I found his article both interesting and worth reading, but my thoughts wandered to the universal search for ways to make the world a better, safer and happier place for all people. Those mental meanderings took me back some forty-five years to the most interesting and enjoyable class I’ve ever taught.

My first year at the University of Alberta our department chair announced that he needed someone to teach a course at Grande Prairie. When no one volunteered he said the professor who volunteered would be flown up in the morning and then flown back after the class. Knowing that the University had its own airplane I volunteered.

What he did not say, was that the volunteer would fly “commercial.” Canadian Pacific had two planes assigned to service the western north. One left Calgary at six in the morning, stopped at Edmonton, where I boarded, then flew 360 miles north to Grande Prairie, where I was to teach, and then went on to Fort St. John and up to Watson Lake on the Artic circle, at which point it returned south along the coast, ending up at Vancouver. Similarly, a plane left Vancouver, went up to WatsonLake and returned along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, arriving, in theory, at Grande Prairie at six in the evening and at Edmonton at seven. It was a nice theory.

The earliest that plane was in the evening was four hours late. Once it arrived on the right hour, but the wrong day, being exactly twenty-four hours late. (The pilot, unused to the North, had turned the plane into the wind and turned off the motors at a more northern stop. At 45 degrees below zero, you do not turn off an engine with your plane facing into the wind and expect it to start again.) 

I had been told to catch the airport limousine to get from the airport into town. Walking outside, dressed as professors should dress in suit and tie, I saw no limousine, just a battered old Chevy. As I stood there an elderly man came out of the airport dragging a mail sack. “Looking for the limo?” he asked. “Yes.” “That’s it, hop in.” On the way to town we passed a lake with a large number of Mallard ducks. “Do you hunt?” “Yes.” “I’ve got an extra shotgun at the house, why don’t we do a little shooting?” I thanked him, looked at my dress clothing and shined shoes and declined. That was my introduction to Grande Prairie. Later I learned that he had been one of the original survey crew brought to the area to survey the town and had stayed. He had also been the town bootlegger during prohibition. The person telling me about him, said he had asked the Mounty telling him the story, why they didn’t arrest him. The answer was that he was honest, had good whiskey and didn’t sell to children or Indians. If they arrested him, they wouldn’t know who they would get.

The class, about forty adults, met at one o’clock and lasted for three hours with a mid-way break. After I got to know them well, I told them during a break that I thought of them as the flotsam and jetsam of the human race, washed up in northern Alberta. That was true, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t have a high opinion of them. Most were new arrivals to the North, and every one had an interesting story. One, a Frenchman from Quebec argued one time that the French needed to revolt and establish independence. An Englishman from Ontario replied, “Go ahead, we put you down once, we’ll do it again.” Another class member was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. One of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen was in the class and I was told that she came from one of the poorest, most primitive villages in the area, a Metis village to the north. Another member of the class was a refugee from Hungary, who announced in class that he had volunteered for the German army in WW II and he would do it again. He had fought on the Russian front, been captured, survived and returned to Hungary, was re-arrested during the Hungarian revolution, killed a careless guard and escaped to the west. When he described to the class what it meant to be of German ancestry, living in Hungary following the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, members of the class agreed that they would have joined the German army also.

Following every class that year, I was invited to someone’s home for dinner. At first I refused, saying I had to catch my plane, but one night, sitting by myself in the airport, I complained to the attendant that I was passing up dinner invitations to sit and wait for a late plane. He told me to go to the dinners, but to give him the telephone number of the house where I was eating. When the plane left FortSt. John, an hour to the north, he would telephone me and my host could drive me to the airport. 

One night I forgot to telephone him and finally, about one in the morning and just plain tired, I talked the host into taking me to the airport. When I entered the manager said, “We are glad to see you! The plane is on the ground.” As he processed my ticket, I asked, “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?” “We would have held the plane of course.” They would have held that four engine monster, because one regular hadn’t appeared on time. That was why the plane was always late – waiting for regulars all along the route.

Another habit I developed while I was there was going out following class for a glass of beer with men from the class (by law, women were not permitted in the bar). We had active discussions, friendly arguments really, over everything from the weather and hunting, to comments on the class material and local and national politics. Occasionally, these became noisy. One I remember in particular. My card-carrying member of the Communist Party shouted at me, “You’re no capitalist; you’re a damned Communist like me.” 

