The last thing that North Carolina needs is another "education" governor.  Or rather the last thing that North Carolina needs is an education only governor.  I have spent most of my adult life in North Carolina's transportation agencies (state & local).  North Carolina has always had a strong, but conservative DOT.  It was proud of its ability and proud of building, operating, and maintaining the largest (now second largest) highway system in the country.  This system is an artifact of a political deal made during the great depression rather than some conspiracy of highway contractors and legislators.  Sadly this is no longer true.  After two eastern North Carolina education governors teacher's salaries are approaching the national average but the transportation system and the agency that maintains it is in disarray.  The state is 18 years into a ten year building program with no end in sight.  DOT staff is demoralized and with sagging competence.  Project delivery has lagged and construction lettings have dropped precipitously.   The state's major programming document is seriously over-programmed with no reality in sight.  The DOT is plagued by cost overruns, poor products, employee turnover, and poor customer service.  Most tellingly there is no compelling vision for the future among key staff and political leaders.  Sadly, at a recent conference an outside agency (FHWA) superseded NCDOT's vision with its own. NCDOT's own key staff sounded like mindless business robots spouting terms such as "the perfect storm," "we own the process," "make DOT a fun place to work" and "process improvements."  Reading between the lines the experienced staff member sees an agency with no clear plan for the future except to maintain its current level of funding.  In the meantime we have serious problems with two major bridges that no one knows how to address.  Bonner Bridge has a sufficiency rating of 2 (out of 100) and the Yadkin River Bridge has a sufficiency rating lower than the Minnesota bridge that collapsed earlier this year.  Given that DOT is only contracting for $600,000,000 per year now and that Bonner is +$200,000,000 and Yadkin River is on the order of +$300,000,000 you would think that someone in authority would be a little worried.  Instead DOT is using its bonding authority to resurface roads and key projects in other parts of the state have been delayed to advance a project in the Secretary of Transportation's hometown.  Of course neither he nor the Governor will be in office when the bill for all this is due. 

The North Carolina Medical Association is having an interesting debate with the Department of Corrections over the role of doctors in executions.  I believe that a court has ruled that a medical doctor must be present to ensure that the executed does not suffer needlessly.  For some reason the NCMA has decided that it is unethical for medical doctors to participate in executions because this violates the first rule of medicine (i.e., first do no harm). Furthermore the NCMA is threatening to sanction any licensed physician who participates in an execution.  The problem with this line of reasoning is that abortion is as surely an execution as is lethal injection for a criminal.  Leaving aside the issue of guilt or innocence on either side of the birth canal, assisting in eliminating a human being is either ethical or unethical.  It cannot be ethical in one case and unethical in another. 

My father was perhaps much wiser than I gave him credit for when he was alive. Like many of us as a young man I felt that I knew better what was right in the modern world.  For better or worse he almost always turned out right and I always turned out wrong.  I do not know to this day how that was possible, but it was almost always the case. 

I will freely admit that many of the things he firmly held would be called politically incorrect today. That doesn't make him wrong.  The older I get the more I see where he was right and today's world wrong.  Freedom was high on his list.  Not the freedom to do what you want, but the freedom to be left alone as long as you did not bother anyone else.  Go figure.  The older I get the more valuable that becomes. 

He swam against the current of most of what society was teaching me.  Society taught license, I learned responsibility.  Society taught tolerance, I learned discernment.  Society teaches emigration, I learned about the distinct American Culture.  Society taught interference at home and abroad, I learned to mind my own business.  

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is that government mostly wants to make us dependent upon government by talking about our rights but not our responsibilities.  After all someone who is responsible can take care of himself with help from God. Only government can take care of the irresponsible.