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 student what was the matter The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting the enemy in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government, and set up a new regime. In the midst of his story, the student looked at the professor and asked a strange question: “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?”
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The world-affairs savvy student said, “It is 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 use to coming every day, you put a fence down one
The professor nodded, wondering where this was going.
The articulate young man continued, “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 the corn again.” You then slam the ate 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 food, so they accept their captivity.”
“Why are you telling me this story?” the professor asked.
“That is exactly what I see in America, and that makes me sad. The government pushes its citizens toward captivity by spreading the free corn out with programs like supplemental income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payment not to plant crops, welfare entitlements, and more while freedom is continually being lost; just a little at a time. It looks like they give, but they take.”
The professor nodded. “What is your take on this, young man?”
“There are two truths – one, there is no free lunch, and two, you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you see that all of this wonderful government help is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to weigh the outcome,” he said, stretching his back