Opinion: Modern life not from government

The conveniences of the modern world are all around us all the time, but I don’t think I’ll ever take them for granted.

One of my grandmothers grew up in this area during the Dust Bowl days. Her big family was crowded into a two-room, dirt-floored shack without indoor plumbing or electricity. They traveled by horse-drawn wagon and their water was dipped from a cistern; they didn’t even have a windmill. They picked cotton by hand, dragging the heavy sacks behind them. She grew up living basically the same life as someone born in this region a hundred years earlier could have lived.

The Great Depression probably didn’t even affect her family, at least it never figured into any of the stories she told about growing up.

When I was a kid, the old shack was still standing and I visited it with her a couple of times.

Their life wasn’t easy, but it was good enough.

So maybe it’s understandable that I can still marvel at things like indoor plumbing with running water and flush toilets and at electricity.

It’s not as though I’ve ever had to live without those things, but I realize how few of the people who have ever been alive had them.

Anything that has been around such a short time can go away easier than you suppose. There’s little chance they’ll go away in our lifetime, but over the long term, the chances are fairly high. If something happens and these modern conveniences go away, the radical socialists who use the environment as their excuse would quickly realize how bad this would be for the environment. Truthfully, I think they already know, they just don’t care as long as it kills off most humans.

I’m not content to be dependent on modern conveniences. I enjoy making fire without lighters or matches, but the ability to make fire with primitive methods makes me value the ease of using a lighter even more highly. It’s the same with every skill.

I’m grateful to all the researchers, experimenters, and workers who have given us the good things of the modern world. Some others would also like credit.

Government would like you to believe it brought about this modern world’s peace, prosperity, and safety. Yet the truth is, when these things are the norm it’s in spite of political government, not because of it. Appreciate the heroes, not the freeloaders.

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at:

[email protected]