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The Ant and the Grasshopper
email | 11/09/07 | unknown

Posted on 11/09/2007 10:15:55 AM PST by Skyleader

The Ant & the Grasshopper

TRADITIONAL 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 warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS 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 & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and 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 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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Political Humor/Cartoons; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: fable; grasshopperhillary

1 posted on 11/09/2007 10:15:56 AM PST by Skyleader
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To: Skyleader

Credit should go to Jim Quinn, a talk radio host in Pittsburgh.


2 posted on 11/09/2007 10:17:29 AM PST by kevkrom (“Should government be doing this? And if so, then at what level of government?” - FDT)
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To: Skyleader

A Bug’s Life.


3 posted on 11/09/2007 10:17:47 AM PST by Slapshot68
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To: kevkrom

Quinn says that people are constantly sending this to him via e-mail, assuming that he’s never seen it before, when he was actually the author.


4 posted on 11/09/2007 10:19:04 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia ("He sees flying saucers and acts like one, too."--Hastings on Kucinich)
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To: kevkrom

It would be funny if it wasnt so true


5 posted on 11/09/2007 10:41:52 AM PST by Long Island Pete
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To: Skyleader

Ah...an oldie but a goodie.


6 posted on 11/09/2007 10:43:09 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Jet noise. The Sound of Freedom. - Go Air Force!)
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To: Skyleader

The ant isn’t responsible for himself. Nor is he building a house for himself. He is a member of a colony and his life is forfeit to the needs of that colony. He does not build a house or gather food because he needs or wants to. He does it because he has no other role in life. He’s just a little cog in a much bigger thing.

I always liked the grasshopper in this story.


7 posted on 11/09/2007 11:19:17 AM PST by Prodigal Son
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To: Prodigal Son

But then again . . . you are the Prodigal Son.


8 posted on 11/09/2007 12:44:15 PM PST by Bear_Slayer (When liberty is outlawed only outlaws will have liberty.)
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