Fools with Hammers

Anybody can take a hammer and tear something down.

Michelangelo on the other hand took a hammer and a chisel and carved David. Millions of other people use hammers to build. Children build treehouses and forts. Adults build houses and furniture.  The list of things mankind has built with hammers is almost endless.

Conversely, some people use hammers only to tear things down.  Sometimes tearing down is necessary in order to make room for something new or better.

Sometimes hammers are used to destroy for no reason.

Any fool can destroy. It takes someone special to have a vision and to build something.  Just because someone had a vision and built something doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Another person with new ideas and new plans can sometimes improve on what was built.

In other cases the fools with hammers just want to destroy. They don’t have a better plan. Usually they don’t have any plan at all. They just don’t like it because they didn’t build it. The fact that they couldn’t build it and certainly can’t build it better doesn’t matter to them. All they want to do is tear it down because they didn’t do it. All they want is power for personal gain.

I am seeing an increase in fools with hammers. They decide to destroy something because they don’t like it or worse they don’t like one part of it. These people would destroy Michelangelo’s David because they don’t like the shape of his nose.

These fools want to destroy America because they don’t like one part and there are certainly parts of America that can be improved and parts that need to be removed.  They want to destroy statues because they don’t like why they were built. They want to destroy history because it exposes our shortcomings.

America isn’t perfect but fools with hammers aren’t the solution.

We have two kinds of fools with hammers around here.  One is people who after years of not being involved in anything find a hammer and decide to use it to tear down. They remind me of my grandson to whom I gave a hatchet for his birthday.  He is ready to chop anything. Fortunately, he is young enough to learn the goal isn’t just chopping, it is useful chopping.

We see people who move to Southside Virginia or return home after they retire.  Somehow some of these they think they know what is best for Southside. They may have more experience in some area of expertise than anyone else in the area BUT we each have forty or fifty more years of experience in living in Southside.  They want to take their hammers and destroy what has been built and rebuild it in their vision.

Newcomers can have a lot to offer and many of them are assets to their communities.  But the ones who only want to tear down what has been built here over several centuries to change it to suit their vision are arrogant.

Some complain that they had to leave the area to make a living but have nothing but contempt for the people who could succeed in an area where they could not.

There are thousands of builders in Southside Virginia. You will find many of them quietly using their hammers to build good things in churches, civic clubs, charities, Relay for Life, schools, Hunters for the Hungry, Gleanings, Food Banks and in dozens of other positive actions.

Meanwhile they are often opposed by “fools with hammers” who don’t have a better plan, they just don’t like part of your plan or David’s nose.

Years ago I complained to a newspaper editor about a letter to the editor he printed that damaged a business.  His response was “If you don’t like what I do, start your own newspaper.”  He was exactly right. I had no business telling him how to run his business.

On the other hand I took his advice and started my own newspaper.  I didn’t try to tear his down. I built my own.