Moral to the story

R.A.T.

R.A.T.

Randall's Adventure & Training
Joined
Feb 4, 2004
Messages
10,400
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!

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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.'

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

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry 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.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

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 2008
 
Wheres the part where the vote swung a little farther out and the local soapbox pastor made a new found fortune off of video tapes of his latest sermon.. "God D#$n the Ant" while rearranging the local bug community for photo shots?
 
Although this was very funny, the sad thing is that it is a little to close to the truth. I'm not at all against welfare recipiants WHO TRUELY NEED IT, but lets face it: far to many people who do not deserve it are living off of the sweat from our brows while we work hard to support our families AND theirs.
 
Here is my deal.

Any time the government is in it, it will screw it up. Period. End of sentence. No more beyond that. No exceptions....at least none that I can think of! :)

That includes helping the poor.

There really are poor that are poor by reasons other than sloth. There really are poor people who are poor because others have oppressed them. To deny that is to close our eyes.

But here is the key. Helping the poor must be on a relational level--where a person, a church, a group of people help those in their community. It is much harder for someone to work the system the more local it becomes.

I am ruthlessly conservative in my politics, but am "liberal" in my own dealings with the poor (ie, I want to be generous and err on the side of being giving)
 
Give a man a fish, and he can feed for a day.

Give a man a fishing pole, and he can sell it on ebay for like 40 bucks and buy french fries with his fish :) :)
 
okbohn said:
But here is the key. Helping the poor must be on a relational level--where a person, a church, a group of people help those in their community. It is much harder for someone to work the system the more local it becomes.
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Amen to that!!!

Whatever gave people the idea that the government ought to be the middle man in dispensing true charity?
 
The sad part is I don't think the way the story ends will change, no matter how you vote.

As the ant and a lot of us have found out, the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished" is very true.
 
R.A.T. said:
The sad part is I don't think the way the story ends will change, no matter how you vote.
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Jeff, you dont know how badly I wish I could tell you your wrong. But unfortunately your not. This stories ending will not be a happy one, and is the first time when facing an election that I have actually been scared of the outcome!
Sure, I have been frustrated, sad and even amused going into election years, but this time I am actually frightened of the outcome!
They will all end bad no matter what, but I think they will be drastically different bad.
Hillary has a serious chip on her shoulder with way too much to prove and I think if she is elected we will rapidly lose many of our constitutional rights that make us Americans.
Obama..Oh dear Lord this man scares me! I feel this man has a SERIOUS hidden agenda and could be the catalyst for Civil War II.
McCain. Now Mr. McCain is the one I think we will feel the least lashback from, and unfortunately it is because I really dont see him doing anything, Good or Bad! I feel his age is too much of a generation gap to ever be really in touch with todays society, and I cant see him making the type of constant 24/7 aggressive fixes that are going to be required to even start healing the damage that this country has endured under Bush. Which will take generations to ever fully heal I fear.
Regardless of who gets in I also dont feel that any of them have what it takes to rebuild ally's.

Dark days ahead my friends :(
 
Beroya,

I can agree with everything you said. The younger generation has been taught that Socialism is a good thing. They do not understand what our Constitutional Republic is, nor do they understand (or want) Capitalism since a true Capitalistic society forces them to be the ant (instead of the grasshopper) if they want to get ahead and achieve success. As bad as I hate to say it, the two on the Democratic side that are seeking the nomination are pure Socialists. McCain...well, I don't know what to think about him. As Ayn Rand once said, "the lesser of two evils is still evil" but what do you do? It's going to be interesting.
 
Thanks Jeff, I appreciate the story. Draws on some amazing parallels in our day.
Waiting for the "Rest of the Story" later when we know who is going to be calling the shots in 2009.
Jim
 
R.A.T. said:
The sad part is I don't think the way the story ends will change, no matter how you vote.
Click to expand...

This is very true. Whether Obama or McCain becomes the next president, we'll be a bit better off, but it seems nearly impossible to rapidly change the momentum of something as big as our country.
 
R.A.T. said:
I can agree with everything you said. The younger generation has been taught that Socialism is a good thing. They do not understand what our Constitutional Republic is, nor do they understand (or want) Capitalism since a true Capitalistic society forces them to be the ant (instead of the grasshopper) if they want to get ahead and achieve success.
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Know what's really bad, and makes this election in particular bad? The fact that ALL generations seem to labor under the idea that we have a two-party system. No significant votes go to third parties, EVER. That's the only way to get out of the democrat/republican mudslide that we're in. But people don't understand what third parties really stand for. They don't understand that it's ILLEGAL as hell to exclude those other parties from the debates, etc.

