Some of my favorite childhood memories are from the times that I spent on various playgrounds. Think back with me for a moment……There were swings…monkey bars…and of course, the merry-go-round...as well as tons of other fun stuff. Right about now…I know that some of you are wondering where I’m headed with this…and others of you are wondering if I have completely lost my mind. Which ever category you might fall into…...please indulge me for a moment and read on……
As I reflected on those times as a child that were spent at the playground….I started to see that not only did we get a great deal of exercise (unlike a lot of kids today)…..I also realized that there were also a lot of life lessons learned through those activities as well. For example:
In our society today there are far too many people who want the government to take care of every little detail of their lives…with very little...if any effort on their part. I can assure you that this attitude of entitlement that is running rampant in our society today was NOT learned on the playground. As a kid, if you wanted to swing on the swing set, you had to put some effort into it. You had to lean back and pull on those chains…shift your weight…and as you did that….you realized that the more effort that you put into it…the higher you would go in the swing. Among those of us who put a lot of pride and effort into our swing set activities…there was also a certain amount of competition to see who could go the highest. That competition would often allow you to excel beyond what you could do on your own…(that is, if you really wanted to win).
Now I do remember that there were a few kids who were fine with letting others push them in the swing…..but I cannot remember a time when one of the “pushed people” ever won a competition for being able to swing the highest. Why? Because they were content with whatever came without effort on their part. Sadly, as many of those people became adults…their ideals didn’t change much since their days on the playground…..Well with the exception that now they are content to let the government “push them in their swing” (i.e. take what the government will dole out to them for little or no effort on their part)….If that wasn’t bad enough....many of them also seem to have a great deal of contempt for those who have put in the extra effort to “swing” at a level that is a lot higher than average. Even worse that all of that....is the fact that among liberal politicians, there even seems to be this idea that rather than telling the “low swingers” to work harder so that they too can swing high…we should restrict the “high swingers”…so that everyone is equally low. (In Barack Obama's own words that would be "spread(ing) the wealth around")
While most all of the playground activities had implications that have carried over into adulthood…….there is one other activity in particular that I want to mention…..and that is the merry-go-round. I’m not talking about some fancy, mechanical ride with wooden horses and music…..NO…I’m talking about the little one that 5 or 6 people could get on. Now the key to making this type of merry-go-round work was pushing. Everyone would stand on the ground….circle the merry-go-round….grab one of the curved metal bars and start pushing it in a circle. Once the merry-go-round was turning at what seemed like somewhere around seven gazillion miles per hour….THEN you could jump on and ride. One thing that every kid knew was this……you could only ride for so long, before it would stop. Then you had to get back off and push again….(that is, if you wanted to keep riding) Another interesting thing about the merry-go-round was that anyone who didn’t want to push the merry-go-round….didn’t get to ride. Oh they might get away with it for a little while, but eventually….even as kids…we knew that “there ain’t no free ride”. Picture this scenario (and I can honestly say that I NEVER saw this happen on a playground)……All the kids get on the merry-go-round and sit down. No one pushes….they just sit and wait for it to start moving….Then when it doesn’t move, they can’t figure out why….so they just cry that no one wants to push them. (Sounds kind of dumb when you say it that way, doesn’t it?) Well it’s no different than what’s going on in the government as we speak. Private sector jobs are being lost by the tens of thousands…..and yet the government is hiring by the tens of thousands.....….
And here’s the problem with that....If we keep going in that direction… eventually there wont be anyone left to push the merry-go-round. If the government chases all of the businesses out of the country because of over-regulation and higher corporate taxes….where is the money going to come from to pay for all of those millions of government workers?...(that includes politicians)...Remember, someone has to push the merry-go-round. At some point…if you aren’t pushing….you need to get off of the ride. Even as kids we knew that eventually the merry-go-round stopped if no one pushed it. That of course is a nice way of saying that we have to cut taxes....not raise them...and limit government spending. This includes (but is not limited to) cutting back on social programs….stopping illegal immigration…..and limiting un-employment benefits to a reasonable length of time (yes I did say that)….It also means limiting the number of people that it takes to do a government job, to what would be acceptable in a "like-job", in the private sector. In short….if you want to swing then put the effort into it….If you want to ride the merry-go-round, you have to do some pushing. We don't need to hire three people to do the job of one...just so we can make the employment numbers look good. There are a lot of people like me who are really tired of pushing the swing and the merry-go-round for everyone else. As far as I’m concerned….it’s time to go back to some of the wisdom of the playground. Then Again….That’s Just Me.
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