Improvement from Hard Work

Visalia, California
February 9, 2008

Subject: Improvement from hard work
Occasionally, good writers intentionally or not hit one out of the ballpark. The article by Dennis Sherer in Florence, Alabama’s Times Daily is one of those. And it really has nothing to do about fishing.

What Sherer subtly pointed out is that it is fine for government to help, to provide seed money or technical guidance in just about any undertaking. And then for the government, all levels of government, to get out of the way and let the magic of entrepreneurship, innovation thrive.

For too long, Shoals residents and those in the Tennessee Valley have relied on the government to take the lead in economic development, cultural growth and the responsibility for the area’s economic wellbeing.

Once, I lived on a small Alabama farm and got to know a lot about the way animals act and react. We had one mule called “Crip” with a lame right hoof and some “free range” chickens. Dad wanted me to train a billy goat to pull a small cart for my brother. Good idea, but the goat kept butting in and bleating “no”.

The mule and I, however, got on famously. After “geeing” and “hawing” in a day of plowing when it was time to head back to the barn, he needed no directions and usually at a good pace.

Cattle on the old farms without a call or urging usually would come clanking their cowbells back to the barn in the evening for feed and milking. They always used the same cow path and all the cattle docilely joined the queue. Simple, non-thinking, but effective for everyone.

Now big government for three-quarters-of-a-century has told the people in the Tennessee Valley what was good for them and expected obedience to their calls for more and more rate increases for their anti-competitive product – in this case, for electricity.
Instead of providing an atmosphere for the seeds for entrepreneurs to grow and thrive in, the TVA jealously guarded its prerogatives of total government control thereby snuffing out the incentives naturally borne of opportunities.

And for many people, always doing what the federal government says is comfortable enough and anyway don’t they get a “refund” of sorts from that same government depending on their usage of electricity? (That “payment” should be more for those who use less electricity rather than a payment for more and more use).

The TVA budget this year includes $22 million to help users “conserve” electricity when the CEO has said that TVA needs to sell more electricity!

So the example Sherer has given us is one of hard work, independence of action calling on governments not to lead but to offer assistance they can and should provide. In other words, throwing off the shackles of stultifying government.

Ernest Norsworthy
Visalia, California

http://norsworthyattheshoals.blogspot.com/
http://norsworthyopinion.com