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More Wisdom from Sowell
Thomas Sowell column | 9/21/09 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/21/2009 10:09:55 AM PDT by Don Corleone

"Many years ago, as a small child, I was told one of those old-fashioned fables for children.

It was about a dog with a bone in his mouth, who was walking on a log across a stream. The dog looked down into the water and saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog with a bone in his mouth -- and it seemed to him that the other dog's bone was bigger than his.

He decided that he was going to take the other dog's bone away and opened his mouth to attack. The result was that his own bone fell into the water and was lost.

At the time, I didn't like that story and wished they hadn't told it to me. But the passing years and decades have made me realize how important that story was, because it was not really about dogs but about people.

Today we are living in a time when the President of the United States is telling us that he is going to help us take that other dog's bone away -- and the end result is likely to be very much like what it was in that children's fable.

Whether we are supposed to take that bone away from the doctors, the hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies or the insurance companies, the net result is likely to be the same -- most of us will end up with worse medical care than we have available today. We will have opened our mouth and dropped a very big bone into the water."

--economist Thomas Sowell


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: bone; fables; sowell; thomassowell; wishing
Once again Dr. Sowell hits it on the nose
1 posted on 09/21/2009 10:09:55 AM PDT by Don Corleone
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To: Don Corleone

A superb tale. The man is a genius.


2 posted on 09/21/2009 10:14:46 AM PDT by equalitybeforethelaw
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To: Don Corleone

I love that guy.


3 posted on 09/21/2009 10:19:45 AM PDT by John.Galt2012 (I'll take Liberty and you can keep the "Change"!)
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To: John.Galt2012

Yep...a hard guy NOT to love.


4 posted on 09/21/2009 10:21:19 AM PDT by Pharmboy (The Stone Age did not end because they ran out of stones...)
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To: Don Corleone
In Ancient Rome
There was a poem
About a Dog
Who had two bones
He licked one
He licked the other
He went in circles
Till he dropped dead.

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want

“Freedom of Choice” by Devo (Are we not men? We are Devo!)

5 posted on 09/21/2009 10:22:34 AM PDT by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: Don Corleone

“History is littered with the corpses of golden geese.”


6 posted on 09/21/2009 10:29:31 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Don't anthropomorphize the robots. They hate that.)
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To: allmendream
“Freedom of Choice” by Devo (Are we not men? We are Devo!)

(Man, this thing was hard to find. Somebody is scrubbing Devo music videos from the 'net. What's the deal, does Obama's BC appear in one of them?)

http://www.retroist.com/2009/09/20/devos-freedom-of-choice-music-video/

7 posted on 09/21/2009 11:08:41 AM PDT by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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To: The Comedian
I didn't have any problems seeing Devo vids on youtube a couple months ago. Will have to check again.
8 posted on 09/21/2009 11:15:38 AM PDT by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; ...
Today we are living in a time when the President of the United States is telling us that he is going to help us take that other dog's bone away -- and the end result is likely to be very much like what it was in that children's fable. Whether we are supposed to take that bone away from the doctors, the hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies or the insurance companies, the net result is likely to be the same -- most of us will end up with worse medical care than we have available today. We will have opened our mouth and dropped a very big bone into the water.

9 posted on 09/21/2009 3:49:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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