I have to paraphrase the incident because I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time to record the actual words. We tend not to take notice until we realize that something of interest is taking place.

Anyway, the interviewer was stopping people on the street and asking them if they were for or against repeal of the 1975 (or some date) Bill of Income Adjustment.
He stated that most were for the repeal. What’s interesting is that there was no such bill!

Where I am going with this is that if one were to take a poll as to what the most important task for the new president would be, it would be a very different answer depending on where the poll was taken.
In Arizona, it might be border security. In Detroit it would be jobs. In New England it might be the economy. In San Francisco it might be the legalization of marijuana.
If the pollster takes his poll regarding war at a college he will find a much greater percentage of people against war. Why? These young people would be the ones required to carry the rifle.

How the question is asked also alters the answer.
Certainly the restrictive nature of the question, whether a “yes or no” answer is expected, when there is no clear answer possible to the question.
For instance, “Sir, do you still kick your dog when you get home from work every day?”

Everyone wants to be associated with a winner and unfortunately the polls can create winners.
We are seeing this effect at the present time with funding for some of the Presidential candidates drying up.
If polls are taken in specific regions that favor one candidate over another, people will shift their allegiance to the perceived winner.
This has been going on since primitive cultures formed and will continue forever.

For years my skeptical nature has caused me to ask, “Who’s telling you what and why?”

Beware how the pollster asks his questions and where he asks them for they can significantly influence the outcome of an election.

The pawns pay the price.

“Good fences make good neighbors”Robert Frost

Throughout history fences had been successfully used to indicate the limits of one’s control. Without a distinct marker of some sort, a range of uncertainty exists as to what a person or a country can do at the edges of their controlled property. This uncertainty usually leads to disputes which can lead to violence. In the past if the border dispute was between countries it led to war.

Fences and borders are so specific in their placement that in most areas of the US a plus or minus foot variation can lead the Planning and Zoning Commission to order the removal of an existing building.

In short, boundaries are important and fences are visual indicators of those boundaries.

We put up fences to indicate to the deer that they cannot eat from our apple trees and we make the fences sturdy enough to prevent the deer from crossing that boundary. The converse is true to keep our cow or horse or dog from running loose on our neighbor’s property.

Fences are necessary to keep things in…and to keep things out.

Saudi Arabia is presently starting a $5 billion project to build a wall that is the most sophisticated wall ever built. The purpose is to keep out illegal immigrants and potential terrorists.

Isn’t that interesting?

Consider some past walls:

Hadrian’s Wall was about 80 miles long and was built in 122ad by the Romans across England to keep the Picts from raiding the southern territory. It was built to provide economic stability and was made of stone and turf as high as 16 to 20 feet and manned by as many as 9000 troops.

It was replaced by another, built for the same purpose, the Antonine Wall, about half the length at the border of present day Scotland.

The Great Wall of China, approximately 4000 miles long and said to have been guarded by over a million troops, was built to keep out the Mongols who were raiding China from the north.

The Maginot Line, built in the 1930’s along the French-German border, was less of a wall than a series of forts and obstacles and proved rather useless in a modern war which employs planes and tanks.

The Berlin Wall was started in 1961 to keep westerners and their influence out of East Germany and to keep the East Germans from leaving.

It is sort of the inverse of what is happening between the US and Mexico today. The citizens of East Germany saw the economic advantages available to them in the west but their government would not permit them to leave.

The Roman Empire generally used rivers as boundaries or often inhospitable land features like deserts. One of the major reasons that the Roman Empire collapsed was that it had extended itself too far and along with internal conflict between people competing for power it could no longer control its borders.

What is the reason that people cross borders?

  Probably for the same reason that squirrels cross roads. People emigrate because of discontent, or hunger or to avoid being persecuted (or prosecuted). When people are hungry, poor or live in fear where they are, they move on. This can be simply moving to another patch of woods in a primitive society if it is available or leaving your homeland entirely as happens today. There have been small migrations since the beginning of time as it applied to birds, animals or humans.

The colonization of the western hemisphere saw larger mass migrations by people hoping to significantly improve their lives. These migrations are always prompted by stories returning of the potential for wealth or for freedom of choice of cultural standards or religious beliefs.

Today our southern border is porous. The influx of new people is creating incredible economic stress in our Southwest. People are coming across in hopes of a better life and people are coming across to expand their crime and drug networks. How does one sort out intentions?

The only way is to close the border and attempt to sort out intentions by legalized entry. It’s easier to keep the bear out of the kitchen before he gets in than to get him out after.

Unfortunately we didn’t close the door quickly enough and the bear is in the kitchen and hungry. Now we have to feed him.

Again, fences are necessary to keep things in…and to keep things out.

We have heard over and over that there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’. We, as a people, are losing our ability to survive on our own. We are all expecting the governments-local, state and federal to supply us with everything to make our lives comfortable. We are becoming dependent on someone else to provide us with all the perceived necessities to make our lives comfortable. The point here is should we expect life to be ‘comfortable’ or should we be satisfied with life being ‘tolerable’? There is a wide range between the two and there is a price to be paid for being too comfortable.

The story below was sent to me over the Internet. I have no idea who the author is and have no way of knowing whether the story is true or not so consider it a parable.

“There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had a few exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Professor noticed one 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 putting 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 the second 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 in the last side. The pigs, who 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 and so they accept their captivity. The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/socialism and keeps spreading the free corn in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time. If you see that all of this wonderful government “help” is 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 delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!”

That story illustrates what can happen to not just pigs but to any society that becomes too dependent on someone other than themselves. We must eventually pay for the ‘free lunch’. We eventually lose our freedom of choice. If we expect our lives to become too comfortable and too safe the price that we will have to pay is a loss of freedom. Guard rails, fences, paved paths and smooth roads all make us safer but also diminish the excitement of living. We must make rational decisions about how much we are willing to give up for comfort and security. The “Law of Diminishing Returns” must always be considered whenever we undertake any project. How much time, and therefore money, is involved in making the shelf board smoother or leveling our lawns?