Perhaps you’ve read the story about the the pre-schooler in North Carolina whose mom-packed lunch was deemed nutritionally insufficient by a state official? The account has gone viral and has sparked a surprising level of outrage across the country.<\/p>\n

The facts are a little sketchy, but it seems that there was a state official present at the school doing lunch inspections in accordance with USDA guidelines. Reportedly, the level of some of the pre-school’s funding was dependent on how well the students’ lunches met the guidelines. When this student’s lunch of a turkey and cheese sandwich on white whole-wheat bread, banana, potato chips, and apple juice was identified as deficient, the teacher (not the state official) offered the four year old a cafeteria lunch, for which her mother was billed, and of which the little girl ate three chicken nuggets and trashed the rest.<\/p>\n

The fact that the lunch seemed wholesome enough, and that the pre-school took it upon themselves to countermand the mother’s lunch choice for her daughter has created a flurry of protestations from across the nation. Why has this story hit such a raw nerve amongst Americans? Would the story have spawned similar outrage had it occurred in another part of the world, say Europe, Russia, or China? The answer to these questions lies in our historical concept of governance, and the existence of a peculiarly American independent core that although battered, is not yet broken.<\/p>\n

There’s a couple of ways to look at the way a society can function, and this pre-school situation serves as a microcosm of the two different approaches. The mother of the little girl was not upset over the cost of the lunch, but by the fact that the school had called into question her parenting, and found it wanting; that the school did not respect that she knew what was best for her child. And is it really that big a deal if she doesn’t always send the “perfect” lunch? Why do people so detest being “micro-managed”? Think about what is being said by the “micro-manager”; that they do not trust you to do the right thing, that you are not smart enough to do the right thing, that they are superior to you, and in this case, that they, more than you, know what is best for your child. Of course the school, if they were being candid, would agree with all that. If parents knew how to pack lunches in accordance with USDA guidelines there would be no need for “lunch inspections”. They have education and training to make them the experts, why should they not be expected to intervene and supervise when it comes to caregiving? If funding is dependent on each student’s performance, then these decisions can’t be left strictly to the parents, for the sake of the school as a whole.<\/p>\n

Governance can be viewed as an organizational exercise. You put your best people at the top, and they set the course, goals and rules for the whole organization. These elite preside over others to whom they delegate responsibilities and a measure of authority, who in turn preside over others on down the pecking order. In this traditional model, those at the bottom have little opportunity for independent action, but also bear little responsibility, except to follow orders and be taken care of. Institutions where one might see this type of governance would include the military, many religions, various large corporations, and authoritarian regimes. The theory is that the more decision making that can be left in the hands of the smartest people, the smoother the machine will run, to the benefit of all. The shortcoming with this model of governance can be the failure to recognize that talent and intelligence are not always the only factors involved in the successful governance of large organizations. Relationships can also be crucial. The mother of the pre-schooler may not be trained in nutrition or USDA guidelines, but she knows what her daughter will eat, and how to get her to eat nutritionally, because she knows her daughter, and loves her. In a large organization, those in positions of power can be so out of touch with those they are governing that all their brilliant ideas and talent fail to keep the machine running smoothly because their elite theories don’t function in real life situations. “Let them eat cake” is something that could only be seen as a solution to starvation by one who has never known the meaning of hunger and poverty. Perhaps “keeping the machine running smoothly” is not the highest aspiration in any event. Was making sure that little girl had an extra serving of dairy worth the embarrassment to the child, the insult to the mother, and the usurping of the parents role in providing for a balanced diet?<\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers had a different view of governance. Having escaped the tyranny of an authoritative top down monarchy, they saw government as something that should arise from the bottom up on an “as needed” basis. The contention was that there were human rights that did not arise from government, and as such were not to be impinged upon by the government; among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This being the case, the government that was envisioned was a limited one. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “That government is best which governs least.” Liberty was so sacred a principle to them that they were willing to forego what might be a more efficient, more effective, less cumbersome system in order to preserve it.<\/p>\n

This system of liberty based governance begins with the individual. How you live your life is your own decision as long as it does not interfere with how others choose to live theirs. The first level of governance above that is the family where children are corrected if they don’t eat their vegetables, and fathers and mothers are encouraged toward appropriate unselfish behavior by their mates. Where there are issues that are beyond the scope of the family to resolve, local government and police forces are required, and beyond that State government for what local government is not equal to, and then on up to the central Federal Government to provide what the State governments cannot, and for controversies between the states. Relationships dictated this natural progression of the most government being the closest to the level of the governed. It is clear that the Founders assumed that there was a natural tendency for power to move toward tyranny, and that seems to be the case as we see it at every level from authoritarian parents, to controlling spouses, to governments that feel the need to micro-manage every aspect of existence. The Constitution was primarily written to tie the hands of government, to slow down and restrict this all too natural process of men enslaving their fellow men.<\/p>\n

IMHO: It is the natural tendency of government to gravitate upwards toward centralization and finally tyranny. It is the duty of the lover of freedom to stand against this tide. Hotheads of varied political persuasions will often quote the words of Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It would be the height of arrogance and foolishness to trivialize the level of blood a modern day violent revolution would entail. If we can go beyond the gory imagery of Jefferson’s quote to the intention of his words, we would see that he was speaking of a spirit of resistance with which the rulers of the people must occasionally be confronted and warned, to remind them that we are not a people who will accept tyranny, neither in the schoolhouse nor the statehouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you’ve read the story about the the pre-schooler in North Carolina whose mom-packed lunch was deemed nutritionally insufficient by a state official? The account has gone viral and has sparked a surprising level of outrage across the country….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\r\n