In his final column for the Greensboro News & Record, longtime political reporter Joe Killian offers up his views on government:

Maybe I’m coming off as a bit of a snob — one of those political elite types, contemptuous of the common people, who are exactly what’s wrong with this country.

Must be my blue blood background.

I’m a military brat. My father was a career Marine and my grandfathers Navy men and commercial fishermen.

I grew up in trailer parks, on military bases and — sometimes — in trailer parks on military bases.

….One year I would live in a largely rural area where people took pride in the low, low tax rates. But I couldn’t join the school band because my family couldn’t afford to rent an instrument or get me private lessons. The school system didn’t provide those things.

The next year I would live in a suburb where people occasionally groused about the taxes. But the band teacher pressed a trombone into my hands, told me to take it home and asked me to come after school for one-on-one lessons provided by the school.

One year I would live on a dirt road that became almost impassable in a heavy rain. People there would take it upon themselves to shoot rabid animals, tossing them into the woods to rot or burning them along with their garbage because there were no animal control or municipal garbage services.

The next year I would live in a cul-de-sac where the streets were salted before a snow and promptly plowed before we woke to go to work and school. Clean, efficient, affordable public transit was an option for those who didn’t own a vehicle.

Just putting two and two together here, seems to me Killian’s saying the inhabitants of the “largely rural area where people took pride in the low, low tax rates” are idiots because the true reality behind their false pride is a kid unable to play the trombone in the school band, while conversely those who “groused about the taxes” are also idiots. But he wouldn’t say that, would he, since he’s no blueblood.

But maybe I’m just reading between the lines a little too carefully. I’m sure Killian will explicitly explain why those who believe in lower taxes and smaller government are idiots in his new position as investigative reporter over at NC Policy Watch, because that’s what they do.