OT: Frontline / Sick Around the World / Online & 3/31 on PBS

[Maxwell Lol]

Well, he's pay taxes for the public schools, and the fees for the private school as well. Not all can afford to pay for school twice.

[Mark & Juanita]

The nation's Founders weren't too enthralled with democracy either,that is why the established a Republic. The idea of a pure democracy (as we are seeing today) truly is "the mob" ruling. It is 51% of people who don't pay income taxes voting in politicians who continue to promise to punish the

49% of those who do pay taxes and obtaining more support from some of that 49% by telling *them* that they are really only going after the 5% of wage earners who are now paying 60% of all income taxes. Pure democracy can be likened to two foxes and a chicken deciding on the lunch menu. That is why the Republic outlined in the Constitution was established -- to make sure that no one swing group could control the direction and fortunes of the country. Unfortunately, too many "progressives" going back to at least Woodrow Wilson decided that was too "quaint" and "inefficient" and that the "voices of the people" should be the driving force for all policies. So now we have all these neat "innovations" to the constitution, like the Income Tax -- a direct tax on the citizens of the various states that has now managed to place the federal government pretty much in absolute control of every citizen's life due to the control of how those taxes are spent.

[Nova]

The message below was sent by e-mail to me recently. I believe it fits nicely into this thread. ______________________________________________________________

Catching Wild Pigs

A chemistry professor in a large college 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, which 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 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.

Keep your eyes on the newly elected politicians who are about to slam the gate on America.

One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"

Thomas Jefferson

[HeyBub]

Excellent parable. It also illustrates the different methodologies in capturing wild pigs. We right-wingers wouldn't go to all the trouble of corn and fences and time.

We'd just shoot the porkers the first day.

[Swingman]

"HeyBub" wrote

From an age based perspective, and the view looking over Attila the Hun's right shoulder, I would shoot those casting the corn/building the fences ... save a damn sight more time and angst.

[Nova]

Didn't you Texans do that in the past with a different brand of sheep herders?

[HeyBub]

Brought them back as war brides after the mistaken invasion of New Zealand (which is a whole 'nother story that had something to do with a muskrat and a jar of mayonnaise - I never was too clear on the details).

[Charlie Self]

Unfortunately, it was the preceding President who oiled the gate's hinges and put a stronger spring on the closer.

Not totally true. Have you priced paving lately? No individual can afford many of the things we insist, rightly, that government carry out. It's at the point of deciding what's right for the government to do, and what isn't, that people differ.

Yup. But when was the line crossed? Maybe with something as simple, and old, as the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the size of the U.S. and tripling or quadrupling its real needs for government intervention? It sure isn't a recent phenomenon that government grew beyond reasonable bounds.

[HeyBub]

But the government's not interested in doing things cheaply.

I invented a biped that attaches to a shovel handle to keep the shovel in an upright position. I tried to sell my invention to several local governments on the basis that my device could cut labor costs - no longer would a work crew digging a hole have to have a couple of people on the payroll whose sole purpose was to keep shovels vertical.

No takers.

I concluded that governments weren't interested in saving money.