As we were standing in line to pay our admission fee, we were very excited. We found ourselves discussing where we would head first. My daughter Cindy was bouncing up and down thinking about the foot long corndogs. My wife Kathy remembers how savory the pulled pork barbeque sandwiches were last year and had been talking about them all morning. Jimmy, my son, was looking forward to getting his mouth around one of those delicious bratwursts and I would take this rare opportunity to get a big fat gyro, piled high with whatever secret meat that is, and dripping with cucumber sauce, I might add. One thing we knew for sure. Even if we didn’t ride a single ride that day, or see any state champion livestock, and even if we didn’t get to the grandstand to see Martina McBride, we would be going home satisfied because we always had.
As we got to the gate, we were shocked to find that the price of admission had gone from $5.00 per person last year to $20.00 per person this year. When the gate attendant (Barbara) saw the look on my face she apologetically explained that, this year the food is complimentary. Still, that price seemed a little much until she also explained that the state has bussed in under privileged kids from around the state, most of whom have never had the opportunity to come to the fair before. While that definitely shed some light on the reason for the change, I’m not really sure I’m too happy about the situation.
So upon getting through the gate, we went about the urgent business of trying to find those specialty vendors we have been salivating about. I was thinking to myself, it’s a good thing the food is free because, at this point, I’m considerably lighter in the wallet, if you get my drift. The first vendor we came to was only serving soyburgers, so we keep plowing our way through the larger than normal crowd. Next we find another “Soyburger Barn”, and like the first one, they were very busy. Finally, we had found our way to “Pete’s Pulled-Pork and Bar-B-Q Review.”
“There he is,” shouted my wife. “There’s the guy we got that barbeque from last year.”
As we got closer we realized there weren’t many people around his hut. Right away, I noticed the sign that read “PULLED PORK SANDWICHES $4.00”. I walked right up to the window and told him that we understood the food was free this year as it was included in the admission price. His expression was one of deep resentful frustration, as he explained that, unfortunately, only the soyburger joints were being subsidized with the increased revenues. The only free food being offerred were soyburgers.
“You must be kidding me,” I said. “When they told us the food was complimentary, they didn’t say only certain food. I wouldn’t have spent all our money to get in, had I understood that. Furthermore, I think Barbara deliberately mislead us!”
“Does this mean I can’t have a corn dog Daddy?” cried Cindy.
“What about the Brats?” asked Jimmy.
I got a lump in my throat as I looked at their disappointed faces. “I’m really sorry kids. I really am. I honestly had no idea. If we come back next year, we’ll bring more money, OK?”
Pulled Pork Pete chimed in, “Won’t much matter. I won’t be here next year and neither will most of the other vendors. When the game is fixed how are we supposed to compete?”
Hungry, extremely disappointed, and with a lot less money money in my pocket, We decided to leave.
As we made our way through the massive crowd on our way back to our car, we couldn’t help complaining to one another. We just found it hard to believe that something we had such fond memories of had become something so awful. It happened so suddenly too.
We got to our car and as we pulled away I was looking back and saw the sign. It had been changed from “THE STATE FAIR” and now it read “THE STATIST FAIR”.
The situations and characters in this story are entirely fictitious. However, this story is a parable designed to point out the flaws in a centralized government-run healthcare system. While it sounds compassionate in principle, it will comes at a very high cost to our Liberty and ultimately will only cater to the lowest common denominator. But this is what we get when we elect politicians who think Big Government makes everything better. This is called Statism and it manifests itself in many forms such as Communism, Socialism and Marxism among others. The destruction and attacks on free market capitalism we are now seeing from our government should be a wake-up call for all of us. The more government we have, the less freedom we have, the fewer choices we have. Furthermore, we are then left without peaceful recourse.
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