[Oe List ...] a Grimm's fable (giving Aesop a run for his money)

[Susan Fertig]

Below is the old version and then a modern day fable with a pretty grim
conclusion in both cases.  It's making the rounds on the internet and I
thought it somewhat apros pos of our discussion.
 
I guess what I've been trying to say is that if you keep forcibly taking
from those who have to give to those who haven't, those who have will just
stop producing at some point -- they will decide it makes more sense to be
on the taking than the giving end.
 
Susan
 
 
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
 
 
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!
 
 
 
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.
 
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.
 

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