Nothing is really ‘free’

Dear Editor:
This evening, I had a sobering education in the utter naiveté of the socialist, nanny-state, entitlement psyche when I read, “Hoboken yuppies, people or sheeple.” The writer, John Bredin, regaled us with his epic epiphany that occurred to him upon looking out his window at the “extremely huge line of people waiting for the bus.” His idea – free ferries! After all, they do have them in Europe! His idea was so outside-the-box genius that a random sampling of the proximate population consisting of an opera singer, an actress and his dad totally agreed with him! Who needs the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches when we can adopt a brain trust like that?
Not able to keep such genius to himself, John ran outside to poll the “yuppie sheeple” bearing “zombie-like expressions” waiting for a bus ride to their “cubicles”. To his dismay, these “lemmings” greeted his grand idea with “blank stares…stone cold silence…and not even a flicker of curiosity,” sort of like, well, how people greet most forms of mild insanity. Although, John did notice one fellow offer up an “unscripted smile”, also how some people greet mild insanity.
I can’t imagine why all of these people waiting in line, on their way to work to provide services for others in return for pay would scoff at the idea of free ferry service? Do you think, John, maybe it’s because they don’t believe in the free ferry fairy like you do? Or maybe it’s because they realize that nothing is really “free”, that somebody is paying for it somehow. And John, yes, it’s these zombie-like “sheeple” that trod off to work every day, do their jobs and pay their taxes so that teachers like you can school our kids on the nuances of ancient Roman “Riparian Law”, which by the way, does already apply to our Hudson River. You know what that means, John? That means that you can go out and buy a canoe and a paddle, and you can offer free ferry service to Manhattan yourself. I’m guessing that after a few days of that you’ll want to start charging people a fee… By the way, my dad totally agrees with me on this.

Steve Nicolai

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