All of us in that class, at least all of the people I associated with during that year long series of classes, wanted what was best for all of the people, not just for themselves. How to go about that was where we differed. I and other Conservatives I’ve known, thought it was best to give people the freedom to do what they thought was best for themselves, even if it meant failing occasionally. The Liberals I have known, and during thirty years on college campuses I knew many, believed people working for an all seeing government would provide this. Isn’t the same thing true of the proposed health bill?  It will do everything for three hundred million people.

Our Democratic Congress and President want to have the power, government power, to provide what they decide is best for all: a Utopia.   But can one exist? There is a Utopia: in the womb. The child in the womb has all of its needs fulfilled: water, food, climate control, and safety. All is taken care of by a mother, yet even mothers sometimes find the needs of their child less important than their own needs or wishes. A million such babies are killed every year (1.37 million in 1996, 93% because they were inconvenient, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform). 

What makes anyone think that a government official who doesn’t even know them, perhaps one of those millions willing to kill their own baby, will be concerned about the needs and wishes of a stranger living hundreds of miles away? That “change” requires a lot of “hope.”

Similarly, everyone has had the experience of dealing with a few salespeople who knew the qualities of what they were selling and took care that their customers received what they needed. Most, however, simply sell what customers believe will satisfy their needs, whether that product will do that or not. And then there are those who can’t seem to be bothered to do their jobs, leaving customers to wait while they pursue other, non-business interests on their cell-phones or in some other self serving activity.

While almost every adult has had the experiences noted above, the majority have elected a President and a Congress which promise to do everything for them: run their banks, manage their industries and care for their health. But “government” doesn’t do anything. People working for the government do things. Governments do not pass or enforce laws. People pass and enforce laws. 

Are people working for the “government” different in kind than those we know as teachers and sales clerks? Not in my experience, which began with my return from combat in Korea when I tried to get a driver’s license in Missouri. The people in the St. LouisCity Hall pointed out that I had to have a receipt for income tax to obtain a driver’s license. When I pointed out that men in combat were not required to file income taxes, they said I would simply have to get one. (This problem was resolved when my father telephoned a union president whom he knew who was also a prominent Democrat.)

I spent eleven years working for the government. Many of the people there were like those at the St. LouisCity Hall. They enforced the rules they wanted to enforce to their own advantage. In fact, in mass, they were lazier and less competent than the workers I have known in civilian jobs. There is good reason for this as we found out when we tried to fire a drug addicted secretary from a position that required secret clearance.  It is almost impossible to fire a federal employee. (It took a year to fire our drug addicted secretary and it helped that she was in jail.)

Of course, I also met many hard working, dedicated men and women in the Federal service. But that doesn’t mean they were perfect. Just as all people make good decisions at times, all people make bad decisions at times.

This is the problem with the federalism or socialism or Communism – whatever you wish to call government control of businesses and lives - the greater the distance between the persons in a position to pass and enforce laws, the less possible it is to correct bad decisions.

Living in Cumberland Furnace, if I don’t like some action taken by the Community Center or Historical Society or Volunteer Fire Department, I can go to one of their meetings and tell them so – and why. If they agree with my reasoning, they will change; if they disagree, I can lump it. Similarly, it is easy to telephone or visit the CountySheriff, the County Tax Assessor, or any of my other local officials. So can all of us. If they don’t satisfy us, or if they make too many wrong decisions, we can vote them out of office. It is more difficult at the State level, but I have found my Senator and Representative and their secretaries helpful when needed. Recently a friend, Dee, angered by the insistence of local veterinaries that dogs receive rabies shots every year when the manufacturer says the shots are good for three years, managed, with considerable effort, to get the State to issue a public policy of three-year vaccinations.

But now consider the federalization of our industries, banks and health care. Does anyone really believe that some worker, regardless of status as clerk or executive, in Washington D. C., is going to be as knowledgeable or as helpful to people in need of help as their next door neighbors in places like Cumberland Furnace or, for that matter, St. Louis or Dallas or Seattle? I don’t.  They don’t even help the children in DC obtain a good education. They simply send their own children to private schools.