Kindness of strangers

Most people who have been in the backcountry for any good length of time at all, including me, have benefited from the kindness of strangers. The moral obligation is that you look out for each other.

In this story, a stranger named Karen Picotte was instrumental in saving the life of a lost man hiking alone. Picotte acted altruistically even though her phone call did not take a huge effort.

This generosity of spirit is widely spread among humans and knows no ideological boundaries. There are differences in how it applies, however.

My mother is fond of saying that East Tennesseans would literally give you their shirt if they found you in dire straits, but that they'd never ever put together a program to distribute shirts to people in need.

Liberals like me are willing to tax ourselves and, yes, conservatives to make the moral obligation legal, as well as more consistent and widespread. Sometimes we do it badly, but the results are pretty good, despite what you may hear from libertarians who put their precious theories ahead of actual real-world facts. Look around: The high tax states with strong commitment to the common weal are by and large the wealthy states, while the low tax states without that commitment are the poor states.

Conservatives resent every dime they pay in taxes. Well, maybe not what goes to the military, to the police, and to themselves - but every other dime. They are happy to say when there's no Karen Picotte around to help: Tough luck, you deserve what happened to you.

Somewhere in that tough luck is a willingness to cast others in an out group aside that few people have when confronted with a single person in need, an eagerness to rationalize that bad choices are the problem (and they do sometimes contribute) instead of imperfect social organization.