A bent nail is a stubborn thing. If you’ve ever torn down an old pig pen — like I did this week with my father and oldest son — you’d know.
Professional carpenters drive straight nails. They also usually have straight lumber, proper tools and time to finish a project. My dad — who built this particular hog lot years ago — rarely had any of those. Instead, he had a random assortment of boards, his old hand tools and an hour here and there to work on the structure.
What he built served its purpose and stood the test of time and swine. Many pig pickin’s were had, and much pork was provided to our family. A new season of life is upon us, and my youngest son’s need for a treehouse far exceeds the likelihood of us needing a pig pen.
My father, a trained forester with a Thoreau-esque personality, was for reusing and recycling long before such actions were considered cool. He could probably tell you the story of every beam and board — reclaimed from family tobacco barns, homeplaces and outbuildings — in the house he built by his own hands in the mid-1970s in Randolph County. We decided we could pull double duty by clearing away the old pig pen and getting free lumber for the floor of the treehouse.
We encountered a lot of resistance from that old structure. Had all the nails been straight and uniform, we would have made short work of removing the boards we needed. They were not. A nail driven straight through two boards comes out easily. A nail driven through two boards and then bent and hammered down into the board … is a challenge.
Such is the opportunity presented to our state and federal leadership at this moment. In North Carolina, we have a General Assembly with a long-term mandate from Murphy to Manteo to reduce spending, protect our elections, preserve our freedoms and safeguard our institutions. At the federal level, President Donald Trump is the bearer of a coast-to-coast mandate to eliminate waste, ensure our territorial sovereignty, and provide for economic and physical security from foreign enemies.
The General Assembly, Congress and the president can build, renovate and remodel government — and they have the will of the people behind them in doing so. But I hope they don’t waste their time and our treasure on a perfect carpentry job.
Instead, I hope they tackle the hard things, fix them and bend long, strong nails in the back of every board. If they do, it will be that much harder to undo the reforms the majority of North Carolinians and Americans have demanded.
Congress has the opportunity to codify the cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency. I hope they don’t rely on the thumbtack of continuing resolutions and the regulatory state but instead use the 10-penny nail of legislation and the full budget.
If courts stop federal action on keeping foreign spies from our colleges and universities, our state leaders should build a strong wall around our state-owned institutions.
When a local government or state official wavers from state laws, instead of focusing on one place or person, let’s fix the loopholes or lack of oversight in a comprehensive way to prevent repeats elsewhere by others.
Instead of focusing on individuals and personalities — in courtrooms, university classrooms or regulatory bodies — exercise constitutional authority to change jurisdiction, modify tenure rules and hiring practices, and pass legislation eliminating the need for much of the bloated and unaccountable regulatory state.
Good work is not always tidy. Lasting reform is never easy. But the things that hold longest — like those old boards in my dad’s pig pen — are fastened with force and resolve. Our leaders don’t need to leave an easy demolition project behind; they need to leave something that lasts.
As we build a new treehouse in my backyard, we have been diligent in driving straight nails to aid our future selves in the inevitable tear down project.
But, for our leaders, it’s time to bend some nails. The people are counting on more than two-year budgets and bureaucrats. They need a government that stands strong and holds tight to the will of the people.
Neal Robbins is publisher of North State Journal and lives in Asheboro.
