Sometimes a fable can teach a moral lesson better than anything. How many Americans will heed this warning? Dr. Madianos’ blog post is reproduced below in its entirety.
How to Catch Wild Pigs- and Doctors
By EvanMadianosMD - Posted on August 27th, 2008
The below story was forwarded to me by a dear friend.
She's a teacher- not a doctor- and she understands clearly the lessons that we, as doctors must learn ourselves.
"There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Professor noticed one young man (an exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and
stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him, he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country, who were trying to overthrow his country's government and
install a new 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 was no joke.
'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and put corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday 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 are used to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.
You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up, with a gate on the last side.
The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them 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 (and medicine in the US).
The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out, in the form of programs suc h as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare, free medical care and drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.
One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch!
A politician will never provide a service for you cheaper, than you can for
yourself.
If you see all of this wonderful government 'help', as a problem confronting
the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your
friends.
If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you
will probably ignore this warning, about creeping socialized medicine in the US in the form of expanding Medicare, Medicaid, goverment programs and quasi-governmental managed care bureaucracies -but God help you when the gate slams shut!
In this 'very important' election year, listen closely to what the candidates
are promising you and just 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
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