Inspiration from Grandpa

Last week my wife Desiree and I spent some time at my brother's home in Roy. He was loading us up with fresh vegetables he had picked that morning from his gardens.

On the drive there Desiree and I were talking about how I seem to have inherited the interest in civil service from my grandfather, and my brother Brian the interest in farming. 

Since we spend nearly every day up to our necks in running for Puyallup City Council, I think she might wish our interests were reversed.

However, this conversation got me thinking about my grandpa and how I got where I am in life.

My grandpa, Harold Scoones, died at the age of 86 in the year 1996. I was 20 years old, and like so many others, I wish I had taken more time from the passing interests of youth to know him better. Looking back, I’m also grateful I knew him as well as I did.

I have on my shelf a collection of Letters to the Editor he had written over the course of about 25 years. He was born in 1909 and was almost entirely self-educated after the 7th grade but you would never have known it to talk with him, or read his letters.

Many of the articles are about the local political races of the day. Many others are about national issues and most of them theme heavily into the subject of taxes. All are meant to inform. After the election I'm going to take the time to digitize, transcribe, and organize them all into my website www.chrismcnutt.com (currently being used for my campaign), but in the meantime I thought I might pick one that still seems relevant to today and share it with you.

The following Letter to the Editor was published in the Record Chronicle in on June 30th 1972, three years before I was born.

To The Editor,

After reading those wonderful quotes sent in by Mr. (Richard A.) Pargeter (Letters to the Editor June 21st, 1972), I would like to add one which I just ran across.

Mr. W. Ross Thatcher, premier of Saskatchewan, Canada, expressed a timely thought on the subject of high and rising taxes. "If we were to take a man's belongings by stealth or violence, it would be theft - an immoral act for which the law would punish us. But, by some strange mental process, we have rationalized a code of ethics which provides that we vote away a portion of another man's property - and use it for the special benefit of ourselves or others - we have merely to call it 'promoting the general welfare' in order to remove all taint of dishonesty."

Voting for virtually limitless public spending on this theory of getting something "free" from the government is as dishonest as picking your neighbors pocket.

I shall see that all legislators get a copy of this quote. But I am sure it will do no good until we can educate them of the fact that money is not printed in Washington D.C.; it is first taken from the people.