Something to read and think about

[shortstack]

I just recieved this from a friend of mine. Not sure yet what I think of it but thought it was worth sharing...


>> There was a Chemistry professor who had
some exchange students in his class. One day, while the class was in the laboraory, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange
student, rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back
hurt.The professor asked the young man what
was the matter. The student old him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fghting Communists in his native
country. The Communists were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a 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 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 corn. When they
are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they eat. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again, and then you put up another side of the fence. The pigs 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, who are used to the free corn, come through the gate to eat, and when they are all inside, you slam the gate shut 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. Thus, we continually lose our freedoms...just a little at a time.
One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch!
The government can never provide a service for you cheaper than you can provide it for yourself.

In this very important election year,
listen closely to what the candidates are promising; maybe you will
be able to tell who is about to slam the gate on America.
'A government big enough to give you
everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you
have.'
>> Thomas
Jefferson

[JustMegan79]

That certainly IS something to think about. It's a good story with a solid point. It's a bit disconcerting, actually.

Thanks for posting it.

[janelane]

Ooo, I have another trippy story to think of along side this. Oddly enough I read about this in two different books within a week of each other.

This was an actual University study, I believe in the 50's. I dunno, fire hoses on monkeys sounds like the 50s lol. Paraphrasing, of course...

Scientists filled a room with monkeys. In the middle of the room was a pole, and at the top of this pole was delicious bananas. Being monkeys, of course, they went right for the bananas. As soon as a monkey would get to the top of the pole, right before it got to the bananas, a fire hose would blast the monkeys off and across the room. Eventually, almost all the monkeys had tried, maybe a few times each, but they learned. In fact they learned so well, they started, as a group, to pull other monkeys down.

One by one, the scientists replaced a monkey who had been sprayed with a new monkey. They'd all go straight for the bananas. But the other monkeys would pull this new monkey down and teach him no, wrong, don't go up there, you'll get hurt!! Bananas BAD, ooo ooo! (or whatever they say in their monkey language.) So the new monkey learned not to go up the pole.

Eventually ALL the monkeys in the room had been replaced. None of them had been sprayed, yet ALL of them would STILL NOT ALLOW NEW MONKEYS TO GO UP THE POLE. None of them knew why, they just did it because it was what was done.

And I think this little experiment translates to humans very well indeed.

Too many people don't question what's going on around them.

[Jamauk]

Have you posted that here before, Janie? I swear I just read that somewhere and I can't remember where.....???

[Nishu]

I know I just recently read about that monkey study, too.

[Jamauk]

I know I just recently read about that monkey study, too.

I think it was in the healthcare thread, but I'm not about to go back and look through 5,000 pages to find it!

[janelane]

Hmm, I don't think I did, but I might've, I've been talking about it a lot. It gives me chills to think about. So does that first analogy. (I read it recently in "Consumed" and "Plato & a Platypus Walk Into A Bar")

I wish more people were thinkers. But I think a lot of times it's just too big to be aware. No one likes to think they've been tricked or trapped, especially when they themselves were complicit, whether through inaction or some undefined fear, or whatever.

We end up giving so much control to something "bigger" than us and eventually we can't really remember why it happened in the first place, all of a sudden it just "is" and somehow it seems okay to way too many and we have no real way to change it.

Before you know it we're completely controlled.

[Telephus44]

I do think that's something worth thinking about. I was just talking with DH this weekend that with all of the foreign investment money being poured into banks, it won't be long before America is at the mercy of foreigners for oil and banking. And who knows what else is next...they just need to keep up the bread and circuses trick to keep us complacent.

Sigh.

[AmyBoz]

I've heard both of those before and I find both of them to be excellent parables.

[i.m.cheap]

"I wish more people were thinkers" -QUOTE janelane

Oh, me too!

[Jamauk]

I do think that's something worth thinking about. I was just talking with DH this weekend that with all of the foreign investment money being poured into banks, it won't be long before America is at the mercy of foreigners for oil and banking. And who knows what else is next...they just need to keep up the bread and circuses trick to keep us complacent.

Sigh.

Sarah, you are so right. It frightens me ~ the notes that China owns for our national debt. They could call it at anytime, or worse sell it to a less friendly country....