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Why Carolinians Liked Strong Legislatures

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Tuesday, 29 September 2026

Written by John Hood

How should North Carolina be governed? The same question can be asked about any other state in America, or any other country in the world. It’s a critical question. It lies at the heart of every political dispute you can think of, from education reform and environmental protection to tax policy and economic development.
I have strong opinions about the subject. Perhaps you do, too. My task today is not to advocate mine or criticize yours. Rather, it is to argue for humility.
Questions about how good governments are structured and what they should do aren’t mere abstractions. They have a history. Past generations thought about them, struggled with them, and tried out different answers to see how they would work in practice.
Obviously, past generations have no monopoly on wisdom. They made big mistakes and often paid a big price for it. To say that history ought to inform our political thinking today is not to say we must be bound by tradition. But it would also be foolish to think modern wisdom is always greater, or to discount the lessons history can teach us about the constraints of human nature and the limits of good intentions.
Over the centuries, North Carolinians have developed governmental institutions and traditions that favor legislative over executive power, statewide consistency over local sovereignty, and fiscal solvency over grandiose plans. These preferences aren’t random or the product of some insidious scheme by corrupt insiders. They were constructed in stages, as the leaders of the day sought either to solve immediate problems in North Carolina or to avoid problems other states had gotten themselves into.
During the colonial era, for example, North Carolina was largely settled from north to south, not from the coast westward. Many settlers were fleeing what they saw as oppressive laws or unjust taxes. Many of my ancestors, for example, were Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and other dissenters whose religious liberties were being suppressed by the established church in Virginia.
During the mid-1700s, they moved southward to the Carolina frontier. Eventually, the long arms of colonial governors found them even there, and again sought to interfere with their desire to conduct their own marriages, educate their children according to their own beliefs, and keep their own money. The backcountry rebelled. In the ensuing series of state constitutions, North Carolinians made sure to keep the executive branch divided and on a tight leash.
Much later, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, leaders grappled with a different challenge: how to ensure that basic services were provided across North Carolina, both economically and without disruption. Many localities had run up large debts and then defaulted on them. Through their lawmakers, they sought state bailouts. Meanwhile, how were courts, schools, and roads to be maintained?
Lawmakers decided to make the state the primary funder of basic services, while limiting local capacity to issue future debts. Taxpayers would pay the bill either way, of course, but a state-dominant funding system reduces inequities and manages risk.
These and other traditions of North Carolina government are hardy free from legitimate criticism. I’ve challenged them myself on occasion. But they aren’t simply vestigial. If we thoughtlessly perform a constitutional appendectomy, we may rudely discover in the future that we’ve discarded something vitally important.
Georgetown University philosopher Daniel Robinson once used a wonderful image to describe the present value of studying the past. Remember the story of Theseus and the Minotaur? The former resolves to end the latter’s reign of terror over the Athenians. But the Minotaur resides in a labyrinth on Crete. Ariadne, a Cretan princess who loves Theseus, gives him a ball of thread. The hero ties the thread to a door post and lets it unspool so he can find his way out again after killing the beast.
North Carolina faces a range of challenges and opportunities. As we make our way through the resulting maze of choices, we may yet find value in tradition’s thread.

Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Margaret Dickson: Have we no shame?

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Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Written by Margaret Dickson

When it comes to politics, apparently not.
Nothing—not child and domestic abuse, not illicit love affairs, not 60-something electeds traveling with 20-somethings of the opposite gender, not indictments for securities fraud, or allegations of bribery and obstruction of justice, even impeachment—seems to affect voters. We just keep electing these people year after year, state after state.
Nothing seems offensive, repulsive, or derelict enough to prevent anyone from serving in elective office from the Presidency down to our own North Carolina member of Congress who was censured by his colleagues but who remains in office as you read this. Our current President once bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequences, and that has been true so far. As Amanda Taub put it in The New York Times, “his political fortunes have remained buoyant even after he was impeached twice, was found civilly liable for sexual abuse and enriched himself by billions of dollars while in office.”
The entire concept that actions have consequences no longer appears to be true, as no action appears reprehensible enough to make individuals unelectable, much less shameful.
Given our state of affairs today, the premise of Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter seems positively quaint.
That said, we have to wonder how we got to this truly dreadful and terrifying point. If no action is ever wrong, then is every action acceptable?
Political scientists are increasingly pointing at political polarization, not just in the United States but around much of the world.
The argument goes something like this. My political beliefs are superior to yours, and my “team” is promoting the correct policies while your beliefs and your team’s actions are hurting our nation. Therefore, whatever my “teammates” do must be ignored or excused for the good of all. This argument is made by both sides with varying degrees of strength and truthfulness. We are appalled by the crooks and perverts on the other team while we give our own guys and gals a pass no matter what they have done.
I would be massively relieved if I thought this were reparable by people of good will and faith in humanity, but I do not. People in other countries polarized by right and left suffer from the same loss of shame that apparently accompanies acute political division, and they seem no closer to healing than we are. Elected officials at all levels feel totally free to behave and take illegal actions with abandon, secure in the knowledge that the voting public that supports them will be fine with it.
Amanda Taub assessed the loss of shame in public life this way in the Times.
Our current political state “has serious implications for accountability. That chain reaction was traditionally one of the ways that norms and rules were enforced in democracies. If the power of scandal goes away, then we’re left with a vicious cycle in which moral or legal wrongdoing doesn’t lead to consequences, which undermines trust in government and public institutions, which in turn widens polarization and allows more corruption, abuse and lawbreaking. This cycle is hard to break.”
Abraham Lincoln understood the American people, and he said this almost 200 years ago about the danger to our nation.
“It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
I pray we can survive ourselves.

