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Charlie Sykes: Sykes Writes

Excerpt from A Nation of Moochers: Want --> Need --> Right

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(Suitable for laminating and keeping in your wallet)

While the principle applies equally to housing, health care, cell phones, new windows, child care, and hybrids, the explosion of subsidized eats perhaps best illustrates the transformation of wants into needs and then into obligations in a moocher society.

Here is the way it works:

I want you to buy me lunch.

Therefore, I need lunch.

If I need something, I have a right to it.

You therefore have an obligation to pay for my lunch, food stamps, and free tater tots for my kid.

All of these steps can be simplified thus:

Want -->Need --> Right --> Obligationà (Food Stamps, mortgage bailout, health care, free cell phones, etc.)

I can also convince you that you also have a right to lunch and we can join together to make someone else pay to feed us, preferably someone who is (1) unpopular, (2) far away, (3) not yet born.

My appeal is also enhanced if I can insert a claim of victimization in my bid for sympathy and free hamburgers. Victims are, by definition innocent; while their status of victimization also implies guilt on the part of others. It works this way:

Want --> Victim card (innocent and not responsible)--> need -> entitled as a matter of right --> Your guilt --> obligation to pay --> (Freebie)

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