Like human beings, wild animals like the easy and convenient way to a meal. So when hunting with my father, he'd often have a wooden animal call that tended to sound like an injured animal. Other animals hearing this would think, "Oh, an animal is hurt. I'm hungry so there wouldn't be much of a risk to me." When that animal got close enough and it was the animal my dad was waiting for, he would shoot it. The animal had been tricked into thinking that there was an easy meal ahead and not much energy would need to be expended to satiate its hunger. It was wrong, all based on the animal thinking getting lunch or dinner that day was going to be easier and fairly convenient. The whole thing turned out to be a trap for the animal, resulting in the loss of its life.

Animals and human beings are not all that different in some respects. People also like things that are easy and because of that, we tend to fail to see that ease and convenience often ends up being a trap for us, creating harm. There are many things in life that purport to be easy and convenient, but when it comes down to it, they're really not either.

My wife and I were shopping at a sporting goods store not long ago. As I walked toward the area I was interested in, a gentleman who had a booth set up asked me if I'd like the chance to win a $20,000 vacation. I stopped, looked at him and said, "If I won, I'd then have to pay taxes on that $20,000 vacation value because the government would count that $20,000 as "earned income." The man just looked at me and made some comment that didn't really answer my statement, turned around and walked back to his booth.

A short time later, I was with my wife and we again passed by the same booth except this time there was a woman with the man. She saw me and started her spiel, only to be interrupted by the man who warned her that I wasn't interested. I'm sure he did that because there were other customers nearby and he didn't want them dissuaded because of anything I might say. There is almost always some type of "hook" that's behind the "worm" used to attract our attention.

Consider the original 9/11 when thousands of people were killed in the World Trade Center towers. Because of that tragedy, Americans became incensed and the government responded with a number of things including what they called "The Patriot Act," which is not at all patriotic. It was an act that was designed to create Homeland Security and expand the powers of the TSA at airports. Now, going through security at an airport means you are a "terrorist" until you can prove that you aren't because your 4th amendment rights have literally been set aside. The TSA now works like the IRS. Both agencies look at Americans as though guilty and it is the job of the person to prove their innocence. If you've ever been audited by the IRS, you know this first hand. Oh, they can be "professional" sounding, but in essence, the oneness is on the person to prove they have paid all their taxes owed. If not, fines and even prison time can be levied.