Shoveling Snow and Liberalism

A few months ago, when MN experienced a large amount of snowfall, 2 black kids showed up at my door offering to shovel. This rarely happens in this neighborhood so I was impressed with their entrepreneurship. The kids were willing to work but had shown up ill prepared, hadn’t dressed for shoveling and they didn’t even have gloves. I told them I would give them $50 to shovel from front to back including driveways while my wife looked for some spare pairs of gloves. We got everyone situated and the guys did a really good job. The snow was about 24” at the time and of the thick, heavy, wind packed type. When they were finished I paid the $50 and gave them a $10 tip.

Needless to say, they came back every time it snowed. Sometimes we said no, because of the amount of snow, but many times we agreed on a price and they earned it. Thank God for no recent storms (take that Dallas and Atlanta). But on their last visit here, about a month ago, it went like this: (usually my wife had taken care of this, but on this day I was home to pay them) ME: “here is your money. Do you know what Liberalism is”? They both kind of grumbled an answer in a way that 11 – 13 year olds tend to do. I told the two that there was a kid up the street that couldn’t shovel snow because he couldn’t afford a shovel. What I would do was take 50% of the money I paid them and help that kid up the street help himself by getting him a shovel. Then I told them that what I really needed was an office and their vote so I would make sure I could always help those less fortunate. Out of the 50% of money I would take from them 83% would go to helping me solve the problems for the less fortunate and only 17 % would actually go to helping the guy down the street buy a shovel. They looked at the $15 in my hand that I had took back, (I had only paid them $30 that day because of snow level) and they told me that that wasn’t enough to buy a shovel. I told them “that’s the point; the kid down the street will never get a shovel, but I have his vote, and you two could buy a shovel for him for less and add 33% to your income by increasing your income by one person. But Liberalism believes that someone else has to make that decision for you, at everybody’s expense and make you feel good while they do it, because you are helping the less fortunate.”

They haven’t been back since; no snow or did I scare them off?