So I get this from my Dad: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 prof noticed one young man, an 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 regime.
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 that it 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, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then 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 the y 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 in 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, tax cuts, tax exemptions, 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 two truths: There is no such thing as a free lunch and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.
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!
I responded with this:I have to point out one thing that always bugs me when I read this. First of all, the exchange student compares what he's seen in his country to what the government here is doing? Then why would he move here to study after he fought it off?
One reason (which is conveniently lacking from the list of supposedly heinous handouts from the gov.): educational assistance. I have to applaud the government for what educational assistance they do provide. If anyone ever got a school grant, a gov. loan or even a scholarship, I can't really criticize the promotion of education.
On a side note: Drug assistance keeps both my mother and my grandmother in abusurdly expensive diabetes medication. It actually provides a little freedom where a disease has truly fenced them in.
So...I've decided to offer a new service, dear readers. After prodding from my sister and many of these forwards and responses with my Pops, I encourage anyone who has a hard time responding to their ultra-conservative (or, so we don't pigeon-hole here, generally unfounded and uneducated, which end up often being ultra-conservative in topic) parental forwards to submit the forward to me. I will be happy to supply family-appropriate responses on a first-come, first-served basis. This includes the Obama/Clinton assassination theory, the Obama pledge back-turning, really old anti-Sheehan propaganda that is somehow still floating around and lots of other things. I often include links to a variety of news media and not to toot my own horn, but after much hard work, my mom watches
The Daily Show. Send 'em in, peeps.
Send 'em in.LYLAS,
nerver.
ps. Though I am a bit of a lefty, let me say I don't hold it against people for their conservative beliefs. I know many conservatives with valid reasons for their standing. It just seems that fewer liberals send forwards not having to do with charity organizations. The right-wingers are more forward-friendly. No offense, peeps. This is a service to educate not judge. Word.
Labels: media, parents, politics
