working world and Willy's world:
OLD VERSION (The working world):
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 (Willy's version and those of his ilk):
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.
Talk about Sophistry. That's like saying all Republicans/conservatives are greedy & stupid bigots.
Taking an Aesops fable & equating it to self-reliance, libs vs conservatives & Dems vs Republicans is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on this board. Hell----Willy has said some really dumb things that enrage many on this board,( including myself ), but, it doesn't behoove you, Jolene, to do likewise.
I could preach to you about your hypocrisies, Jolene, about "self-reliance",but-----ahhhh, fuck it-----I don't want to descend to that level.
-- Modified on 7/10/2011 1:36:33 PM
What, you don't think my working is self-reliance? meh...
My point was that Willy talks as if he has no concept of working.
I do; I work every day at one or two of 3 jobs (including providing) and take no handouts.
You work (I'm assuming you work for your living).
You and I are the ants of this world.
He doesn't work. He's bragged about it on TER. Oh, he goes to his workplace, but he lollygags there as much as he thinks he can get away with. And then he argues about profits needing to go to those who don't work for their daily bread. Even at my most ignorant, I know that what he argues is ludicrous.
He's the grasshopper who calls the press for help getting what isn't his.
(BTW, I seldom take political sides like that, if you haven't already noticed. I'm not part of the Demopublicans or the Repubocrats.)
-- Modified on 7/10/2011 2:08:43 PM
& you DID take "political sides" in your "self reliance screed", which is why I found your OP
so uncharacteristically fatuous.
But, Hell----let's forget the whole thing, Jolene------everyone is entitled to a mistake---even a grashopper-----
He now tells outright lies in order to justify stealing the ants money.
Jolene's fable (which btw has been printed on this forum before), simplistic or not, describes Willy and his ilk to a tee. Willy's solution for everything regarding the deficit, or the economy, is "steal from the rich" Who does he plan on stealing from when there "are rich no more"?
Willy despises the private sector. He doesn't believe that any bushiness deserves to make a profit, he considers all profit by a private enterprise to be theft, and that the owners of said enterprises are stealing from their customers and their workers, and in his little pea brain should be taxed at a level of 100%
When you follow Willy's "logic" to it's rational conclusion, Willy favors outright socialism, where there is no more private enterprise, only government, Charlie favors the same thing, he is just more honest about it, which is easy to do in Willy's case. lol
a real long time. I am not saying that communism is the ideal solution for all countries but people need to learn to accept reality. Socialism is good for people who have no capital.
Socialism is not good for people who ever aspire to have capital.
Socialism is "good" (a relative term) only for people who only aspire to reach mediocrity. I will never settle for mediocrity. I'll leave that not so lofty goal for those like Willy.
and no Communism doesn't actually work in Chia either, I don't really imagine that anyone would want to trade our standard of living for that of the Chinese, or the Cubans, or Venezuela etc etc.
would prefer Socialism to nothing. OtOh It's a serious grind to come up with capital and a lot of folks aren't up for the stress involved. Well thats just tough shit. They are probably ok with their lot in life and socialism is good for them.
even our poor live pretty goddamned well in this country.
If other countries want to be socialist, that's their business, but people all over the world, both rich and poor are still trying to get into this country, so we must be doing something right.
You can't attack the fable because the moral is that "Dems and Libs don't XY or Z...."
There are not any "alls" in generalizations, which is why they are generalizations. They are useful, but never intended to be universal.
There are some GOP and some conservatives who believe in legal abortion (Me, and many of my friends).
But you could have a fable about GOP's not favoring pro-choice.
There are Dems who are strong on defense and are hawks, although most of them are JFK era libs.
With all that said: No not every Dem is against self-relaince and work. However, if someone favors redistrubtion of portions of the econmy through various policies, if someone favors is more inclinded to have benefit programs divorced from meaningful obligations to get a job, if someone favors programs that may tax the working class, even if they do make 250,001 per year, think for a moment.
Which side of the aisle do you think he is likely to be on? Or would you just say you have no idea.?
Taking an Aesops fable & equating it to self-reliance, libs vs conservatives & Dems vs Republicans is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on this board. Hell----Willy has said some really dumb things that enrage many on this board,( including myself ), but, it doesn't behoove you, Jolene, to do likewise.
