Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Everything Free

I seldom talk politics or about politicians in this blog. After all, the theme here is mostly about recovery. And issues related to recovery.

But today I got a not-very-nice-email from a woman who somehow has the idea that TLC should provide its services for nothing. And not only should they be free, we should offer more types of services than we do now. Also for free.

And of course that reminded me of a story I was reading about the supporters of Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. And for those of you who don’t follow politics, he’s the Socialist candidate who’s the favorite of young voters. Those in the 35 and under group.

And the reason he’s the favorite is because he’s promising free everything. Free college tuition. Free health care. Taxing the rich more than they’re paying now. You get the drift – everything paid for by the government confiscating money from large corporations - and the rich.

And for some reason my brain connected her email with this politician and his followers. Because that’s what she wanted: great services at no cost to her.

Now in some respects I agree with her. I think everyone should have everything they want and that it should be free. I just don’t want to pay for it. And I’m not sure anyone else does either. Because it's not reality.

Regardless of the entitlement society we live in, there’s nothing that’s free. Someone has to pay. If you aren’t going to pay and I’m not going to pay – then who is?

The reality is that when people feel they have something coming without producing anything themselves our world is surely in a decline.

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