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 AUGUST 9 - 15, 2023 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly.com MANAGING EDITOR April Olsen 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 Kathleen Ramsey Chayenne Burns Katrina Wilson Aubrette Reid Laura Browne CONTRIBUTING WRITERS John Hood, Rep. Richard Hudson, Alex Rodriguez, Fred LaChance, Madeleine Eversole, Carrie Jackson, Christopher Thrasher,Ashley Kelsey MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister linda@upandcomingweekly.com SALES ASSISTANT Sheila Barker salesassistant@upandcomingweekly. com COVER Cover design by Isaiah Jones Photos of T&T Farmers Market and Pate's Farm Market by Isaiah Jones. 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. 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. Association of Community Publishers JOHN HOOD, Board Member, John Locke Foundation. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910- 484-6200 PUBLISHER'S PEN Roots of American freedom run deep by JOHN HOOD Last month I joined dozens of other writers, scholars, activists, and leaders across the country to declare ourselves "Freedom Conservatives." What do FreeCons stand for? You can read our statement of common prin- ciples at FreedomConservatism.org. Of course, virtually all Ameri- cans value freedom. But they don't necessarily define the term in the same way. Nor do they agree on what policies are most likely to advance freedom as they define it. e roots of these disagreements run deep. In his seminal work Albion's Seed, the historian David Hackett Fischer describes four waves of settlement, emanating from four different regions of the British Isles, that helped shape the history and politics of the North American colo- nies during the 17th and 18th cen- turies. Each of the four "folkways," as Fischer put it, contained its own conception of freedom. For the Puritans who settled New England from East Anglia and the Netherlands, the organizing prin- ciple was "ordered liberty." You were free if you were part of a free, self- governing community. "Public lib- erty," as the concept was also called, was "thought to be consistent with close restraints upon individuals," Fischer explained. For the Royalists who settled Vir- ginia and neighboring colonies from their original home in the south of England, the organizing principle was something closer to "hegemonic liberty," in Fischer's phrase. at is, while they emphasized individual freedom instead of the Puritans' sense of collective liberty, Virginians didn't think everyone was entitled to it. Rank had its privileges, in other words, and obviously those held in bondage were excluded entirely. Quite different was the "reciprocal liberty" espoused by the Quakers and other religious dissenters who settled Pennsylvania and its environs. eir conception "embraced all humanity and was written in the Golden Rule." While religious liberty was essential to this tradition, its protection of in- dividual autonomy extended to other spheres of life, as well, including property rights and procedural rights for those accused of crimes. Finally, large waves of settlement from Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Northern England during the 18th century brought the idea of "natural liberty" to the American backcoun- try. Rejecting the idea of temper- ing their personal freedom with the communal authority of the Puritans, the hierarchical authority of the Royalists, or the radical egalitarian- ism of the Quakers, the backcountry folk insisted that they simply wanted to be left alone. Indeed, as a group of Mecklenburg County leaders put it in 1768, their individual liberties came before their political obligations. "We shall ever be ready to support the government under which we find the most liberty," they stated. ese were just the original Brit- ish folkways that help shaped America's political culture. Weave in the distinctive beliefs of America's other origin cultures and you have an ideological tapestry of intricate complexity. e late University of Oklahoma scholar Rufus Fears described free- dom as existing at three levels. Indi- vidual freedom means the right to do as you choose without the govern- ment telling you otherwise. Political freedom means the right to vote and participate in civic affairs. Finally, national freedom means the right of a people collectively not to be ruled by some other people. Ideally, one would enjoy freedom at all levels. But for most of recorded history, most people have enjoyed just one or two of these freedoms, if any. For example, within the Roman empire quite a few people enjoyed individual freedom and some en- joyed the political freedom to elect local magistrates. But no one outside Rome itself experienced national freedom. To my way of thinking, individual freedom is the essential foundation of self-government. I value politi- cal freedom and national freedom precisely because I think they are most likely to protect individual freedom from encroachments, for- eign or domestic. To be free is not necessarily to be happy. It certainly doesn't make one free of social at- tachments, or capable of obtaining any particular goal. It simply means you can pursue whatever goal you wish without government telling you otherwise. And I think it's worth fighting for. Editor's note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and For- est Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (Folklore- Cycle.com).