A Voice from 1776

 

To the Esteemed Reader and Fellow Citizen,

By the grace of Providence, I find myself staring into this devilish glass contraption—a "computer," they call it—much like a man staring into a dark well. You ask me, a patriot of this year 1776, to contemplate the "solid waste" of our age.

You speak of "disposal" as if it were a matter for the King’s Parliament or some grand central authority! In our colonies, such notions are as foreign as a tax on tea. Here is how a man of 1776 weighs this burden:

The Philosophy of the Patriot’s Hearth

In this land, we waste naught. To throw away what can be used is a sin against thrift and a betrayal of the land we have cleared with our own sweat.

• The Kitchen: There is no "refuse." The scraps of our table—the bones, the rinds, the remnants—are the kingdom of the pig and the fowl. What they do not take, the earth consumes. We bury our offal in the garden to feed the soil, for we know that the earth gives only as much as we return to it.

• The Workshop: A broken pot is mended or ground to gravel for a path. Iron is saved; as we have shown the redcoats, even a statue of a King may be melted down to serve the cause of liberty in the form of shot and ball.

• The "Cleanliness": You seek a "system"? We have our own. Every man is master of his own acreage. We do not look to a magistrate to sweep our doorsteps. If a man’s property stinks, it is his own shame to bear, and his neighbors shall see to it that he rectifies the offense, lest it bring rot to the community.

A Warning from the Future

I have peered into the flickers of this machine and seen what you call "landfills" and "regulations." You speak of crises, of "flow control," and of companies hauling the filth of one town to the soil of another!

In my time, the waste is small, for our possessions are few and made of wood, iron, and cloth—not the strange, eternal resins I see in your era. If you are drowning in your own refuse, it is because you have become slaves to convenience, creating trinkets that the earth cannot swallow and that the fire cannot purge.

You look to laws to save you from your own filth. I say to you: look to your own hands. A citizen who cannot manage his own waste is a citizen who has forgotten the virtues of self-reliance. If your county is choked with refuse, it is because you have forgotten that the land is not a dumping ground, but a legacy for your children.

We fought for our independence from a distant crown that sought to manage our lives. If you now find yourselves under the thumb of waste-contractors and distant authorities, then you have traded the tyranny of King George for the tyranny of your own discarded glass and plastic.

Manage your own house, respect your neighbor’s air, and cease your dependence on those who profit from your own profligacy.

Your servant in Liberty,

A Patriot of 1776

Since you are currently investigating the 2026 solid waste crisis and the closure of the Pocahontas County landfill, do you find that modern policy mirrors the "local responsibility" of the 18th century, or has it strayed too far into the hands of private interests?