"Generosity begets beggars"

Remember that discussion back in the "civics" education days? The discussion about everything, everyone being equal. Everyone having the ability to get whatever they want. Everything being free.

I do! It was a circular discussion with no end in sight. A dog chasing its tale.

Just making that comment stirred the crowd. Many agreed, most didn't but in the end the facts always favored the phrase... "generosity begets beggars".

And philanthropist Bill Gates agrees. Amazingly.

Free shit ain't free...

Everything has a price. Quite often, a helluva price. Whole societies, whole civilizations have been brought to their knees because of "free shit" as opposed to "earned shit".

Human nature, personal respect, individualism... society suffers when all things are free, all things are equal, all things belong to everyone. It's not practical, it's not possible.

There's not enough food on the planet, not enough clothing, homes, available transport, civility to accommodate the "needs" of everyone, let alone the "wants" of everyone. At least their perceived needs and wants.

When I was a single man, raised as an Army brat and fresh out of the Army becoming an adult amid a very anti-government, anti-military/police society I helped a friend out with a garage sale at her parents home. They were borderline libs and were certainly affluent in a lot of ways.

There were a lot of "hippies", "peace loving folks", "gypsies" who quite frankly made a living off of other folks generosity and they loved going to garage sales. I was asked by my friend's parents to bring something to the "garage sale" to contribute so I did. Several days in advance I put out signs throughout the surrounding neighborhoods that led to the garage sale. The signs included the words "Free Stuff" on them. Before the sale started I went to every store in town that I knew was hiring, gathered five job applications from each place and brought those to the garage sale. I also bought a huge bag of old fashioned suckers, made a sign and set up a separate table away from the main tables.

The sign said "free stuff" and was taped to a typical 1960's-70's folding card table (that I still have). I put all of the applications on the table in separate piles, each identified by the store and each store was most definitely in need of help.

I also put out a bowl filled with those old fashioned "suckers" .  I taped a sign saying "free suckers" to the bowl.

It was my little human experiment. Within the first hour the whole bag of suckers (three bowls worth) were gone. I kept the empty bowl with the "free suckers" sign on the table and folks were asking for more. I got all kinds of rude remarks when I told them I didn't have any more suckers.  By the end of the day only one application was taken and I found it later down in the ditch where everyone parked. Crumpled up and discarded like a used condom.

My moral of MY lesson? Free stuff begets beggars... Perhaps I expected too much.

IMHO