Learning to Fall

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Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Written by Dan DeBruler

As a person of a certain age, one of the questions I’m asked when I call or see my primary care physician is, “Do you feel unsteady when standing or walking?”
To be honest, I feel a little unsteady that they asked. I realize they’re just looking out for my well-being, but no. I don’t otherwise feel unstable.
When we were children, falling was part of the deal. We fell learning to walk. We fell off bicycles, playground equipment and whatever else somebody told us not to climb. We scraped knees, bruised elbows, cried for a minute and usually got back up.
Somewhere along the way, though, falling became something we learned to fear. Adults aren't supposed to fall. We're supposed to have the plan, make the payment, keep the job, hold the family together and know what comes next. We become pretty good at building lives designed to keep us upright.
Then life reminds us that we were never completely in control. A diagnosis comes. A relationship changes. A career ends. Someone we love dies. The carefully planned future suddenly looks nothing like the one we expected.
I can still recall how excited I was to get my first bicycle at about six years old. One of my mom’s best friends had a husband whose side hustle was fixing and selling used bikes.
In the 1960s, a kid could get a bike, jump on without a helmet and ride the neighborhood streets all they wanted. My parents let me ride that bike several blocks, through intersections and everything, that first day. I took the long way home, and they never gave it a second thought.
The only thing I didn’t know how to do was stop.
I simply had no idea how to apply the brakes, slow down and get off the bike while maintaining some sense of dignity. In other words, I had to learn to fall.
Now that I’m older, and perhaps even a little wiser, I look back and realize I’ve had the opportunity to replay that lesson many times over.
I’ve tumbled and stumbled just about every way a person can. And while it hasn’t gotten to be more fun, I’ve learned that those experiences can make me useful to people who are wobbling a little themselves.
I know what it’s like to hit the bottom. But I also know the experience doesn’t have to be the end. There’s a proverb that says a righteous person may fall seven times and rise again. Maybe that’s more than just a saying about perseverance. Maybe it’s an observation about life.
Perhaps one of the most important things we learn isn't how to keep from falling. Maybe it's how to fall. Or, more than that, how to get back up—no matter how long it takes, or how many tries.

Fayetteville Works settlement more than a paycheck

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Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Written by Troy Williams

On Sept. 9, 2026, Chemours, DuPont and Corteva filed a PFAS settlement agreement involving North Carolina, publicly announced the following day. Although described as more favorable than the proposed federal settlement, whether it provides adequate compensation remains debatable, particularly for Cumberland County and communities closest to Fayetteville Works.
The settlement calls for approximately $455 million, generally paid over 15 years, with about $380 million designated for 11 affected local governments. Cumberland County is expected to receive approximately $161.5 million, paid over several years. However, more than $40 million, roughly 25 percent, is expected to go toward legal fees, substantially reducing the county's net recovery.
Importantly, the settlement does not replace Chemours' existing cleanup responsibilities. A 2019 North Carolina consent order already requires Chemours to provide replacement drinking water to qualifying residents, reduce GenX air emissions by 99.9 percent, control contaminated groundwater and surface-water discharges, and undertake major remediation measures.
For Cumberland County, this settlement should not be considered the end of the PFAS crisis.
The Grays Creek and Cedar Creek communities, located near Fayetteville Works, have endured contamination concerns for decades. Residents have confronted contaminated private wells, groundwater pollution, and other environmental impacts. PFAS contamination was also not limited to water. Air emissions provided another pathway, with compounds deposited onto soil and vegetation potentially entering groundwater through rainfall.
The long-term environmental and human consequences may take years to fully understand.
Under the settlement, Cumberland County's lawsuits are to be dismissed with prejudice, generally preventing the county from bringing those claims again. However, that does not necessarily mean individual citizens have surrendered their legal rights.
Depending on individual circumstances, residents may potentially have claims involving bodily injury, contaminated private wells, property damage or diminished property value, and medical-monitoring damages. Such claims would depend upon applicable law, statutes of limitation, scientific evidence, causation, and the settlement's precise language and should be evaluated by qualified counsel.
Another major question is how Cumberland County's settlement proceeds should be spent.
A strong argument exists that Grays Creek and Cedar Creek should receive a substantial share because residents closest to Fayetteville Works may have experienced some of the county's most serious nuisance, trespass, property, and environmental impacts. Those residents should have a meaningful voice in deciding how settlement funds are allocated.
Perhaps the greatest unanswered question concerns long-term health effects. Some residents report unexplained illnesses affecting family members and pets. One family, wishing to remain anonymous, reports losing a 14-year-old child and subsequently having a parent hospitalized with an unexplained illness. These circumstances deserve serious investigation, although PFAS causation cannot be assumed without medical and scientific evidence.
A financial settlement cannot erase decades of contamination, answer every health question, restore property owners' sense of security, or immediately repair environmental damage.
Chemours should not simply write a check and walk away from Fayetteville Works. Cleanup, environmental monitoring, health research, transparency, and public accountability must continue.
The people of Grays Creek, Cedar Creek, and Cumberland County deserve compensation, but they also deserve answers and a voice.
This has always been, and will continue to be, about more than a paycheck.