The Plea of the Western Man
I don’t want very much, all things considered. A nice, bright house with decent sized rooms, comfortable furniture, food in the cupboards, and a bit of outdoor space for the kids to play in, with deep borders to grow a few flowers and vegetables. I don’t mind working hard at a career of my choosing to pay for it, and to pay for a few little luxuries in life: a comfortable car, a holiday by the sea. I’d like to see some of the world when I can.
If I have a bit of land, I’d like to be able to use it as I wish. If I have a property, I’d like to be able to amend it as I wish. When I die, I’d like to be able to pass on what I’ve worked hard for all my life to my children, so that they in turn can benefit by it.
What money I earn, I’d like to keep. I have no need free institutions and handouts from strangers, for which I must wait in line; I expect to have to help out my family, friends and neighbours when they are in need, and in turn, I hope I can count on them when I must.
I’d like my community to be safe and friendly. I’d like to leave my front door unlocked. I’d like for the children in the area to play together and look out for each other. I’d like the adults to look out for them too.
I’d like to know the names of the principle business owners in town, and to patronise their businesses. I’d like for them to make the decisions around here that effect us all, to keep our little town prosperous, clean and cohesive.
I have no need for government programs or state officials. I have no desire for experts with clipboards to tell me what to do. When I stop and think about it, I believe that every man creates his own heaven or his own hell according to the choices he makes, and that those choices are nobody’s business but his own.
When it comes to election time, I have just one request: please, leave me alone. Let responsibility for me and mine fall on me and mine. Let responsibility for others fall upon themselves.
I make my request quietly, politely, and unobtrusively. It is not yelled. It is not demanded. It is not accompanied by placards and protests. There is no underlying threat of violence if I do not get my way.
But my request is not showy. It holds no promise of a utopia for all. It will not create career-building policies for ministers to steer through committees, to the fanfare of headlines.
And so my request is ignored. I have been impoverished by taxes and inflation. My property is falling into disrepair. My neighbours are unknown to me. My town is a shrine to faceless consumerism. My food is nutritionless. My children have been taught by strangers to laugh at my values, although they are happy to take what little I have put aside for them. And now, my very body has become the property of the state, to work as it pleases and discard as it sees fit.
My request has become a plea: leave me alone. Before I start to snarl, to snap and to bite, before I am forced to become what I hate, leave me alone. Before it is too late, leave me alone.