A Jewel Of A State

Peggy Noonan is visiting West Virginia for the first time ever.

There are little churches in every town, where the highest thing is the steeples, and road signs with exhortations to follow Jesus, and big crosses made of white wood on the side of the road. The ACLU would do well not to come here and do their church-state thing. Three hours into our drive west, a police car drove by, and someone mentioned that was the first one he'd seen since we crossed the state line. Someone else said, approvingly, 'Everyone keeps a gun in West Virginia. Crime is low.' Later I would be told it has the lowest violent crime per capita in the United States. It is very nice, when traveling, to see your beliefs and assumptions statistically borne out.

Yep.