The Village

This is the time of potato harvesting in Poland.  Last Saturday Renata and I helped collect potatos for our brother-in-law Janusz.  In one sense it's easy enough work; a tractor pulls a potato dredger through the field which leaves the potatos lying on the surface and we simply have to pick up the potatos, put them in buckets and empty the buckets into a wagon.  But the squatting and standing over and over, for 5 hours in our case, is very physically wearing.  Our backs and legs were extremely sore that day and Sunday.  Four days later as I write this the back of my legs are still sore.

Aside from the pleasure of helping a relative we received 3 large sacks of potatos (I'd estimate about 150 lbs each) for our efforts.  Now that's a lot of mashed potatos, fries and potato pancakes!

The weather last Saturday as we collected potatos was cool and windy with the skies alternating from sunny to grey overcast to sunny again.  From time to time I stood up straight to stretch my back and look around.  The long rectangular field we worked on lay in a patchwork of similar long rectangular fields on slightly undulating ground.  Behind us (as we worked from one end of the field to the other) was Janusz's village of Leśnica.  Before us and slightly to the left was another village, Cieśle, with a pine-forested hill just beyond it.  Smoke drifted faintly from a few chimneys.  Farther off to the right were more hills and forests.  Here and there in the fields were black and white Holstein cows grazing. 

Żarczyce Duże, satellite view

Most of us love to gaze in awe at wild, "unspoilt" scenery like mountains and forests.  I do as well.  However, the scenery I prefer most of all is cultivated geography like I described in the previous paragraph.  I'm not alone in this view as writers as disparate in worldview as Milan Kundera (an unbeliever and libertine) and Hilaire Belloc (a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic) have both written paeans to rural cultivation.

Raw wilderness is awe-inspiring, true.  It displays the artistry of God.  But before we get sentimental about such "unspoilt" wilderness, let's remember that nature is "red in tooth and claw."  Animals live by instinct.  Weaker animals like the old, sick or very young are vulnerable as prey to other animals.  Mothers will even eat their own offspring in times of famine.  Animals in the wild feel no emotions of love or sentiment.  Humans can look with admiration at such wild scenery, but we cannot live in it.  We look at it, feel inspired perhaps, then get back into our cars and go back to the comforts of our homes.

I will even argue that cultivated life is superior to raw wilderness because humankind was given domination over the earth by God (see Genesis 1:27-30 and Psalm 8:5-9).  Cultivation is a form of creation; it is the transforming of what is naturally available through human creativity and ingenuity into a liveable, orderly, secure and peaceful environment.  I write this with the understanding that humans will cheat, rob and murder their neighbors.  But who is willing to leave civilization and live in the trees like monkeys? 

It takes a village

Back in the 1990s, then First Lady Hillary Clinton published a book titled It Takes A Village.  The title is attributed to an African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child."  That is true on the surface.  The family unit is the most important element in the raising of children, but neighbors, friends, teachers and clergy also have very important roles to play in the formation of children.  For example, we have neighbors on both sides of us with children the same age as ours.  It's good that we can trust them and let our children play at their houses and likewise they trust us to let their children play at our place.  Our childrens' interaction with their friends' parents - learning to speak and behave respectfully toward them - is a valuable part of character formation.

The issue that conservative commentators had with Mrs Clinton's book is her advocation of a large role for government in the raising of children.  However much Mrs Clinton recognized the role of family, neighbors, friends etc in the raising of children in her book, the policies that she and the current administration advocate run in a contrary direction. 

Liberals generally, and the current administration particularly, seem intent on diminishing the public role of independent entities at the expense of an all-powerful central government. 

Some examples:  On February 28, 2008 the 2nd District Court of Appeal in California ruled that parents must have a teaching credential to home school their children.  This would have had the effect of banning homeschooling.  The ruling was overturned later that year thanks to an outcry from parents and church leaders.  Yet it remains a liberal wish to eliminate parental choice in the education of their children. 

Washington DC created a scholarship program in 2004 that granted money to families that allowed those families to enroll their children in private schools.  The DC public school system, which spends more money per student than any other public system IN THE WORLD is an absolute mess.  Test results and graduation rates are abysmal.  Therefore parents welcomed the opportunity to send their children to better private schools.  The vast majority of scholarship recipients sent their children to religious private schools which of course operate outside government regulations.  Newly elected President Obama and the Democrat-controlled congress decided to phase out the program in 2009.  Although the president and members of congress can afford to send their own children to private schools, they prefer that the poorer residents of Washington not have that choice.

Education isn't the only realm where liberals are working to consolidate government control.  The litany continues:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the current administration sued Boeing because Boeing wanted to open a large manufacturing plant in union-free South Carolina.  The State of South Carolina counter-sued the NLRB and won.  Boeing can open its plant, creating thousands of new jobs. 

Under the current administration the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued a Luthern Church because that church fired a teacher with a disability.  Fortunately the US Supreme Court, in an unanimous 9-0 decision, upheld a church's right to hire and fire employees without hindrance from government regulation.  Had the government prevailed in this case it's easy to see how churches would eventually be forced to hire or retain people openly homosexual, for example, or who otherwise publically proclaim opinions or beliefs contrary to the church they work for.

There have been numerous cases in recent years of individuals and groups being sued (successfully) for not providing services for "gay marriage" ceremonies - a wedding photographer in New Mexico and a Methodist church hall in New Jersey - or a fertility doctor in California sued for refusing to assist a lesbian couple in having a baby. 

And finally there's the case of the current administration's recent Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate 1) forcing private insurance companies to provide free contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs and 2) forcing religious instutions like hospitals, universities, soup kitchens and homeless shelters to carry such insurance even if contraception, sterilization and abortion run counter to their beliefs.

The common theme running through all of this is the attempted weakening of the role of independent institutions and bodies in public life.  The goal is the domination of government over all aspects of our lives.  So much for the village.

Reader, if you've made it this far, I apologize for the length of this post.  But please keep all this in mind when voting this November 6th.