Free at last.

I have the news from National Public Radio on as I write this and a thought just arrived at my cerebral doorstep.

Out of 20 or so minutes of news, about 15 of those minutes are about taxes. About President Obama pressing for higher taxes for the bloated plutocrats who have stacked the economy's deck in their favor. About lower taxes on the middle class and small businesses. Even the story about an overpass that's collapsed out in Cincinnati and closed highway 75 indefinitely is about taxes. If we taxed appropriately our roads wouldn't look like something out of Beirut.

All you have to do is sit through a modern briefing and you realize that talk of taxes has spread to agencies as well. We look to create stunts and viral videos. We call it "earned" media. Yeah, right.

The fact is, for the last few decades our world has become infantilized.

We act like children. We're immature. Silly. And we play silly games.

I say this because in both circumstances, talk of taxes and agency briefings, no one wants to pay for anything.

Everyone's hoping somehow our schools will be good, our streets will be safe, our hungry will be fed and our borders will be secured, but we want to do this without paying for it.

We also hope our brands will be strong, liked, talked about, sampled without paying for it.

Maybe it's because we get crappy blogs like this one for free. Or the internet has promised that everything is free--everything from porn to recipes for pork chops.

Everyone wants free.

No one wants to admit: you get what you pay for.