WHITE ELEPHANT

When I was a kid I remember reading the story about a practice where if you wanted to destroy an enemy you would give him a white elephant. The reasoning was, he wouldn’t be allowed by law to get rid of it, and the cost of keeping it would turn him into a pauper and an outcast.

The term “White Elephant” derives from the sacred white elephants kept by Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. To possess a white elephant was regarded (and is still regarded in Thailand and Burma) as a sign that the monarch reigned with justice and power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity.

A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly the cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. (Wikipedia)

I have had several free dogs (puppies) given to me and the first thing I faced was the one hundred dollar puppy package. Included were shots, worming pills, checkups and checking its weight. As time went on the normal care and maintenance, plus food rounded out to be about two thousand dollars. Surgery and snake bites treatments were on top of that.

The reason these free pups were not in the white elephant category was I had elected to take them.

Today in America we are on the receiving end of the white elephant treatment. In the last six years we have received white elephants such as: the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The trillion bailout of financial institutions, free money for automobiles, and homes, millions, to the Palestinian Muslims, a government health care program, a finance reform bill to be paid for by working men and women.

Looming on the future is a back breaker cap and trade bill, and a lack of an energy program and so on.

The main point to remember is the white elephant is designed to look good and to destroy the recipient of it.
I will soon will be singing “busted”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrOOihyxPlo&feature=related