Frogs and Freedom

    There's an old story that says you can't kill a frog by dropping him in boiling water. He reacts so quickly to the sudden heat that he jumps out before he's hurt. But if you put him in cold water and then warm it up gradually, he never decides to jump till it's too late. By then he's cooked.

    Men are just as foolish. Take away their freedom overnight, and you've got a violent revolution.

    But steal it from them gradually (under the guise of

"security," "peace," or "progress") and you can paralyze an entire generation.

    Look at the income tax. It started out at a harmless sounding 1%.

It would have been easy to jump out of water as tepid as this, but like the frog, we waited while it climbed ever higher. (Try jumping now!)

    Worst of all, we never learn.

    Even today we cannot believe that Medicare is the same warm water that will one day boil us in Socialized Medicine. We see no connection between farm price supports and Nationalized Agri-culture. And if we draw a parallel between subsidized teachers' pay and federal control of education, we are called "extremist."

    The tragedies of history are always repeated by those who refuse to learn them. To seek guidance from the past is not "turning the clock back" as we are so often told. It is merely a good way to keep out of hot water.

(Courtesy of Blackmere Pump Co.)