A Matter of Choice; R. Hampton

AMatterofChoice RUTH E.HAMPTON )cp,a; NINETEEN BALD EAGLES flew over the house this morning on their way to the lake. That's a record. I don't often spot more than nine or ten. Tihe half dozen deer feed ing on the hill didn't even glance up. The stellar jays did, and/saw me at the window. They are clam oring for their usual allotment of sourdough hotcakes. Our family home is one mile up a canyon that contains no one else. In this special spot we have in numerable birds and squirrels, everyday deer, and an occasional badger, porcupine, or coyote. Sometimes there's a passing car or pickup. Our yard is the place where the snow plow turns around; the place where parents tell their children on summer days: "Don't fish past-" We have plumbing, television, and an old-fashioned stone fireMrs. Hampton is a housewife and freelance author in Oregon. place warming an acrylic shag rug. We grow an organic garden, yet we live on lumber mill wages and buy coffee imported from exotic places. We keep a horse and drive a Maverick; vote for candidates that favor wilderness and others that work to create new industry.

We're comfortable and satisfied and confused. If we fight develop ment, we might be saying, "Now that I've got my place in the coun try, nobody else is welcome." If we support only economic prog ress, are we saying that enough money is more important than enough room? Our three children have shared us with a dozen other youngsters through foster care for we enjoy kids,and glow when someone an nounces a baby. Still, we shudder at birth statistics. We are caught in the paradox of the Twentieth Century - the paradox of being so content that we're uneasy. 643 644 THE FREEMAN November In this unease we are not alone. When we talk .to friends or rela tives who began as we did, but who have moved on to exciting jobs and high rise apartments, we find they too are feeling guilt be cause they're happy. People who have worked hard for success apologize for making it! Where does this guilt at follow ing our talents and tastes into a life of our own choosing come from? A lot of it comes from the articulate advocates of seize-from those-that-succeed and force-on those-who-don't through taxation.

There is no real reason for anyone who has chosen a legitimate goal and worked to realize it, to feel that he should be handing every thing to the government for redis tribution and regulation. Volun tary sharing is one thing; confis cation, another. Left to themselves, human beings will meet each others needs. And we needn't all start out even either. In a truly free society, those with less have greater incen tives than the rest. Our own early homes. included mill shacks, a homemade camp trailer, and the back bedrooms of other people. For a while we only dreamed of something better. Then we realized that dreams wouldn't do it. We chose a way to live, and worked to attain it. I chose full time homemaking and he left seasonal work he liked to build a world he could love, working his back and leaving his mind to wander. It wanders out to the canyon acres that weren't practical, to the life style some may envy but others would find confining. Isn't that how it should be?

If a man is poor and he'd rather stay poor than ~ struggle, he's en titled to that. If a neighborhood is crowded and its occupants would rather stay crowded and familiar than face uncertainty~ that's their right. Each individual's profession, business, and way of life should be his own. If those who find rural lives dull want to strike out for the city and for the stimulation of jobs, businesses, cultural advan tages, and positions of leadership, they have the right to pursue such goals. The phrase, "pursuit of hap piness" did not designate which happiness or give leaders the duty of defining it. That was left properly - to the individual. Freedom is the option of suc ceeding or failing because we did or did not make a wise choice. No computer, guideline, or political system should dictate the choice. A life style, like a system of eco nomics, is only good when· it works. It works when those in volved in it are doing what satis fies them. If it is being propped up, paid off, and regulated, it fails 1975 A MATTER OF CHOICE 645 to stand alone and ultimately be comes a.holdup - in every sense of the word.

Isn't it significant that, at a time when the world is in desperate need of more efficiency, lower prices, more goods, governments seem determined to upset the nor mal laws of supply and demand, the natural incentives of enthu siasm and profit, and substitute artificial quotas and made-up controls? Any wise parent knows that the child who is confined past the peak of a particular learning phase does not make up this loss easily. He holds back and becomes over dependent. Still later, this same child rebels against too much in terference. Such youngsters often become helpless whiners and mis fits. There's nothing wrong with helping hands and shoulders to lean on along the way to a busi ness, marriage, or life, but there's no such thing as a completely free ride either. Judgment must be ex ercised if it's to grow strong. Too many "experts" are viewing the American people as children to be kept in cribs and strollers. When official bribes and penalties put props under certain ways of earn ing a living, it should not surprise us that a little too much here or there finds the whole structure toddling uncertainly. Left to de velop naturally, we will balance our lives and produce to meet all human needs.

Our family situation is a source of joy to us and we're grateful, but for every person who'd love to live in the hills, there's no doubt an other who would rather shoot the breeze with his neighbors and feel the glowing safety of street lights at night. We all need each other. I wasn't sure about this canyon as a home at first. My husband was. He was sure enough to plead and work and convince. Today I thank him every time I see a fawn in my garden or watch a bald eagle soar, because I chose too. And every day we both breathe a "thank you" for the privilege of living in a land that - after two hundred years - still says to its citizens: "Choose-." I can think of no better way to celebrate our country's birthday and get rid of our fashionable guilt complexes than by joining .together to keep the choices we still have and to gain back the ones we've lost. From the smallest per sonal decision, through local com munity action, and on to the Na tional Elections, every move that takes power out of government hands and puts it back in the grip of those for whom governments were instituted is a step in the right direction. Enough steps make a mile. Let's start walking.

~ COMMON SENSE ~ Whatever Happened to It? RALPH BRADFORD Two YEARS before the Declara tion of Independence· was adopted, an Englishman arrived in Phila delphia to begin a new life - and it was none too soon for him. He had spent several years at sea, worked at a number of poorly paid emp1oyments, held one or two minor civil service appointments, dodged importunate creditors, and struggled to supplement his mea ger gram'mar school education by attending lectures on science. He was nearing forty and badly in need of a change. Now, thanks to a meeting with Benjamin Franklin in London, he was about to get it. Mr. Bradford is well known as a writer, speaker, and business organization consultant. He now lives in Ocala, Florida. 646 His name was Thomas Paine, and with his arrival in Philadel phia he stepped into the pages of American history. Later he would find a niche in French history as we11. Franklin, impressed by Paine's potential, had given him a letter to his son-in-law, Richard Bache; and Bache, in turn, put him in touch with Robert Aitkin, who was about to found the Penn sylvania Magazine. Paine helped him with that project, and for nearly two years served as editor of the new publication. By that time it was January of 1776 - a fateful year for America, and for Paine.