CRAIG EDWARD KELSO, Free Lunch

 There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL).

Simple. Elegant. Sublime.

Takes a long time to get it, to absorb its profundity. Among all that you’ve been given, SOMEONE HAD TO GIVE IT, and even then it had to be conceived, produced, and distributed. Finally it makes its way to your greedy little hands. You MIGHT say thank you, and you might even mean to say it as more than mere sentiment or convention. But, dammit, you ought to appreciate the complexity of all that had to happen to bring it your way.

Whether it’s love, the latest gizmo, or the skinny jeans you’re sliding into these days, the THING comes with a price, and the price is derived from real-world, human concerns.

Opportunity costs. Trade-offs. Preferences. Subjective choice.

Working together, people toil in preparation for payment. It’s glorious when you stop and think about it. All this complexity … directed to your every want and desire. It carries moral implications, and you really should consider the consequences.

You get a grant to pursue higher education. Confiscatory taxes are redistributed your way because you managed to either under produce or sire/birth little mouths. Rent is subsidized. You’re given a plastic card with which you may swipe and carry home food stuffs.

WHERE DOES THIS LUCRE COME FROM?

To understand the world, to understand the concept of justice and right action, grapple with what you have. How much of that depended on YOU? How much of what you own, what you collect, is the result of others?

The hardest people, ironically, to explain this to are the educated. They’re so very saturated with entitlement premises, over-loaded with the language of handouts and sucking on the production of others, they tautologically loop back to queer justifications. For example, a teacher once complained of the tax rate. She moralized about the students’ free lunch program, and then waved her check at me, suggesting SHE paid for those lunches. She then paused for my response. Well, I stopped and turned, you should be careful. She then chest-thumped about not caring if the students heard her. No, I resumed, YOU DO NOT PAY TAXES. You’re a state employee. In all likelihood, it is THEIR PARENTS who’re paying for those lunches in one form or another. And even if they’re not, YOU’RE CERTAINLY NOT.

Ooooooooooh, she did not like that.

She nearly screamed, Right here it shows you’re wrong. They’re taking money out of MY check!

When I call someone sweetheart in the middle of an argument, it’s to belittle them, and this teacher needed a severe dressing-down. Look, sweetheart, the state is merely taking its money back. You’re not PAYING anything. The money given to you is TAKEN from others by force, through property taxes …

Don’t give me that shit, she now interrupted, yelling. I pay property taxes. I own a home!

You no more PAY property taxes than you do income tax. You’re the financial equivalent of my daughter, I laughed. I give her money and she goes to the counter to “buy” a treat. Who paid for the dulce? ME. Same is true for you. Big daddy government pays your salary from those who produce in the real economy. Government produces NOTHING. It takes, by force, and redistributes to you. Face it, you’re a welfare queen, honey.

If there was a weapon around, she would have struck me with it. She was hoping I’d cower and throw the students under the welfare bus, but she got something different entirely.

Now, I do NOT support federal lunch programs any more than I do public schools, which are really just compulsory housing of young inmates (that’s what a public school student IS, an inmate). They’re immoral on several grounds. But bullies are always and everywhere to be confronted, especially self-righteous government employees (including cops and firefighters, no doubt your favorites). This teacher was totally OVER-paid, working a mere ten months a year, producing a product ranked last in the entire world by nearly any measure. And here she was griping about fat kids eating government cheese. Surely there are bigger fish to fry, like HER.

Same goes for bailouts of banks and corporations, arguably more so.

The United States military is the largest welfare program in the history of human civilization, and it too never fails to congratulate itself at every turn. Veterans want every program under the sun … until they die. Ghastly.

Again, WHERE does the money, the capital, come from to PAY for all the above? Again, the government generates ZERO capital. It confiscates. It takes. It does NOT create .

Think about it.

And I mean it. 

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checalaloskelsos@gmail.com
  
Craig Edward Kelso is the author of Anarcho-Capitalism (2014), a primer on the philosophy of peaceful, stateless cooperation. His curriculum vitae include a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from San Diego State University, and a Post-Baccalaureate secondary education credential in both Social Science and English Language Arts. Kelso taught for nearly a decade in the American public school system, and was voted by colleagues Teacher of the Year, twice in his short tenure, earning numerous accolades from chambers of commerce, mayors, state assembly persons, governors, congresspersons, senators, and even Wal-Mart. Currently he struggles to earn an opportunity to be employed, working as a laborer, dishwasher. He is deliriously happily married to Myra Kelso, living in Southern California with their adorable children.