A thought to remember, Marx said, "Remove one freedom per generation and soon you will have no freedom and no one would have noticed."
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, 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 every day to eat the free food."
"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 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 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 exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.
One should always remember two truths: (1) there is no such thing as a free lunch, and (2) 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 share this with your friends.
If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably not share this.
BUT, God help us all when the gate slams shut!
Quote for today: "The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered."
"You can be young without money but you can't be old without money"
Maggie the Cat from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." by Tennessee Williams
Londoner -- I'm probably the only one on GS who will admit that I agree with that. I agree with it because I of all the people I know who are already in that fence and think they are getting something for free... working jobs now and barely making ends meet because of the way the economy is now. The whole Obamacare thing has caused loads of people's hours to be cut back to 30 or less so their employer won't have to pay for their insurance... which means their incomes went down 25% . Now I've heard they want to redefine "fulltime" work as 30 hours instead of 40 to fix a problem that still won't raise anyone's income.
One day people may wake up and realize that socialism isn't really all about making things "fair" for everyone. It's all about giving more power to the people at the top and making sure the rest have no chance of ever moving up without the permission of the people at the top.
MikeW Wrote:Wait, that coming from someone in England is the joke, right?
No Mike. Even I have got to the stage where I believe that this cradle to grave care has gone far to far. Some people need to get off their fat arses and work! We have go to the stage now where far too many people believe that they have a right to be supported by the Government without making any contribution to society themselves. Like in the States, the UK is suffering an obesity epedemic and too often we hear of people who live on benefits simply because they are too obese to work. How can that be right?
"You can be young without money but you can't be old without money"
Maggie the Cat from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." by Tennessee Williams
LONDONER Wrote:No Mike. Even I have got to the stage where I believe that this cradle to grave care has gone far to far. Some people need to get off their fat arses and work! We have go to the stage now where far too many people believe that they have a right to be supported by the Government without making any contribution to society themselves. Like in the States, the UK is suffering an obesity epedemic and too often we hear of people who live on benefits simply because they are too obese to work. How can that be right?
I'm with ya 100% Londoner.
.....and I don't work "a job" ... I work for me and believe it or not most of you wouldn't do all I do.... I'm sitting here now waiting for a guy to come ride with me to drive straight through for 20 hours to Nashville Tennessee, unload things there, then almost 6 hours to Atlanta to unload then cut through Alabama Saturday morning to pick up a load of plants to bring back to a nursery up here and drive all the way back home.... about 24 hours.... The good thing about it is I make way more doing that than I did working a 1½ MONTHS as a corrections officer. ... and I'll be doing it right up to the middle of May... every 2nd or 3rd week. I hope to get things built up so that the guy riding with me today can do it all summer...and do it year round from now on. ... It's hard work.... and I LOVE IT.
Between the over the road sales and the summer Bed and Breakfast... and rent from the little strip mall ray and I bought... we do mighty fine. Starting the 1st wednesday in June through the 1st Wednesday in September we'll be pulling in between $500 to $800 A DAY just from renting rooms to tourist..... And this guy who's riding with me is the ONLY employee but so far we've created five new businesses in our town and around 20 jobs for locals .... and this summer will have at least 3 or 4 B&B employees working 7 days a week -- and one person everyday at the laundromat just for the B&B.... and an extra cook at the cafe to cook breakfast that we're having catered in every morning this summer starting this year.
So when I think of Hillary Clinton saying this a few months ago... I was to slap her with a fence post.
Skip to 0:35 to hear the Cupid Stunt tell a big lie.
Oh yeah... I forgot.... I'm going to have 2 teenagers doing all my yard work and watering.... and feel bad I can't hire more. There's at least a dozen who've begged for jobs.
Don't get me wrong Virge, I do believe that there are some sectors of society that genuinely needs help and support and I have no objection to my taxes being used to help them but on the other hand, it makes me see red when I see abuses of the system.
You are exemplary in your attitude to work. Let other people follow your example.
"You can be young without money but you can't be old without money"
Maggie the Cat from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." by Tennessee Williams
Omfg Virge I'm jealous:p working for myself is something I've been wanting to do for a while now but I haven't even started writing up plans or a back up plan just encase it doesn't work out.
LONDONER Wrote:Don't get me wrong Virge, I do believe that there are some sectors of society that genuinely needs help and support and I have no objection to my taxes being used to help them but on the other hand, it makes me see red when I see abuses of the system.
You are exemplary in your attitude to work. Let other people follow your example.
Again I agree with you 100% Londoner. Where I live in a small town in the northern Midwest USA people still do charity on a first name face to face basis. People pitch in to help other people. Riding the road tonight I heard something on the radio that made me sick to my stomach. It will show you just how wrong the socialist idea is from the top down.
In the US the Internal Revenue Service is responsible for collecting taxes and they can be ruthless about it.
Because of budget cuts they are saying income tax refunds to citizens are going to be delayed this year...
They claim to be $346 million underfunded.... and they're accountants, number crunchers.
Last year they spent $49 million on their own "conferences."
They also have revealed that no less than 318,000 employees of the federal government are behind on their taxes.
Those federal employees owe $3,300,000,000 in back taxes.
That averages out to $10,375 per each tax evading federal employee.
If that was nonfederal employees they'd be confiscating the owed money from bank accounts and paychecks. With that type of abuse and mishandling from the top down there's no possibility for a truly effective welfare system to be administrated by our government.
And we haven't even talked about the abuse of it by recipients!
ceez Wrote:Omfg Virge I'm jealous:p working for myself is something I've been wanting to do for a while now but I haven't even started writing up plans or a back up plan just encase it doesn't work out.
Ceez --- I have a question....
if you were getting into a serious relationship with a guy would you have another guy on the side, just in case the first one didn't work out?
That plan B thinking will ALWAYS screw up plan A. As soon as plan A gets tough and scary (and it always does) you'll drop it and jump on plan B.
First set the objectives. Then start looking for ways to achieve them. If one way doesn't find another.
Everything I've started has one theme... No one else is doing it so I have no competition. That sure makes it fun. Also I'm not going to worry if someone does come along and try to compete with me. I work hard to build up good relations with the people who do business with me... and make them loyal. I don't rip them off like the imaginary evil greedy capitalist pig in the leftist bible. I'd be ruining my own business if I did and making it easier for someone to come along and steal my customers... right?
And also...
Don't concentrate on the "putting out fires" concept of dealing with problems.
Some will resolve themselves if you leave them alone.
It's often easier to solve a cluster of problems than deal with them one at a time. Think before you react.
Quote:"... after having followed the economists so far, we are none the wiser, and if we ask them: 'How is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread, when every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and even a hundred people annually?' they answer us by droning the same anthem- division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital, etc.- arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient to satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the question: 'Can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs? And if he cannot, what is hindering him?'"
--Peter Kropotkin
"The Conquest of Bread," 1892, Chapter 14, Part I
Sagittarius
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