Teach Me To Fish

''A guy looked at the Corvette the other day and said I wonder how many people could have been fed for the cost of that car. I replied I am not sure, it fed a lot of families in Kentucky who built it, it fed the people who make the tires, it fed the people who made the components, it fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for the wires, it fed people who make the trucks that haul the copper ore. That's the difference between capitalism and welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people's pockets and give them dignity for their skills''

It reminds me of my favorite saying 

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” 

There is a mindset that ignores the blessing of reward. The satisfaction of receiving something in return for your investment of time and labor. Rewarding an individual who is idle is not helping but perpetuating the problem of no self-dignity and self-worth. It literally is below a man’s dignity to receive something for nothing as seen in the following. 

2 Samuel 24:21-24
²¹  And Araunah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshingfloor of thee, to build an altar unto the LORD, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
²²  And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood.
²³  All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The LORD thy God accept thee.
²⁴  And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

Free tuition, free phones, etc.… feeds something dangerous called an entitlement mindset. Once something is given without being earned it is taken for granted and expected as something owed. The valuing of the thing received evaporates and the person’s respect for those who provided it dwindles as well.  This kind of system plays on the surface sympathies of the people while plundering the coffers of the wage earners, thus draining the well dry to maintain the swamp. 

I believe a majority of Americans said this loud and clear at the polls on Nov. 8 2016. They said they were tired of having to pay for other people’s irresponsibility. They were tired of being penalized for being hard-working while others were provided incentives to remain on perpetual assistance. They were tired of the Hollywood elites and political ruling classes ramming values down their throats they don’t believe in. 

Make no mistake about it, the blue collar worker rose up and said we are tired of you making us work harder and longer to pay for your agendas that do not benefit us at all. Our politicians had started down a path of economic enslavement and the working class of America said we are not taking it anymore. Benefits without work… enjoying benefits without being a legal taxpayer… unethical medical burdening… political correctness running amok… separate laws for the privileged… loss of freedoms… government expansion… and this list is endless as the causes of the middle class symptoms of political sickness. 

Politicians who never had a job or ran a business have little to know appreciation for the hard earned money of another. Their wasteful spending on the frivolous, rewarding of the indolent, and doing the bidding of the special interests was too much for the blue collar worker. This unfair treatment created an angst which motivated the silent majority to the polls to repeal the damaging onslaught and declare a mandate for a better future.   

It’s time for respect and dignity to find its way back into the American fabric of ideals and exceptionalism.

Reuben Egolf