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This is why a country such as the United States, one that is both patriotic and individualistic, has such an interesting and perplexing question constantly before it: How do we ensure individual prosperity and the public good at the same time? Since heaven, as I've written before, will be a social place—one where the collective good is sought and found—pondering this question is relevant preparation for the Heavenly City.

• Garrett Hardin: "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968) from Constitution.org
• Levy's New Republic piece: "Ducking the Question"*
• Wall Street Journal editorial: "The Non-Taxpaying Class" and serial rebuttals by Slate's Timothy Noah
• Earlier at my personal weblog: Unlucky duckies and the WSJ

From the New York Times:

HANGEN ROUTE TO ZIMBABWE, in South Africa—Every time this clanking 14-car train slows to a crawl — which is often — the policeman in Car 6 barks an order and 50 men bend over in their seats, heads between knees, until the pace picks up again. … The police say they have any number of ways to keep the 952 passengers on the train to Zimbabwe in their seats. But as the engine lumbers out of one station at 9:15 p.m., two shadows tumble from a window near the center of the train, then sprint into the inky bush. … This is the overnight train from Johannesburg to Messina, which twice a month hauls about 1,000 illegal migrants from South Africa's Lindela detention camp back to the Zimbabwe border—or tries to. What the policeman says is very nearly true: life in Zimbabwe these days is so hard, and sometimes so terrifying, that the passengers say death is almost preferable to returning to hunger, oppression, disease and hopelessness. … South African officials say that the country deports at least 2,500 Zimbabweans each month, on the train and in trucks. Summary*

NAGS HEAD, N.C.—Families who have passed this vacation spot down through the generations expect certain landmarks: Jennette's Pier, 64 years old and stretching 600 feet into the Atlantic; the Sea Foam Motel, all teal-colored kitsch; and Crabtree Court, a cluster of 50's-era cottages hard by the beach. All are gone now, or at least grievously damaged by the 30-foot waves that pounded communities up and down the Outer Banks when Hurricane Isabel roared through [this month]. Entire strips of beachfront are devastated, and though natives of these pinky-thin barrier islands insist things will soon return to normal—another year, another storm, they say— they also admit that this hurricane altered their landscape far more than any other storm in decades. What it means for the economy of the Outer Banks, so dependent on the tourist trade, and for its culture, so proudly defiant of the elements that regularly batter it, depends on whom you ask. Full story*

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