I could preach to you about your hypocrisies, Jolene, about "self-reliance",but-----ahhhh, fuck it-----I don't want to descend to that level.
-- Modified on 7/10/2011 1:36:33 PM
because they foster stereotyping & distortion.
Let me give you an example on the other side:
Blacks, Latinos,gays & other minorities feel that the GOP is if not hostile, are downright indifferent to them. One COULD say this is because the GOP is not demographically diverse
( 76% of the party is composed of White Christians ) That could lead to this generalization : "Not all Republicans are
bigots, but all bigots are Republican".
Do you think that's a fair generalization Phil ?
Lastly, watch the link below & see what former RNC head Michael Steele has to say about this subject :
-- Modified on 7/10/2011 5:11:09 PM
The falacy is the conclusion. The fact that a group is not diverse or is weighted may in fact be true, and there is your generalization, which you didn't dispute. Thus it may be true that GOP has a higher percent of whites. The conclusion, however, is not the "generalization," but the inference you draw from what may be a valid generalization.
For example, you could say that French use garlic more than Eskimos, and as a generalization that would be true. However, the conclusion that it is because they believe in vampires is a false conclusion from a true generalization.
Likewise, you could say that people from Barcelona tend to lisp more than people from Madrid. That is true because of the way "S" is pronounced. That does not mean everyone Barcelona uses that "S" or no one from Madrid has a lisp.
In fact, would you say that Blacks are less likely to have a Ivy League education and more likely to have a lower income than whites? If you would agree that is true, that is a generalization you accept. However, Obama went to Harvard and Oprah has more money than me (I think).
But the generalization remains true. The conclusions as to why may be varied and debatable.
Also, your conclusion assumes that a group that is primarily one color is biased against the other. It may be that the other group is the one with the racial interest. Thus, if the Dems are trying to appeal to the special interest of affirmative action, they will be attracting the affirmative action groups. The GOP is not necessarily "hostile" for not believing that affirmative action is the wrong answer, but they will attract fewer people who rely on that program, so their demographics will be balance.
Let me give you an example on the other side:
Blacks, Latinos,gays & other minorities feel that the GOP is if not hostile, are downright indifferent to them. One COULD say this is because the GOP is not demographically diverse
( 76% of the party is composed of White Christians ) That could lead to this generalization : "Not all Republicans are
bigots, but all bigots are Republican".
Do you think that's a fair generalization Phil ?
Lastly, watch the link below & see what former RNC head Michael Steele has to say about this subject :
-- Modified on 7/10/2011 5:11:09 PM
except when YOU make them. lol
Pri, you generalize all the fucking time, please don't try to now use the argument that generalizations are all bad, just because you don't happen to like this one. That in itself in just another generalization, cmon, you've got to love the irony. lol
You chose one generalization, which you craft, and then you come to the conclusion that since you showed that one was flawed, generalizations are always flawed.
Generally speaking, Democrats are not nearly as self reliant as Republicans.
While the Democrat is sitting down complaining about economic injustice , looking for their next government hand out, the Republican is starting another business.
Also ants dont have private property. Ants are slaves for the queen.
"COMMUNIST!!!" All for the common good! Imagine that!
Without the queen there would be no anthill.
is able to produce more workers! Not making sure she's fully stocked with bon bons!
communist ants can there. Primarily because an anthill is a closed society.
that sounds discriminatory
do they get health care?
read to me as a very young child, before I could read. You see, they were meant to be object lessons for small children. By the time I learned to read, I had already observed that ants don't work alone, except perhaps scouter ants, and realized the fable was flawed! Too bad you hadn't come to the same conclusion before you tried to apply it to a broad spectrum of people! But, that's what you get with simplistic thinking; them vs. us! Hmmm! I wonder if I can guess where you place yourself!
Shame on me for playing troll to get WW's goat just because I'm feeling particularly ornery today.
And shame on the rest of you for being unable (or is it unwilling? doesn't much matter) to read between the lines.
Yeah, that's what makes us all so special today.
:P
self-righteousness!
learn to create better analogies.
Ants are a model :commune" society. Where everyone pitches in for the betterment of the entire colony, and shares equally in its success.
Grasshoppers lives are everyone for themselves (capitalist). That don't share with the other grasshoppers. When times get bad many grasshoppers will die, even if others have a surplus.
Aesop did not tell the complete story!