[Parallax]

The Ant and the Grasshopper


OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs
and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!


MODERN VERSION:


The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs
and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference
and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm
and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to
provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper
next to a video of the ant
in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth,
this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper
and everybody cries when they sing,
'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'
Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group20
kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.


Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant
to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and,
having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes,
his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's
food while the government house he is in,
which just happens to be the ant's old house,
crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident
and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders
who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.



MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

[shooz]

Amazing!
You equate us to insects.
Copy and paste? From where?

Go see Michael Moores new movie. You need to.

[reeftool]

There is a lot of truth in that. Here in northern NY, a place not exactly known for it's mild climate, there are many people who year after year seem to think winter will never come. I wonder what they will do when Big Brother goes bankrupt.

[Ratmagiclady]

Ants are Commies, anyway.

[Parallax]

There is a lot of truth in that. Here in northern NY, a place not exactly known for it's mild climate, there are many people who year after year seem to think winter will never come. I wonder what they will do when Big Brother goes bankrupt.

Yep. Like Margaret Thatcher said: "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money"

[shooz]

Ah yes......good old Maggie.
The woman that figured out how to sell us air.
Bad example.

[Ratmagiclady]

Yep. Like Margaret Thatcher said: "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money"

The problem with capitalist morality fables is, they're generally based on stuff they made up.

"Be responsible for yourself" is the moral of the story? Ants aren't responsible for themselves, they have *no* sense of self: each individual is essentially expendable.

Grasshoppers are actually the more consumerist.

[mtroute]

Wow, that is certainly and entertaining fable, even if it is a bit extreme. You forgot to mention that the grasshopper was a single mom of three grasshopper kids with no health insurance and a deadbeat father that won't pay child support.

Sometimes, a situation is more than it appears. Maybe walk a mile in the grasshoppers shoes before you judge. God forbid the ant's ever have a tragedy that results in a serious change in their circumstances. Let's hope than when that happens the ants that judged will get the help they need.

I am all for personal responsibility, but some times circumstances beyond our control lead to situations where we need help.

When did charity stop being a virtue especially in historically christian regions?

ask yourself, WWJD? I doubt he would judge the grasshoppers...

[Peter Zack]

I really think the US should just give up this half assed socialism.
Abolish:
1) Public schools. If you can pay to put your kids in private schools, then great all others should be drowned because they will become drug dealers.
2) Stop building any roads anywhere that are free to drive on. So if you live in a rich area, you can have the street paved from your own pocket. The rest just live and drive in the dirt.
3) Sporting events in open air fields. If the sports team can't afford a stadium, then they can play football out in a farm field. No more whining to City Hall for $100 million and 60 acres of free prime downtown land.
4) Close the VA and any other forms of Gov assisted health care. I mean really if you are stupid enough to enlist and get your leg blown off, stop whining. Pay for your own wooden leg. Who cares if you can't find work? There must be a job somewhere for a one eyed, one armed peg leg welder.
5) Welfare and any assistance for single moms. Give me a break. You had a roll in the hay with some nameless dope you can't find and now you want us to pay for it? Let the kid fall under category #1 above. We'll drown him for you. Oh so your husband was killed during 911? and he was the only bread winner? Too bad for you. Go starve. We've handed out enough and it's time you stood on your own 2 feet.
6) get rid of the FDIC. Got your money in the DDMLB (Drug Dealers Money Laundering Bank also known as Citi-Bank) and they skipped town with all your savings. Get a job! So what if you are 68 and it was your retirement. Who cares, you want us to cover the bankers theft?


I could go on and on.

[reytor]

Nice story with lot of truth in it.
However, what's the situation with a fellow ant, that want to live like his mate, but got no education and has no job to be able to do the same?

Having lived in Finland for over 30 years I do apreciate the free health and education + other social benefits (that one pays through taxes). But I also agree that there's a bunch of people taking full advantege of the system.

Living now in Chile (aroud 15 years) and paying almost the same % of taxes to goverment, I have to pay apart for my health, education for my kids, my and my wife's pension plan. Got no good roads to drive (outside Santiago area), if I can not work anymore after an accident we´d loose our home (I'd better die than get crippled). At the same time goverment is GIVING houses for poor!!!!!

The middle class is suffering everywhere, while "poor" live in our expense and the rich can use all the available benefits of the tax system ....

[shooz]

Plus that whole running out of other peoples money thing is exactly what happened to Wallstreet........Ironic isn't it?

If they pay us.....the system works if they don't....it fails.

I really think the US should just give up this half assed socialism.
Abolish:
1) Public schools. If you can pay to put your kids in private schools, then great all others should be drowned because they will become drug dealers.
2) Stop building any roads anywhere that are free to drive on. So if you live in a rich area, you can have the street paved from your own pocket. The rest just live and drive in the dirt.
3) Sporting events in open air fields. If the sports team can't afford a stadium, then they can play football out in a farm field. No more whining to City Hall for $100 million and 60 acres of free prime downtown land.
4) Close the VA and any other forms of Gov assisted health care. I mean really if you are stupid enough to enlist and get your leg blown off, stop whining. Pay for your own wooden leg. Who cares if you can't find work? There must be a job somewhere for a one eyed, one armed peg leg welder.
5) Welfare and any assistance for single moms. Give me a break. You had a roll in the hay with some nameless dope you can't find and now you want us to pay for it? Let the kid fall under category #1 above. We'll drown him for you. Oh so your husband was killed during 911? and he was the only bread winner? Too bad for you. Go starve. We've handed out enough and it's time you stood on your own 2 feet.
6) get rid of the FDIC. Got your money in the DDMLB (Drug Dealers Money Laundering Bank also known as Citi-Bank) and they skipped town with all your savings. Get a job! So what if you are 68 and it was your retirement. Who cares, you want us to cover the bankers theft?


I could go on and on.

Not bad. You think of that one yourself. Finally we agree.

[shooz]

So..........graphic........when you moving to Somalia?
You won't have to pay for anything you can't afford. Galts Gulch!

Libertarian paradise!......

[Peter Zack]

Yup I did. The whole thing is a lost cause in America. Change the slogan, "Land of the free and home of the brave" to "Land of the Rich and the rest of you shove off".

As shooz also said. Add
7) No more Wall street bail outs. So the company CEO and CFO now live in the Cayman Islands? The Bank is broke? OK close the doors. We offer no bail outs but for those of you that are now bankrupt we do have a diving board attached to the roof of your former bank or brokerage house. Please feel free to take a dive off the 43rd floor.

[Peter Zack]

8) Government pays for the military. Not any more, this is the biggest social scam on the population there is.
Wanna enlist? You pay and buy your own bullets. If you run out of bullets, please make cheques payable to 1600 Penn ave. We'll ship them at as fast as the cheque clears. No more of this getting a pension, free college education or whatever. You have to pay rent to live on the base/ship etc. Volume discounts available.