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

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.

& 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-----

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

"COMMUNIST!!!" All for the common good! Imagine that!

is able to produce more workers! Not making sure she's fully stocked with bon bons!

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!

self-righteousness!

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.

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 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.?

Also ants dont have private property. Ants are slaves for the queen.

Without the queen there would be no anthill.

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

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!

communist ants can there. Primarily because an anthill is a closed society.

learn to create better analogies.

As said earlier, WW has pissed many on this board
( including myself ), but is your life so empty that you wish to deprive him of his employment ? If that happened, theoretically, in this shitty economy, he'd be eventually forced onto welfare, siphoning off your "tax $" while being on the "dole" NOT what you'd want.

Here's another quote from your OP :"MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote"

So-----you're NOT being partisan ?!-----LOL.

Moral of this thread : think your OP's through more carefully next time & Jolene, get a life.

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

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 should enjoy this :

Willy, you are truly a pinhead if you think I was wishing for your death. I don’t wish that on my worst enemy, and believe me, baby boy, you ain’t it.

The fault lay with my forgetting that almost everyone on this P&R board is so damned literal that they can’t – or won’t – take a parable for what it is: a story to illustrate a point.

Willy, my point to the entire story is that what you eternally espouse is no better than what the grasshopper does TO the ant in the story. You constantly propose taking away money from the ants who work hard for it and giving it to the lazy-ass grasshoppers who feed off the government through entitlement programs and so on.

While the ant works hard – and don’t any of you remind me that ants live in colonies because that isn’t the goddamned point! – the grasshopper doesn’t work at all. So, in the order of the new day around us, the grasshopper sues the ant, claiming entitlement. The grasshopper wants what isn’t lawfully his. Because of new laws and political correctness and other damn fool idiocies, the grasshopper ends up with the ant’s house and goods and so on.

Now, because the grasshopper never learned to fend for himself, he literally starves and freezes while the ant goes away. Chances are very good that the ant made himself a new job, but made sure that he was far enough away from any grasshopper so that the whole scenario doesn’t play out again.

Willy, I think your behavior as a worker is detestable enough to want to see your lazy grasshopper ass fired (remember, you have often BRAGGED about NOT working in your government job despite the fact that there are those who would LOVE to do whatever it is you do because it’s WORK and work means money in their pockets), but I don’t want you dead. There are others worthy of death, but again, baby boy, you ain’t one of ‘em.

I'm sorry I didn't make my point clear to begin with. I'm sorry that I used an "uncharacteristically fatuous" story to try and make a rather clear point. I'm sorry that no one GOT my point.

I'm sorry for being opinionated enough to make a point to begin with!!

Wait, no... I'm not sorry for that.

'nuff said.

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.

Willy fucking BRAGS about living off of people like me.

Fuck Willy, if he ever got fired from his Government parasite job, I would stand up and fucking cheer, and don't even try this guilt shit with me that you are laying on Jolene, I wouldn't shed a fucking tear if Willy were to crawl in a hole and die He is a worthless, immoral, lying piece of human scum and the world would probably be a better place without him.

Willy has celebrated the death of others who never did a GD thing to him, what makes him, or you for that matter think he has the right to be morally outraged.

and don't even try to lay a guilt trip on me, you know I mean every fucking word I say, and I don't feel a bit of guilt about it. I'll repeat myself just in case you didn't hear me the first time, I would stand up and fucking cheer if Willy, though his own fucking laziness was put back out on the streets where he rightfully belongs. Now just try and make me feel the least bit fucking guilty about what i just said. I fucking dare you!!!

Your analogy was fucked up so come up with a new one or STFU. The gist of your argument is invalid. The economy is fucked up because the capitalist class stole capital from the middle class. Your ant and grasshopper stories show that you aren't clear on whats going on. Have you tested this fucked up ant and grasshopper economic theory? Apply it to your line of work and see how it works out for you!

There are a few corrupt regulators. I once had to threaten one with public exposure.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

that sounds discriminatory

do they get health care?

oblaganta". Good post Jolene. Yes I did get your point. We are in the age of entitlement. Willy, despises us conservatives but it is us who pay his salary and pension. I like to see Willy err the grasshopper actually work for a living.

But I never claimed to be a "nice person" lmao

I know everyone is supposed to have "redeeming qualities", but I just don't see any in WW. He is a jealous, spiteful, meanspirited, lying piece of shit. I just don't see anything positive in him.

I don't believe for a minute that he works as some kind of federal "super prosecutor", he's a fucking stoner, he'd never pass the random drug tests. I also don't believe he has ever been in a soup kitchen except perhaps before he landed his "cushy gubberment job" his lazy ass might have dropped by for a free meal.

Honestly, does anybody have anything positive to say about him as a person? I can't think of a single positive that isn't a bald faced lie.

Sheesh, I'd settle for him to just stop his lying, but if I am going to make  unrealistic wishes, I might as well aim high. lol

Oh fuck.

Americans are.  Last time I looked, that included liberals, independents and every other person who files a 1040.  Thus, I also get to be offended by Willy's wasting "my money."  Still, I don't want him to die in the snow or even lose his job.  But I would appreciate it if he worked for a living, or stopped taking my  money and got a real job.

We all talk about a P&R meet and greet in Vegas. Would we invite Willy? Sure why not. It's a big desert. We can plan an excursion to Death Valley. He can smoke a little weed on the ride over. Do you think he will notice its 124 degrees after we leave him there? (lmao)

-- Modified on 7/12/2011 7:15:42 PM

literally. We shot guns and we filmed a movie called: "Cowboys and Liberals". The synopsis is, a little town in the west is living happily until liberals try to impose their bureaucracy and values. But the Cowboys come to the rescue. Imagine a movie where "Super Eight" meets the "Magnificent Seven". Yee! pee! Several years ago, we filmed a version of "Helter Skelter". Classic. Our best work.

Right now I'm in the creative stages of a screenplay featuring willywonka, st croix, gagambler, dncphil, sins of the flesh, joloene, and others. With plenty of old mines in Death Valley we could do a version of "Coal Miners Daughter", "CaT Ballou" mixed with "Halloween".




-- Modified on 7/13/2011 1:00:17 AM