Esse Quam Videri is the motto of this state I call home. North Carolina is the state where my sons were born. I tell them that no matter where the winds blow them, they will always have a tie to North Carolina. Bird and Deal will always say, “I was born in North Carolina.” They shall say it with pride, dammit.
Mac Daddy and I chose Raleigh to be our home about 12 years ago. The world was an open field, and we were free agents. We chose North Carolina. I grew up in Virginia and had frozen in the Midwest for far too many years. I had a hankering to come back East. We picked Raleigh because it was manageable in size, a welcome change after Chicago. We liked its easy living and quality of life. We saw vestiges of progress and the badge of politics unlike North Carolina’s Southern brethren. North Carolina is home to world class universities, Research Triangle Park, glorious mountains and beaches, a rich arts culture, food to make your palette dance, and feverishly warm folks to greet you in earnest, not just to be polite.
We chose North Carolina. We’ve made it our home. We’re in the midst of our third historic renovation in one of Raleigh’s flagship downtown neighborhoods. Our sons go to public school. We volunteer in the community. We vote. We are raising our sons here. Our family’s roots and story begin here in the crumbly red earth of North Carolina.
The state motto, Esse Quam Videri, means “to be, rather than to seem.” The phrase originates from Cicero’s writing entitled “On Friendship.” It translates to “Not nearly so many people want actually to be possessed of virtue as want to appear to be possessed of it.” Mull that over for a moment. It’s painfully true, no? It basically means that there are lots of asshats out there who want you to believe they are virtuous but they are really asshats at heart. These people sit in our state legislature. You’ve seen them yucking it up good ol’ boy style in the news.
They go to church and wear Jesus’ teachings on their sleeves. They cite Bible verses better than they can cite Constitutional amendments, and they declare themselves to be filled with love just as Jesus taught them to do. These are people who will pray heartily on Sunday and stab you on the back come Monday. That’s because the rest of the week they bow down to Art Pope and the Cock Koch brothers.
How virtuous is it to cut employment benefits and Medicaid to our state’s most vulnerable citizens?
How virtuous is it to slash education budgets while greenlighting charter schools, in essence denying children across the state access to a sound, high quality public education?
How virtuous is it to allow our natural resources to be raped and pillaged in the name of profit?
How virtuous is it to get up in the lady parts of every North Carolina woman and then deny her the rights to make choices about her own health and body?
How virtuous is it to perpetuate gun violence by allowing concealed weapons at bars, schools, and playgrounds?
How virtuous is it to deny citizens the right to cast their vote?
How virtuous is it to strip North Carolina of its mantle of progressive pride that has drawn countless businesses and families here?
How virtuous is it to dismantle decades of progress in the name of a god called ALEC?
The GOP representatives perched on Jones Street who should be bastions of virtue are in fact destroyers of what makes North Carolina great. The irony of representing all North Carolinians under the banner of Esse Quam Videri is lost on them. They pay no mind to actually being good, compassionate, loving citizens. They are driven instead by the madness of greed, hubris, and power. It is an ugly cocktail indeed.
We are better than this North Carolina. We have proven it. We prove it still every week at Moral Mondays. The people I see every week are the good ones, the virtuous ones. Esse Quam Videri shall be our battle cry.
It sure beats my idea of a new state motto, “WTF, NC?!“
PS
Lest you think our general assembly has only been up to no good, they have worked very diligently in 2013 to give us new state symbols. As of this writing, our legislators have voted to give us a state fossil, art medium, folk art, frog, marsupial, and salamander.
I visited your blog to check your posts about renovations in Cameron Park but enjoyed this post about the fake conservatives infesting the NCGA just as much.
I’m still waiting for the official change in the state’s motto to “Videri Quam Esse.”
Thanks…and good luck with it. 🙂
Boxer Thomas Hearns is52. He subjected Ryan to his first workout “boot camp” at age 7, gifted him his first dip bar at age 9 and had him pushing the family minivan up small hills (with some help from a cousin) as soon as he was tall enough to touch its rear windscreen.
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