Monday, October 22, 2007

Free Lunch?

I rec'd this as an email, but thought interesting enough to be read on the blog. This is an interesting "story" to ponder.

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time.

One should always remember 'There is no such thing as a free Lunch! Also, 'You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

4 comments:

Joe Tornatore said...

We got everything but a social program to dislodge bullets from foreign exchange students.

Pax Romano said...

I hardly see this country becoming communist or socialist in any way.

If anything, the only people who get any sort of breaks these days are the wealthy - our president has made sure of that.

Welfare is hardly the "free ride" that some make it out to be (I happen to live with someone who knows first hand, what being on welfare is really like). And at work I constantly deal with families (mostly single mothers) who can't make ends meet because they are on one of those Welfare to Work programs that penalizes them for trying to make their lives better (they get a measly raise at their minimum wage job, and lose Medicare or Medicaid coverage for their kids and themselves).

Frankly, socialized medicine (which has not destroyed England, France, Sweden or Canada), is something we could do with.

The only pigs getting free corn, are the big corporations.

But that's just my two cents.

Virginia Gal said...

Sorry Mommantor I don't particularly agree with this story...I don't see welfare or social security as a free ride, I see them as a means of helping society - there are those of us in the world who God has blessed, its our duty to help out the less fortunate. Sadly without the government doing this, there are a lot of mean and selfish "blesed" people who would not help out. By taking it out of taxes we ensure that those who have a lot give back, like it or not and I say that's a good thing.
What does it say about a society that we can't help out our less fortunate, that we bedgrudge them assistance? Not very compassionate or spiritual society, eh?

mommanator said...
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