A Chinese finger trap is a weaved tube. Once you stick your fingers in the open end, you can’t just pull them out. If you try, the weaved fibers that make up the tube pull and gets tighter around your finger. The harder you pull, the tighter the trap gets.

The big lesson we should learn from Greece and the other failing European states is that once entitlements are like a Chinese finger trap. Once enttitlements are granted, you can’t just pull them back.

I think it highlights a fundamental flaw of democracies. The flaw is that the motivated minority are rewarded at the expense of the disorganized majority. Unions, special interest groups and lobbyists have all grown rich and powerful around this flaw. These groups organize and bitch and moan until they are rewarded with the special rights or outright pay-offs.

This is not just a Greek thing. The same fights are being played in Wisconsin and many other places around our own country.

The lesson to be learned is that if freedom is to survive, those who feel entitled must be resisted.

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