I’m sure that his email was prompted, at least in part, by his knowledge that I am of the conservative persuasion. That’s probably putting it mildly. I believe that liberals and progressives are destroying truth, justice and the American way of life, Roosevelt was a socialist, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is lucky that she didn’t live in Salem in the 1600’s and Hillary Clinton is evil incarnate. My friend is even more conservative than I am. He’s so far to the right that I wouldn’t be surprised if he has circumnavigated the political globe and is actually touching the left.
Given my conservative leanings, his beliefs regarding our entitlement society and his skepticism about the motivation and work ethic of the “needy,” it’s no wonder that he was surprised that I was helping out at a food pantry.
My response to his email was that, like him, I'm very skeptical of the statistics about the number of hungry in the United States. I think the latest one I saw is that one child in four goes to bed hungry. I'd like to see how they define hungry and how they gather the data. But that’s another discussion, and one that is probably not suited for this blog.
That being said, I know for a fact that there are a lot of low income people in North Georgia. This area isn’t exactly a Mecca for job seekers. Still, I question how many of the people who come to the food pantry in Fannin County truly qualify as hungry, needy and deserving of a helping hand. I’m willing to bet that a certain percentage of them are dirt bags who are gaming the system. That’s not based on any personal knowledge but rather on my 37 years of an experience as a trial attorney. The human race consists of saints and sinners and every variation in between. You sample any human population, you’re going to find a fair percentage of dirt bags.
Still, knowing how prideful people in these parts can be, I’m also confident that some percentage of the those who use the food pantry are decent people who have fallen on hard times and really need help. Like most Americans, liberal or conservative, I am more than willing to give a helping hand to those who will help themselves. That’s always been the American way.
But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that I believe the local food pantry is an example of how folks in these parts tend to respond differently to perceived problems than, say, folks in the big city and is, therefore, worthy of support.
The local food pantry does not receive government funding to purchase food (though it does purchase low cost government food). All the food offered by the food pantry is paid for or donated by private sector. An all-volunteer group called Feed Fannin raises thousands of dollars and donates it to the Food Pantry or uses it to buy food for the pantry. Feed Fannin and a couple of local churches grow food for the pantry. The local Walmart and Food Lion donate food that they would otherwise throw away. Doctors, professionals and local businesses have food drives where they discount their services in exchange for donations of non-perishable food items for the pantry. One doctor managed to donate 15,000 pounds of canned good in this way recently. Hell, people come in off the street with extra produce from their gardens and donate it to the food pantry.
In my mind, the food pantry and the groups and individuals that support it represent the old-fashioned country virtue of local folks helping local folks. Rather than turning to, relying on or expecting government to solve their problems, some folks around here saw that there were people who had trouble making ends meet and so they tackled the problem locally using local resources. That says a lot about the community and the folks who comprise it. It may not be surprising that things are done that way around here considering that the root stock of many in this area are the Scotch-Irish who left the British Isles to get away from the intrusive and controlling hand of government.
This attitude of independence and self-reliance was once a defining trait of Americans. Alexis de Tocqueville was a brilliant Frenchman who visited the United States in the early 1830’s in order to examine this new experiment on the world stage―Democracy. He traveled around the country and spoke with persons of high status and low trying to figure out what made America tick. He wrote about his observations in two books entitled Democracy in America Part 1 and Part 2.
Tocqueville discovered that most Americans in the 1830’s mistrusted government solutions and preferred to rely on themselves to solve problems. He said: “The citizen of the United States is taught from infancy to rely on his own exertions in order to resist the evils and difficulties of life; he looks upon the social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he claims its assistance only when he is unable to do without it.”
My perception that folks in this area are more self-reliant and less inclined to run to government for help than in other places may well be a romantic delusion on my part. If it is, don’t bust my bubble because the delusion makes me feel good. There’s one thing you can say about being fat, dumb and happy—at least you’re happy.
So I think I’ll continue to help out at the food pantry. It operates in a manner that is consistent with my conservative beliefs, probably helps some genuinely needy people and makes me feel like I contributing to my adopted community. Besides, if it wasn’t for helping out at the food pantry I’d have never learned that you can buy frozen chitlins at a grocery store.
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