Conundrums

I received an email that contained the following:

Conundrums 

The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of America: 

1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized. 

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.  

3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.  

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer. 

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about. 

6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries. 

Much wisdom expressed, but it came as one of those emails that's apparently been floating around for years without a notation of authorship.

So, I did some digging.

I found it posted online as early as 2009 at FreeRepublic, which had excerpted it from a comment at the Wall Street Journal following a Peggy Noonan column. The lines appear to be a rewrite of an old Soviet joke, but even the WSJ comment attributed the observations to an anonymous author.

The conundrums have spread far and wide.

The People's Cube also featured them in November 2012, both at its home site and the Washington Times.

If anyone knows of earlier citations or authorship, please share. Drop me a email or leave a comment.