Rice County Republicans

Who can get the job done?
–  C Michael Piper

Individuals, families, communities, and governmental units make commitments and accomplish responsibilities, tasks, and projects.

For example, individuals tend to their health, maintain their property, go to work, drive their vehicles, and act and speak publicly.

Families raise children and provide a lifetime locus of stability and support. Needless to say, families are composed of individuals.

Communities are the neighbors that nurture and support individuals and families. Communities are organizations and associations of those with similar skills and interests. Communities include academic, labor, and faith-orientated organizations. Communities include industrial and commercial interests – they plant, grow, harvest, research, innovate, design, develop, maintain, sell, and service.

As an aggregate, on behalf of individuals, families, and communities, governmental units build and maintain roads, bridges, dams, and some communication networks; encourage the wise stewardship of natural resources; encourage the growth of commerce and industry that provide wealth for the country and jobs for the people; encourage innovation; foster the development of strong communities; and establish and maintain systems of education, justice, emergency response, and defense.

All of these acts, by all of these players have consequences.

For a long period, there has been the feeling that, in many instances, if something needs to be done, the government should do it. Government involvement became almost a moral issue; it didn’t matter whether the effort was effective or how much it cost. In today’s world, where the economic and political metrics have drastically and significantly changed, the relevant question should be not what government “should” do, but what government “can” do. That is, what can government do that is effective and economic and is not ineffective, wasteful, and counterproductive?

Past periods have struggled with the issues of liberty and equality. Much has been accomplished towards a world where all are free and treated equally and not arbitrarily. Much has been accomplished, yet there is more to do. There are those who are captured by hatred and would enslave others and take what they have. There are those who seek political power who do not want the blessings and responsibilities of liberty and freedom for people that they seek to control.

Yet the inevitable journey of humanity is toward liberty. And our key seminal documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, can be models for people migrating toward democracy and free enterprise, toward peace and prosperity.

Historic political controversy has centered on the balance of power between the individual and the state. While such controversy still remains, contemporary political discourse is considering a new dimension: the role and responsibility of the community.

While we will remain concerned about the responsibilities and capabilities of individuals, families, and governments, we have seen the ineffectiveness of both “all for me” individuals and collective states where economic and political powers have coalesced into one structure.

The role of individuals should not be absorbed by the state. Consider what individuals have done. In our experience, we saw that the first significant deterrent response to the air hijacking and acts of war committed on the United States on September 11, 2001 was by a group of individuals in a plane flying over Pennsylvania. This was a group of self-motivated heroic individuals which became a community with a purpose on that morning, unaided by advice and guidance from the Department of Defense, the FBI, or the CIA. Closer to home, on August 1, 2007, when the I35 Bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, the first responders were brave individuals who made instantaneous decisions to help others. These people made decisions that they had not contemplated 5 minutes before the collapse. They received no training, no direction. They responded magnificently. On both dates, the United States saw the capabilities of a free people who recognized that the community that they were in, communities formed by chance, needed their help.

In Bridgewater Township, we have seen citizens in communities work with the township to improve the roads in their subdivisions; other citizens, with a practical concern for safety, have sought to build walking and biking trails.

It is the politics of freedom and of the rights and responsibilities of the individual which will make the major contribution to the definition of the 21st century community. Not the politics that would make the government the option of first choice. It is individuals not governments that are members of communities. Our communities remind us that we are in this together, that we are not alone, and that we must make commitments to others.

As individuals we will continue to have responsibilities. Governmental units must concentrate on what they can do effectively and economically and on what cannot be done in the private sector. We need revitalized communities that will do things beyond the capabilities of the individual and the government.