Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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4 UCW JULY 27 - AUGUST 2, 2022 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM I have strong opinions — but not about how to perform brain surgery, write an app, design a golf course, or produce a hip-hop al- bum. Perhaps you do have a strong view about one of these, but almost certainly not about all four. Why? Because none of us can simultaneously be a surgeon, a software engineer, a golfing expert and a music producer. When it comes to our work, we specialize in a few things and then trade what we produce for the goods and services other specialists produce. e ex- change makes us all better off. We live most of our lives engaged in such exchanges. ere is a great deal of specialized knowledge, with more produced every day. But individually, we possess or are even aware of only a tiny fraction of that knowledge. It would be too difficult or costly to acquire. We don't need it. We just need to trade for its fruits. Among specialists or other discrete communities of inter- est, however, there is often robust debate. Surgeons learn, practice, and disagree about the merits of new ways to attack brain cancers. e rest of us don't typically know which side to root for in these contests. We just root for them to keep at it, so we as potential cancer patients can benefit, and otherwise leave them alone as we go about our own business. Now consider what happens when goods and services are provided by gov- ernment agencies and public employees rather than private companies and inde- pendent professionals. Suddenly, we all feel the need to express our expert opin- ions about the best ways to rehabilitate a prisoner, treat a mental illness, or teach a child to read — even though we can't possibly possess expertise about so many different and challenging fields, and even those possessing such expertise may lack consensus. e problem is that, unlike in the earlier cases, we can't simply sit back and let the professionals fight it out. If we don't like a new smart-phone app or hip hop album, we don't have to buy it. If a particular brain surgeon or hospital seems to have poor results, we can go elsewhere. But what if we don't like the outcomes produced by our prisons, public health agencies, or public schools? It's either impossible or highly expensive to "take our business elsewhere," as it were, by relocating ourselves and our tax dollars to another state. Instead, we seek to change the mix of professionals providing those services by casting ballots in the next election. is is not nearly as effective an accountability mechanism. For one thing, we may be outvoted. Even if our preferred candidates win, they may not be in a position to swap out the personnel in question or over- rule their professional judgments. And through it all, we end up doing the very thing I'm suggesting we lack the capacity to do well — en- gaging in debate about matters we don't and can't fully understand. ere is no magic wand one can wave here. Ensure more competitive elections? Great. Collect more data and encourage more experimenta- tion and research? Sure. But the problem will remain in some form. It is endemic. I submit that the best response is to minimize the extent to which people are compelled to receive ser- vices from professionals they don't select. at argues for more choice and competition in education, health care and transportation, even when those services are substan- tially funded by governments. e next best thing is for governments to pay for measurable performance, by public or private providers, rather than focusing on inputs or dictating procedures. More fundamentally, this argues for limiting the scope of the public sector. In fact, I think it's one of the best arguments for limited government. Although you may care and worry about me as a person, it does you no harm if I have a wrong idea, do a foolish thing, or hire an incompe- tent doctor. You can even learn from my mistakes. STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly.com MANAGING EDITOR April Olsen april@upandcomingweekly.com EDITOR Emily Sussman editor@upandcomingweekly.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Hannah Lee assistanteditor@upandcomingweekly. com ART DIRECTOR Courtney Sapp-Scott art@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Isaiah Jones graphics@upandcomingweekly.com STAFF WRITERS Alyson Hansen Ashley Shirley Cindy Whitt CONTRIBUTING WRITERS John Hood, Pitt Dickey, Ray Nothstine, Michael Futch, David Larson, Kathleen Ramsey, Catherine Pritchard, D.G. Martin COVER Design by Isaiah Jones MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister linda@upandcomingweekly.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER/SALES ADMINISTRATOR Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan St. P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: 910-484-6200- FAX: 910-484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and information on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Army Airfield, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. © 2020 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. Various ads with art graphics designed with elements from: vecteezy.com and freepik.com. PUBLISHER'S PEN Association of Community Publishers We can't all be experts by JOHN HOOD Photo courtesy of Pexels JOHN HOOD, Board Member, John Locke Foundation. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200 82 64 82 83 79 82 63 64 83 66 64 65 THU JULY 28 FRI JULY 29 SAT JULY 30 SUN JULY 31 MON AUGUST 1 TUE AUGUST 2 98 78 97 77 93 74 91 74 92 75 93 74 PM Thunderstorms Partly Cloudy PM Thunderstorms PM Thunderstorms PM Thunderstorms PM Thunderstorms