"Call Me Maybe" or "Say It Ain't So": You decide.

My mother is something.  At 79 years old she has a  an iPad, which she is very good with, and a new desktop with Windows 8.  I can not figure out Windows 8; she's got it going on.  Obviously, at 79, she gets a little frustrated at times because she forgets things.  I get frustrated sometimes because of the things she says; they don't always make sense.  But, for the most part she is pretty sharp.  Can you figure out Windows 8?  Are you 79 years old?  She had to teach me how to text with my iPad.

Last Fall she told me about hearing a story about a woman supporter of president Obama.  The woman claimed that Obama had provide her a cell phone, and that is why she would vote for him.

Initially, I thought my mom might have heard the story wrong.  Or, that the radio station was playing some sort of political joke.  Then I thought, well, it is Chicago, and who knows, maybe the Chicago political machine was providing a little lubricant to help with the woman's constitutional right to vote.  Nonetheless, I wrote off the story as foolishness in one way or another.

Imagine my surprise when I read the Wall Street Journal article about the federal government's free cell phone give away.  I was stunned.  Who was foolish now?

The fact that the program costs $2.2 billion, is poorly  run and consequently fraught with fraud did not stun me.  You expect that.  What stunned me was the fact that the program actually exists!  The federal government gives away cell phones.  

There is a great quote that I will paraphrase:  "We are screwed when the public votes goodies to themselves at the taxpayer's expense".  Game over. There is not enough wealth in America, that can sustain such activity.

It is not so much the cost of the program, which of course is substantial:  "A billion here  and a billion there, pretty soon, that adds up".   It is the fact that the program exists.  Next, it will be cable television as a necessity of life.

To compound my disgust, refer back to previous blogs:  The death of the free market is evidenced by the fact that big business is spending more time lobby lawmakers to guarantee their market than they are spending time convincing consumers to buy their product. Does that tell you who the real consumer is?

Freedom is hard.  It is a participation sport that has no constituents aside from those who work at it.  Bondage is easy.  It takes no effort to receive without thinking and the vicissitudes thereof is social disaster.  As long as people take, certain politicians will give.  Like I said, game over.

"Liberty is the boogie man, when men are hastening to be slaves or tyrants" - C.S. Lewis.  I desire to be neither.  I desire to be free.  Want a cell phone?  I know where you can get one cheap.