They also don't know that, Constitutionally, it's ILLEGAL for lawyers or "professional politicians" to hold the office of President (or judge, yet only lawyers, it seems, ever get elected as judges). They wanted to AVOID Bill Clintons arguing "what the definition of 'is' is." from the oval office.

Both our government and the people don't seem to understand that the Constitution is LAW, that even the GOVERNMENT must follow. Finally, both have become brainwashed to the fact that THE PEOPLE are the rulers of the nation, not the President, Not congress/senate. The President, congress, senate, etc are classed as PUBLIC SERVANTS.

I'm a "Generation X-er", and I believe we were the last to be taught the true history of the nation, and the true type of government we have. I even remember some of my teacher admonishing us to remember this stuff because it won't be too long that it isn't taught anymore. I wish they were wrong. I saw it begin literally within 3 years of me graduating.

R.A.T. said:
As bad as I hate to say it, the two on the Democratic side that are seeking the nomination are pure Socialists. McCain...well, I don't know what to think about him. As Ayn Rand once said, "the lesser of two evils is still evil" but what do you do? It's going to be interesting.
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I'll be honest, I never thought I'd see a candidate I'd pick Hillary over, but Obama is it. At least Hillary let everyone know she wants to grab power and be Empress of the United States. Obama, well, everyone sees he wants the same thing, but won't put his aganda on the table. That scares me more than Hillary. What's even scarier is how many people support him OVER Hillary or McCain, even people who are pro-gun and pro-freedom.
Make no mistake, of the two major parties that are really running (see above), Obama is the worst candidate, and McCain is the best.

"The lesser of two evils is still evil"? Sure it is. But when there's only evil to vote for, you HAVE to pick the lesser. I know a lot of people will say "don't vote", or "vote third party". Well, voting for a third party is throwing a vote away, because not enough others will vote to make them a contender. This and not voting is a de facto vote for the WORST candidate.

So as much as I dislike all of the choices, I HAVE to go vote, and I HAVE to vote McCain, because the other choice will be so much worse. 'Tis better to have a president that will do little to help the country than to have one that actively seeks to subvert and destroy it.

JMO, YMMV.
 
Cpl Punishment said:
Both our government and the people don't seem to understand that the Constitution is LAW, that even the GOVERNMENT must follow. Finally, both have become brainwashed to the fact that THE PEOPLE are the rulers of the nation, not the President, Not congress/senate. The President, congress, senate, etc are classed as PUBLIC SERVANTS.
Click to expand...

America's largest, BIGGEST, numero uno, prime, #1 problem is the very obvious fact that our government has no fear of its people!!!
We, as a whole, sit in the comfort of our homes bitching and complaining about the blatant screwings we take ever so regularly without ever doing anything about it.
Look at our history. America was built on the foundation of revolution, and carried on the backs of armed men who recognized the oppression of a government and said..."No More"!

However, we have been sitting in that comfort and whining for SO long that I dont feel that we as a people would even know where to start the change. And the political leaders know this.

As for politcal parties, I dont know if we will ever see anything other than a "Democrat" or "Republican" take the office. purely for the fact of financial backing. Honestly, Im not even sure how those two parties became "The Only" parties. But, of what does exist, I would love to see a Libertarian in office.

As for generations, I was lucky enough to be raised by the greatest man I ever knew, My grandfather. A veteran of WWII. And I feel that once the last of the WWII Gen dies off, then we as a country will be much less for it. Something HUGE happened between that Gen and the Baby Boomers that created what mine as well be two entirely different species and I for one will mourn our loss without them.

and Cpl, I agree COMPLETELY with you in that I NEVER thought there could be anyone whom I would prefer Hillary over. But yes, Obama is that person, and as I said before, The idea of him in office is frightening, and I will be first in line at the voting booth to do my part to keep him out.

/EndRant. Sorry about the soapbox guys, this is of course just my opinion.
 
No matter what, never quit being the ant. They may force you to give your property to others, they may take it from you, but NEVER let them have a lease on your mind.
 
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