My neighborhood is in Northern Virginia, an area that has been rewarded for playing it safe and going after government cash. Many of my neighbors are government employees, lawyers and lobbyists. Many of them have found success regulating other people’s businesses out of existence, destructive acts all too frequently predicated on fears that somebody somewhere might get hurt. It’s not surprising, in that context, that my neighbors would call for regulation of the lemonade stand or lawn mowing business run by the kids next door.
The fact is that America is now run by people who profit from keeping everyone else from taking risks. It’s lucrative work if you can get it. Six of the ten richest counties in the country are next to Washington, D.C., for good reason. [“It’s where the money is.” — Willie Sutton] But this isn’t a recipe for prospering culturally or politically.
In order to pull out of this tailspin, it will take a generation or more of parents raising kids to take risks. We need mothers and fathers who encourage their kids to play outside, to mow lawns, to start business ventures and to live freely. Yes, they may face danger and get hurt. That’s a feature, not a bug.
For what it’s worth, when I wrote my note to the listserv, I received excellent feedback from other neighbors who were thankful for my response. But nobody else weighed in publicly. Whether that was just a prudent decision in an overwhelmingly Blue neighborhood or an indication of a lack of courage is unknown. Either way, it’s alarming that I was the only one who spoke up. If we’re ever going to fix America, we have to understand that freedom’s just another word for letting the neighborhood kids mow your lawn.
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