My Thoughts
Looking back is always interesting, especially when one has left behind an extensive paper trail. And, as a writer of some repute—whether good or horrid is entirely your decision—I have left quite a paper trail (some may prefer to call it toilet paper.) Gathering thoughts from the past, yesterday I came across an essay from two years ago and found a brief portion that gave new meaning to this time and place.
Here then, in the interest of possibly enlightening one or more budding Socialist proselyte, is a tale told to an idiot by one who had first-hand experience with Socialism.
A professor at a large college had some exchange students in his class. The professor noticing one of the students rubbing his back and stretching, asked if he was in pain. He explained while fighting communists who were trying to overthrow his country’s government he’d been shot in the back. The young man paused and looking at the professor asked an odd question: “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 where they come. When they begin to eat the corn again you erect another side of the fence. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. When the pigs come through the gate to eat the free corn you slam the gate 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 said that was exactly what he saw 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. Our freedoms are slowly being taken away as the government forces us to participate in many of these programs whether we want to or not.
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.
For all her faults for which critics have been all too eager to promote, Ayn Rand, who escaped from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the West, knew firsthand what today’s young Socialists do not: “There is no difference between Communism and Socialism, except in the same ultimate end: Communism proposes to enslave men by force, Socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”
We are told by the mainstream media that America actually wants socialism, citing a recent Gallup poll which indicated that Democrats prefer socialism over capitalism (Apparently only Democrats are American, all other parties are what? Un-American?) We are told America is already socialist, citing Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and even the U.S. Postal System as proof. Finally, we are told to simply shut up and take it.
Unable to win the argument on facts, Socialists resort to shouting down opposing views, shadow-banning social media accounts, excluding opposing views on college campuses and creating riots and mayhem (by masked Antifa hoodlums) preventing voices having ideas not their own from speaking. Psychologists describe the practice of attributing to others your own flaws “projection” which the left has undeniably engaged in doing to the current administration and the right in general, projecting the actions which the left deliberately indulged in during the previous administration, onto the current one. The left’s hatred is both palpable and vitriolic, attributing every evil intent, despicable action or maniacal motive to the president. To sensible people it makes no sense but then common sense as well as plain truth need not apply within the socialist camp.
Though I wrote those words two years ago, it seems, as Yogi Berra once said, “like Déjà vu all over again,” only going from worse to worser. Wake up America!
Just my thoughts for a Wednesday, for what it is worth.
