Gradual Destruction

I was walking in the neighborhood and stopped to rest against the wall in front of the Annie Merts Center. While I was there leaning against the wall, I saw a young woman about my age trying to help an older woman exit the car parked at the curb. I say, "trying to help" because the older woman was resisting everything the younger woman was doing.

I started thinking. Mr. Hatfield's daughter Gwen and her husband Donald had a hardware store over in Vidalia, Louisiana. Things were not going so well and Gwen asked Daddy to come to help. Donald was doing things that were out of the ordinary. The stock on the shelves was accumulating dust and spiders were building webs all over the store. Mr. Hatfield did what he could to clean up the store and encouraged Donald to "snap out of it".

Since then, the store has been closed and Donald has died. You see, at the time Mr. Hatfield went to Vidalia to help, they did not know that Donald was in the early stages of dementia. There was no help for Donald and the destruction was gradual.

When this country was started, the foundation was the Constitution and laissez faire Capitalism. (An economic theory from the 18th century that is strongly opposed to any government intervention in business affairs. Sometimes referred to as "Let it be economics.") Under these principles a man could put his family into a wagon and travel into the wilderness to the west and establish a trading post at the mouth of the Tennessee River. People had the freedom to shape their own future.

Over the years people have been meddling with the simplicity. Politicians have added restrictions and taxes to the point where the concept of the United States of Americans (yes I meant to spell it that way) has been suffering gradual destruction. Politicians have ever been working to benefit politicians. Don't be surprised. It follows the early principle. But the American small business man has not been minding his own business. It may have been too long and just saying, "snap out of it" will do no good.

One of my favorite verses comes to mind. "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands just as we told you." 1 Thessalonians 4:11 NIV