The x.com (Twitter) account for the Libertarian Party of Orange County makes the observation and claim that income taxation and the expansion of the Federal Government in the United States damaged our culture of volunteerism. The inclination and willingness to take care of our communities and people, and one certainly consistent with the Christian Culture that was substantially more prevalent in bygone American.
You can see the Tweet here, and a screenshot is shared below.
My Experience Growing up in a Small Town in a Rural Area
I grew up in rural North Carolina, when I was a child my father managed an AM radio station.
One of the things we would do on Saturdays is load up a remote broadcasting unit (it was called a MARTI) and head around the broadcast area to volunteer Fire Departments. At least in the early 1980s in North Carolina many of them would have a fish fry or barbeque and sell plates at the Fire stations.
Communities banded together voluntarily to get things done, take care of their neighbors, and build things.
I'm not suggesting that this is better than having full time professional fire fighters. The point is for much of the history of the United States in small towns and communities, people had the wherewithal to get things done without regulation or government intervention.
*There has been such a significant mind shift that when considering a problem or more likely to ask are we ALLOWED to do that (is this legal) rather than how do we get this done. *
I'm fortunate to live in a rural community where neighbors still look after neighbors but in some ways we have become a nation in isolation with everyone's' focus entrained by narrow distraction, and some vague hope or sense that someone, perhaps in the government will provide solutions to complex problems.
A community ethos is still #alive in the various ecosystems and corners of Hive. People are figuring out to solve challenging problems in digital spaces, and leveraging that value to solve other challenges in the physical world - whether it be commerce, clean drinking water, and infrastructure.