Friday, October 12, 2007

It's been a while...but this intrigued me

I received the following from a friend...it's harsh but definitely some food for thought...

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had a few exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Professor noticed one 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.

In the midst of his story, the student 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 the second 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 and so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government 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!" You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.


So? What do YOU think?

Jay

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a good story and it rings true to me. I would love to be part of a self sufficient community that only needs to rely on the government for the most essential issues and infrastructure. A community that knows how to forage in the woods.

I'm not sure about doing everything myself. That seems to get costly at times because you lose the efficiency and synergy of a well planned operation. Maybe I missed the point there.

ajm

Debbie said...

What do I think? I think its scary because the words of it ring too truly :(