After dinner speech: Not an ordinary pig

Freedom resides in the supreme value of the individual, in a government that is the servant of people, not their master, and in a society in which everyone has the opportunity to make a living but in which no one is owed one.

Former US President Ronald Reagan, who certainly agreed, told a story about our complacent and heedless attitude toward our blessings. It begins with the proverbial business traveller invited to stay for dinner with a farm family. He finds the farmer, his wife, three children, and a pig seated at the table. The pig has three medals hanging around its neck and a wooden leg.

The guest cannot help but comment. "I see a pig is joining us for dinner".

"Yep, says the farmer, "but this is an extraordinary pig. See those three medals around his neck? You might like to know how he got them."

"I would", said the guest.

"Well, one day, our oldest son fell in the pond and was drowning. The pig dove into the pond swam to our boy, and pulled him back to safety. He got the first medal for saving our boy's life.

He got the second medal when a fire accidentally lit up the barn trapping our daughter inside. The pig ran in through flames, got his teeth into the edge of her jumper and dragged her out of the burning barn.

A little while later, when our youngest was cornered in the stockyard by an angry bull, that pig squirmed under the fence, grabbed the bull by the tail and held him while our boy escaped. He got the third medal for that".

The guest said, "I can see why you have the pig at the dinner table and why he got the medals. But, tell me, how did he get the wooden leg?"

"Well," said the farmer, "a pig like that, you don't want to eat all at once".

Friends, like the farmer's pig, the blessings of social and economic freedom are constantly threatened, even by those who benefit from them most. We are too quick to give up our precious gifts in exchange for empty government promises of safety and happiness. Let us resolve not to be like that farmer. Let us not permit the liberty and freedom that have given us so much to slip away. Let's refuse to live the "happy" legislated life.

Instead, let us charge our glasses, be upstanding and drink a hearty toast to:

"The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers. May it flourish root and branch forever, and good health to the master."

After Dinner Speech delivered to The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers (City of London).