The Tale of Alex

The phone rang on a cold Wisconsin November evening; it was my son’s friend Alex [not his real name] calling desperately for help. The power company that afternoon had shut off their electricity and temperatures were expected to fall well below freezing. Their house was not well insulated and even had a window with a hole in it.

I am not privy to all the details of Alex’s life. What I do know is that his father had left him and his mother some time ago and has provided little if any support over the past nine years we have been acquainted I have never known of a father being around. Over the past several years Alex’s mother had become disabled with a degenerative disease and has been unable to work. It was a situation which one could better relate to in the inner cities, not in one of the wealthier counties in Wisconsin. So Alex located a phone and called the only people he could rely on that night for help.

The following recount of the past year since the night of Alex’s phone call is a lesson in human spirit, human action, and the unintended consequences of so-called “government benevolence”. In the aftermath, I thought how ironic that government help depends on what hour and day of the week it is. It was obvious that night we must first get the family out of the house and secure a place for them to stay until the situation with the power could be rectified. They also had two dogs [so do we]; so we thought it best for all if we paid for a hotel room and gave the family money for food while we kept their two dogs, which had been ill-kept, in the garage. On Monday a flurry of activity began, first by picking Alex up at the hotel and driving him to school; regardless of the situation, there would be no absence from education. Then calls were made to restore power and additional funds were laid out to help with past due bills. Only one thing mattered, make every attempt to stabilize the environment and then proceed with a plan to help ensure a future for Alex. Through phone calls upon phone calls, people came forward to help not with just monetary gifts but with talents and assorted items such as washing machines and refrigerators [the family's appliances had stopped working for some time] and a dumpster for trash which had accumulated due to lack of garbage pick-up. A local veterinarian aided grooming the two dogs and to provide medical check-up and treatment. This all occurred in a very short period of time due to the relentless efforts of individuals and particularly one person, my wife. What was noticeably absent from the scene was the government bureaucrat.

After the home condition became habitable and the situation became more stable, it was time to work on Alex’s future. As is true with most individuals, education was the cornerstone for a better life. Alex is a bright young man whose exterior masks the hurt of painful past. It was clear that he was capable of more challenging course work than what he was taking at the present. Once again my wife stepped forward and through the help of counselors and teachers arranged for this young man, even though the school year was half completed, to take advanced classes. Additionally to ensure the work was completed, Alex came to our house and under our supervision worked on assignments. Being poor was not an excuse for intellectual laziness. Intellectual growth and the added benefit of learning self-discipline, which had not been prevalent in his life, could only be acquired through challenging subject matter. One evening while driving Alex back to his house, a roundtrip of no more than fifteen minutes, turned into a revealing couple hours. Alex confided to me some of his inner feelings of what can be best characterized as a feeling of hopelessness. He felt as an example that our son [due to his environment] would always hold the advantage over him. I told him the past is not a precursor to the future and life is a constant ebb and flow; a remark which caused him to reflect on how nice life would be if it was just an even flow with no waves. I continued to point out that in a few short years after college he and our son would be starting out on equal footing and the past would become a mere point of reference. The accumulation of wealth would be dependent upon how their talents were used. I illustrated that if each of them owned a hardware store, the success of the business would rest in their individual abilities to satisfy the customer. The past wealth or lack of it had no bearing on being able to satisfy the next customer coming through the door and each customer there after. He shook his head in disbelief and again dreamed out loud how wonderful life would be if it was just smooth. He then philosophized that the role of government was to help people avoid the ups and downs of life. My final words that night were there is no such thing in a free society. Liberty and life’s waves are not coincidental. Freedom means tomorrow holds the distinct possibility of being better than today.

In the coming months more help was provided to aid the family in becoming more self-sufficient. There was no car and in fact though Alex was seventeen and he did not hold a driver’s license. He had not yet taken the required drivers education course. A contract was made; we along with a local mechanic would procure a car for him and cover the initial insurance. My wife gained approval for Alex to acquire an exempt driver’s license. Alex would find a job which would not help pay for the daily costs of the car, but also give him the experience of earning money. In addition to a car and a job, Alex [a senior in high school in the coming fall] took the ACT and school counselors were helping with plans for college. Other individuals stepped forward offering money to help with college expenses. Additionally, Alex and my son loved to play golf; the membership at the nearby course was not in Alex’s budget. He had worked hard and deserved the pleasure of playing with his friend on a nice course; so we covered the minimal expenses of the junior membership. In retrospect all the aid in the form of money, time, and material from the moment of that fateful phone call on a cold November night was done without a moment’s consideration as to whether it could be entered on line 18 of Schedule A of the Federal Income Tax forms. True benevolence is not dependent upon a tax-deduction.

This past August, Alex and his mother won a judgment claim against The Social Security Administration for past disability payment and for future payments. The family collected an immediate check and Alex was soon after given a fairly large check for past claims along with future monthly payments. Alex proudly exclaimed how nice it was to no longer to be dependent on charity. It has been several months since we last saw the family. After the checks arrived Alex quit his job and then this fall dropped out of school. Numerous phone calls and attempts to visit have gone unanswered. No Alex, you are no longer dependent upon charitable giving’s; what you are dependent upon is worse. You are now dependent on a government worker to put a check in the mail on a specific day of the month; a government worker who cares nothing of your future, only your today’s; a government worker whose benevolence is determined by the hours of the workday and money that was procured through the process of taxation. As for now Alex has received his wish, life without waves. A subsistence which lies at the bottom of the sea where there are no waves and little light as compared to the surface where it is sometimes choppy due to the winds of freedom and is bathed in the sunlight of free markets.

It has been stated that “government benevolence is a zero-sum game” in which government must first take in order to give. In reality it is a net negative; for it also destroys the need for self-sacrifice, responsibility, and intellect which are the building blocks to a better life.

I have been hesitant to reveal this story. But I finally decided to come forward in the hope of exposing the absurd characterizations by some in this community who try to label myself and others as anti-education or uncaring. The concern for education and other human beings runs far deeper than pictures in the local paper or rants in the editorial pages.

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