Written by Trevor Sides

Tuesday, 13 October 2009 11:10

Living in Fort Collins, Colo., provides quick access to some of the best trout fishing in Colorado. A few nights ago I made my first outing to the Big Thompson River.

I found a stretch of river with pools and pockets of easy-flowing water. After 20 minutes, I felt a strike on my line, and a brown trout surfaced in his struggle to free himself from the hook. I nearly had the trout to shore, but with one last thrash he freed himself and slipped back into the river.

If you’re an angler, you know the deep disappointment that grips you when a fish hits your line but you can’t finish the deal. You feel robbed. You feel even worse when you don’t get another bite the rest of the evening.

I went back to the same spot the following evening. Unlike the previous night, the weather on this trip was miserable. A cold 40-mph wind rushed down the canyon; it rained intermittently for an hour. During the worst of the storm I contemplated packing it up and going home.

Surprisingly, there came a break in the weather. Almost immediately after the wind and rain faded away, the trout started to rise. It seemed my patience and determination would pay off.

On one cast, I felt a sudden jolt as a trout struck my fly, floundering briefly on the water’s surface. But it didn’t take the hook. It was nearly dark by this point, and the wind began to pick up again. I threw out a few more times but with no luck. Chilled and deflated, I drove home empty-handed for the second night in a row.

In debates about welfare and government-run health care options, we conservatives love to pull out the fishing analogy: Why give someone a fish when you can teach them to fish for themselves?

We need to be willing to concede the fact that fish aren’t caught on every cast, or even every trip. It’s easy to talk about the virtues of self-reliance. It’s a completely different matter when our every-day attempts at self-reliance come up empty.

Does this analogy lose merit if “fish” aren’t caught? What if I go “fishing” 100 times and come back without a single “fish”? Should I then give up and let a government-run welfare state take care of me and my failures?

The real world isn’t always fair. Free-market capitalism doesn’t guarantee perfect results. We will go fishing and catch nothing. But if we defer on our dreams, if we succumb to adversity, if we let the entitlement tidal wave break over us, we forfeit responsibility and moral direction. Believe me: I understand the burden associated with work. But I also see the beauty in it. When we lose our desire to work, we lose part of what it means to be human.

Free-market capitalism is an economic model that closely reflects the biblical narrative that Mankind was created to create. Because we are made in the image of a God who worked and created, we have the ability to do likewise. Big Government’s “altruistic” attempts to remove/bail us out of the harsher realities of life – failure, need, exploitation – end up serving as an ambition-dulling opiate, creating state-dependent robots who have no desire to work for the betterment of society.

As Edmund Phelps wrote, a free market “is of undimmed value because it allows human beings to realize their true nature as creators and innovators.” In a messed up world, though, we will deal with failure and injustice. But deviating from our imprint of work and creativity will only make things worse.

I don’t know what you’re doing this evening, but I have some fish to catch.

Trevor Sides is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer and featured NetRight Nation contributor.