Picking Rocks

When I was young and growing up on the farm, one of my father’s standing rules was that whenever we encountered a rock while working in the field, we were to pick it up, place it on the tractor platform and deposit it along the fence row for later collection. I was twelve when I finally understood the relationship between rocks, costly equipment and seed displacement. You see, I was a young farm boy who was prone to daydreaming. Although I had my assigned tasks on the farm, I wasn’t very diligent in performing them because my mind was often wandering to places and events far beyond our acreage in north central Ohio.

During the spring of my seventh-grade year my father had to be hospitalized for an extended time. My mother and I were left to milk the cows, feed the hogs, gather the eggs and prepare the fields for planting. My siblings at 9 and 8 years of age were too young to materially assist us, so I missed a few days of school and we soldiered on. After we had the fields ready for planting, our neighbors and fellow church members arrived with their planting equipment and completed the job in one day. I learned about neighbors helping neighbors and the blessings of community that year. It was an eye-opening experience for my curious twelve-year old mind.

Back to the rocks… During my early years on the farm I could not fathom why rocks would appear in fields after we had picked them the previous years. One field was particularly obstinate. It consisted of 6 acres of “jackwax”… a black-blue soil that turned over in huge slabs when it was plowed with a moldboard. It was beautiful to see and extremely difficult to work as the reluctant slabs would fight every attempt by the disk, cultimulcher, cultipacker, springtooth and harrow to tame it into a seed-ready bed. That darn field was a kidney destroyer when I would drive the tractor across its massive slabs. Invariably, a few days after beating the black mass with our entire equipment inventory, my Dad would tell me to take the small tractor and a trailer and go “pick up the rocks in the jackwax field.” I was perplexed. I thought we had retrieved all the rocks the year before…and the one before that. What evil presence was pushing these rocks up to the surface just to annoy me?

That year that my father was in the hospital… the answer was revealed to me. The rocks were numerous and were lying in the rich soil quietly minding their own business when an all-day soaking rain or a 30-minute “gully-washer” would wash the soil away and expose their hiding places. The fertile black-blue soil camouflaged the rocks as they lay silently waiting to damage a disk blade or deflect some precious grains or kernels of seed. The cleansing rain washed away their cover and exposed them for what they were: impediments to our lives and prosperity. If the field were to have a good yield, the offending rocks had to be removed. Their hard-core interference had to be stopped so that our family farm might flourish.

More than a half-century later I was picking rocks from my own fields for the same purpose that my father and grandfather had. Even as I approach “golden-ager” status, my mind still wanders….and wonders. As I was driving my Gator while “rock scouting” and stopping to pick up the offending “back breakers,” I thought my exercise would provide a simple metaphor for where our nation is today. We are so blessed to live in a land of abundance and variety. We have a population that has brought the strengths of many cultures to our shores, but we are struggling…. and our yields are diminishing.

If the field represents our nation, the rich and potentially productive soil is symbolic of our natural resources and our citizens. Clearly the rocks are the faulty policies, the venal career politicians and the arrogant bureaucrats who damage our tools and suppress our yields. The Tea Party, liberty advocates and patriots are the rains. The steady downpours are the constant vigilance and insistence for accountability that our freedom warriors demand. The thunderous gully-washers represent the inflamed ire of our people when they have been “crossed,” sold-out or cheated. Freedom-loving people will expose the offending rocks and remove them….one by one until the field is cleared. We must never forget, however, the rocks will continue to appear, and we must always be vigilant rock pickers forever more. We cannot afford to be daydreamers like that young farm boy was more than a half-century ago. We must be alert. The heavy lifting never ends.

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Crisis Management

In my previous column I explored some of the ways that government either creates a crisis or makes it worse. Government by its very nature always seeks to grow larger….similar to water always seeking its own level. So, when you merge the natural inclination of government with an ideological mindset that believes that government is the source of all that is good, wise and compassionate, you are facing an entity with an insatiable appetite for power and control. Clearly, the first line of defense against the monster is to prevent the election of those who have the ideological bent for an all-encompassing governmental apparatus. So far for the past 100 years or so, the voters of the United States have not been as diligent as they should be when electing their leaders. In fact, it appears that U.S. voters prefer the Nanny State and the corresponding loss of freedom. Of all the crises that we face today, the mindset of a large portion of the voting populace may be the most destructive and difficult to overcome.

While we do indeed have politicians who are wedded to big government solutions and the attendant power that accompanies them, they would not succeed in their election races if the people in their districts were not enamored with large government and the benefits that they reap from other people’s money. Indeed, the primary beneficiaries of the government goodie game are the most powerful impetus for our current fiscal situation. If the people were unanimously committed to small constitutional government, that is what we would have. Our leaders are followers and will flow to where the votes are. The fact that a significant portion of our populace belongs to the looter class has resulted in a political class determined to satisfy them. The looters have captured the power and force of government to coerce the producers, undermine liberty and violate the sacred nature of personal property. One of obvious management devices for the fiscal crisis is to correct or neutralize the moral crisis. When one capable person expects to live and benefit from the labor of others, the policy crisis arises from the immorality of the recipient’s expectations and the government’s willingness to loot the producer.

The most effective management tool for averting a crisis is to anticipate it. A preemptive move to mitigate the danger can transform a potentially dangerous situation into a nearly routine action.  So how do we translate this precept into the political and governmental realm?  As Thomas Jefferson warned,” the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” We cannot do as we have done before. We cannot cavalierly select our political class and hope that they will be true guardians of our liberty. We definitely cannot elect and continually re-elect those who have failed their fiduciary responsibility to protect and defend the liberty of the citizens. We cannot return politicians who legislate or administer without regard for the integrity of the nation….no matter what they claim as justification for overspending or overreaching actions by government. We cannot persist in supporting candidates who insist on banging the drums of war against every tin pot despot on the planet. Our border security, our national defense, our fiscal obligations and our valuable young men and women are too important for adventurous politicians to squander. If any politician at any time violates these understandings or the oath of office, their political careers should end. Vigilant voters should call them out and vote them out.

Historically, our management of crises has been to elect the political class and step aside while expecting them to operate the government with honor. They have failed…miserably, and we have failed by providing minimal oversight. Crisis aversion is the best form of crisis management. Certainly not every crisis can be preempted or averted, but diligent public servants who take their oaths seriously can minimize the kinds of manufactured crises that we have experienced for much of the last century. When citizens begin to understand that most of our crises were the result of government’s incompetence, inattention or cowardice, we can begin to send people to represent us who are responsible and accountable. Managing a crisis begins with the proper manager and continues with the proper strategy to minimize the crisis before it becomes too large. As Woody Hayes often said, “You win with people.” We have been too lazy to select winners. We have elected self-serving, job-protecting place-holders who have allowed our country to slide into the abyss while we have been willfully distracted.

Time’s up. As citizens we can no longer afford to blissfully trip through life and hand the keys of control to career politicians who lack the courage and the wisdom to preserve our republic and our liberty. The new model for crisis management involves our individual and collective commitments to holding our representatives accountable….for every vote, every day. We cannot risk waiting for two- or four-year cycles to suddenly awaken and analyze the records of our “public servants.” Their jobs, their positions should be at risk from the moment they first take their oaths of office. We must avoid the risk, and we must manage our own affairs.

Comment:   cearlwriting@hotmail.com      or   www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com