This winter, as with any Maine winter, has presented the cyclical challenge of fiscal survival for my family, as I’m sure it has for yours.  With the possibilities of carpentry and masonry work looking rather bleak, I searched out other job opportunities to be stop gap measure to help us through the lean months.

One of these of these jobs required that I take an oath to keep all sensitive information confidential or something to that effect.  Being that I am a Conservative and take oaths seriously, I have decided not to tell you anything about my job.  In order to share with you the following information, I have decided to use the cover of obscurity.  All names have been changed to protect the innocent.

One of the objectives of my job was to verify that the brooks and ponds on the map were the brooks and ponds on the map.  Yes… I did just write that.  No…it is not a typo.  They were willing to pay me to hike out to a pond, take a look around, and then quantify the results of my investigation, which generally consisted of, “Yup, that’s a pond.”

So there I was in the middle of “nowhere”, following the brook “none of your business” to find the pond, “Can’t get there from here.”  As I trudged through the snow, I noticed a clearing with small rolling knolls in it.  I walked into the clearing and began the traverse over these knolls.  When I crashed through into branches, I realized these “knolls” were blow downs.

I flailed about in the branches (painful branches I might add) until I found some footing and scrambling out.  So why so many blow downs in one area?  I soon discovered why.  This whole clearing area was wet, marshy soil created by water that had backed up from the pond.  Because the ground was so saturated, the roots of the trees had no depth and no strength.  The effect was trees that quickly rotted and could not stand any strong wind force.

So what created the wetland?  I hiked on until I found pond “can’t get there from here.”  I quickly realized this pond was a beaver pond.  That’s what caused the back up into the brook basin area.  It should be noted at this point that part of my job directive was to verify that there were no houses in the pond.  Yes, I wrote that… in the pond.  Yeah, I know…let’s not dwell on it.

I cannot tell you where the pond is because it is the residence of some beavers.  Yes, we want to protect the beavers.  Rumor has it that the Obama administration wants to put them on his new “animals to obliterate from the face of the earth” list.  It seems beavers represent the very thing that scares the stuff out of Liberals; that is, industry.

These little buggers never quit working.  They build dams (gasp), dig channels to float logs (Heaven help us), and, worst of all, they cut down trees.  They even build homes!  (Liberals are passing out all over Maine)  Then to top it off they work incessantly to maintain everything they have built.  If they were human they would be called contractors and loggers.

The analogy is this.  Socialism is like that backwater marsh.  It functions off the labor of hard working individuals.  Those who set in its pool of free entitlements become the blow downs.  Without the deep roots of independence, we rot and become the casualties of government dependency.  The trees don’t have a choice.  We do.

Finally, a few weeks ago, my eldest son listened attentively as my friend and I held a lively discussion on the money shenanigans of the Liberals in Augusta.  We railed against the dishonest methods of Democrats and divisive tactics they use to rake in bundles of money.  My son piped in with his solution.  “Dad,“ he said, “if they’re fighting over money, take the money away!”  Hmm, could it really be that simple?