December 25, 2011

Lotus Plant: Eaters; Growers; Controllers

"A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that... it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want." -- Milton Friedman

Even on a day like today you would be hard-pressed to find even a single adult individual anywhere on the planet who believes that there really is a Santa Claus who lives on the North Pole and embarks on a once-a-year trek across the globe via an airborne sleigh pulled by flying reindeer to deliver gifts through chimneys! Yet this is a story which many (or most) children with less than a decade on Earth, having been told by their parents to explain gifts under the tree, wholeheartedly believe all the same. For the vast majority of us though, we found out long before we reached adulthood and likely well before our teenage years that all those mythical characters like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were nothing more than fables passed on by some parents to their children from generation to generation.

Yet there are (perhaps unsurprisingly) untold numbers of people in almost every country on the planet who believe that there is a Santa Claus - or maybe a Sugar Daddy - out there whose duty it is to have their needs and desires taken care of. For many such misguided folks, the State is their Sugar Daddy. Others who disagree with this view, nevertheless believe that the duty of the State is to act as their real Daddy in telling them whether they are allowed to eat the Lotus Plant and if so, in what quantity.

The selected article does a good job of exposing the shortcomings of our adult children from the Left, while failing to acknowledge equally misled fully-grown adolescents on the Right. There is however a growing number of real adults who have come to the realization that those on the Left can go ahead and eat as many Lotus Plants as they are able to grow, while those on the Right can cultivate as many acres of Lotus Plants as they have lands for without needing Daddy's approval. Grow up everybody!




Friday, December 23, 2011 – by Joel F. Wade

Joel Wade

In book nine of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus tells of how he and his men came upon an island populated by the Lotophagians – people who do nothing but eat the Lotus plant, "which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home." Odysseus forced the three of his men who had eaten this plant back onto their boat, "though they wept bitterly."

These three men wanted to stay, to be forever under the effects of the illusion of the lotus, to the point that they would forget everything that thus far had given their lives meaning.

There is a desire indulged by many on the left to have all things taken care of, to be free of worry, free of hardship, free of stress, free of the toil and difficulty of life. It can be a wonderful thing to have abundance, to live a life where you are free to do as you please and where your needs and desires are taken care of.
But it can also be a gentle curse, as dangerous as the rocks to which the Sirens of that same Odyssey lured their prey.
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