The Ant And The Grasshopper

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Dreadsox

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
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I received this email after a vacation with some very Republican family members who were upset at me with my recent departure from the Republican Party. I guess this was supposed to make me come back.

[Q]
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

CLASSIC 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 he's 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 he's 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, ABC, and CNN 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.

Tom Daschle &Walter Mondale exclaim in an interview with
Peter Jennings 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 and 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 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: Vote Republican[/Q]
 
Yeah, we all know that the majority of people in this world live in poverty because they're lazy. :rolleyes:

Although I have to say if I were ever in the (admittedly unlikely) situation of considering joining the Republican party, that little diatribe would push me riiiight back to the Democrats.
 
In my opinion, this story shows the whole problem with the republican view. It's oversimplifying the problem of wealth disparity by assuming the ?have nots? are lazy bums and those who are wealthy earned every penny of it. I?ll concede this may be true in some cases, but contrary to what many republicans would like to believe there are many, many, things besides good ole? fashion blood sweat and tears that make or break a person. What about being born into a good family? A good school system? Natural aptitude? Race? Gender? Physical attractiveness? These are just a few things I could quickly think of. And lets not forget just pure dumb luck?

-pfitz80
 
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