Beware The Friendly Socialist Bearing Gifts

Anyone that accepts money from government can expect the giver to attach some strings.

Some of these strings make sense such as WIC program participants having to use the money they receive to buy healthy food and drink products. Some of the strings are more dubious, such as when the US federal government demands that states comply with federal guidelines in order to receive money for roads, education, etc--in much the same way a bully steals playground sandwiches only to return them after an acceptable level of groveling has taken place.

Then, there are the occasional strings that are so invasive and ill-guided that they border insanity, such as these coming out of the Netherlands reported in The Brussels Journal.

Sharon Dijksma, a leading parliamentarian of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) wants to penalise educated stay-at-home women. “A highly-educated woman who chooses to stay at home and not to work – that is destruction of capital,” she said in an interview last week. “If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at society’s expense, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished.”

Hence her proposal to recover part of the cost of their education from highly-educated women who decide not to seek paid work. Between 2001 and 2005 the number of Dutch women aged between 15 and 65 who were out on the labour market rose from 55.9 to 58.7 per cent. Dijksma says she wants to stimulate more women to join the work force.

It sounds more to me like Dijksma wants to force more women into the work force at the expense of children.

When we choose socialism we choose it at the peril of our freedoms.

We honestly should say thank you to the silly Dutch cow for teaching us this lesson so easily and without the need of any government-paid tuition.