they might tell cities and counties how to do their business – that is very monarchical.  Instead, we are meant to influence the national government by imposing our values and ideas on the areas most intimate to us.  If you want to make a real difference, then do so locally.  It is often the case that the hill worth dying for is in your own backyard.