While driving to Houston the other day I heard a commercial on the radio that was going on about “free”.

You know what folks? Nothing is truly free these days. For this, I’m talking “free” as in beer (not as in speech).

Just because you didn’t break out your wallet and shell out some cash, just because you didn’t write a check every month or every year, it’s not free.

Public school? It’s not free. It’s paid for by taxes. In Texas, the state lottery helps to fund the public school system too.

People in countries with socialized medicine say they have “free health care” and people here point to those countries as having “free” health care. Just because you didn’t settle up before you left the building doesn’t mean it was free. It’s paid for somehow, usually by taxes. The salaries of the doctors and nurses and support folks, the medicine, the hospitals, the supplies… the medicine fairy doesn’t exist, there’s no waving of a magic medicine wand, nor the great health care bird to lay a magical egg of never-ending supply.

Even “free samples” aren’t free… the cost is rolled into the price of the product.

It just rubs me raw when people think things are free because they didn’t directly pay for it. Sorry, but no, it’s not free, you just paid for it by some other less direct avenue.

But you know what? Ever notice that the things you directly pay for tend to work out better? They tend to be of higher quality. There’s also direct accountability. Think your meal and/or service at a restaurant is bad? You’re paying for it, you have every right to send the food back to the kitchen, let the manager know it’s bad. Or heck, the fact the waitstaff knows their service directly affects their income (tipping), that directly influences how well they work for you.

So just think how schools would be different if they were directly paid for. If the school knew they’d get paid (or not) based upon the job they did. If the teacher and administrators knew they did a poor job and wouldn’t get paid, how do you think their motivation would change? If you could withhold your money — or take it elsewhere — how does that change the dynamic?

Now think about government workers. How they tend to be so rarely motivated to care. What if they had to? For-profit entities have to care and do right by the customer else they go out of business. Government workers? They have little to no motivation because they’ll still have their revenue stream… just keep taxing stuff. Imagine if you could withhold your money and “vote with your wallet” how different and better things could be.

Folks… things aren’t free. Please realize that. And realize how keeping things free (speech, not beer) actually would bode better for you. Much of the world works that way and is better off for it. Unfortunately many folks seem to want it to go the other way, and history has already shown how well that works… but hey, we’re all stupid enough to repeat it, right?