Remember last December when floods destroyed roads in a Hawaiian State Park. Government officials assessed the damage and estimated it would cost two million dollars to repair and would take two years.
Citizens, who depend on the park tourism for their livelihood, decided they couldn't wait that long and banded together to do the repairs in a matter of weeks for far less than the government estimate.
Pete Peterson Writes in City Journal [click to read] about the lessons in self-governance to be found here.
"Tocqueville was struck by how Americans collaborated in common effort, from building hospitals to roads. The Frenchman attributed this American quality to natural causes: without a large government or an aristocratic structure, Americans could “do almost nothing by themselves, and none of them can oblige those like themselves to lend them their cooperation. They therefore all fall into impotence if they do not learn to aid each other freely.”
Remember that great movie, Pollyanna, where the townspeople decide to raise money for the new orphanage THEMSELVES rather than accept the benevolence of Polly Harrington who owns the whole town? How wonderfully American that is! There is something deep in the American Spirit that wants no king or noble dispensing favors. Thank you to the good people of Kauai for reminding us it still exists.
Skyline Drive after an ice storm.
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