A friend posted this up at "The Conservative Homeschooler" and I wanted to share it here too! Hope ya'll enjoy. ( I wrote more further down on this post)!
From Conservative libertarian Outpost
Parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper
By Patrick Sperry
TRADITIONAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the witheringheat all summer long, building hishouse and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks theant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Comewinter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food orshelter, 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 hishouse 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.
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 & Harry Reid 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 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.
This story reminded me of the new story of the little Red hen, when everyone sues her for not sharing the bread she made all by herself!
A while back, my girls watched "A Bug's Life". If you have never seen it, the ants collect food for the grasshoppers, or else, they will be destroyed by them, or so they think! But at the end the ants stand up against the grasshoppers, and realize ,they greatly out number the grasshppers! At one point in the story the lead grasshopper says they can only keep up on this control, by never letting even one ant raise up against them!
Anyways, the last time I saw this show, I was amazed at what I got from it! LOL! This could be a show about America, or any people, being controled by a small group of currupt bullies!
You can watch the complete show on Youtube, if you would like, but the first of this is a good clip!
Good story, and I definitely get the "moral." However, you left out some vital parts. For instance, what about the innocent offspring of the grasshopper. Not only those too young to support themselves, but also those grown, raised without decent education, no work-ethic, no support system, and a cultural brainwashing. The nation is quite literally functioning against them progressing. They quickly learn that it is easier to "hustle," take hand-outs, and/or go into a life-of-crime than it is to seek a better life (which they have probably been told was not possible anyway). Raised by those who consider education, hard-work, good manners, and even proper speech as signs of weakness, they meet the exceptions set for them--NONE. Sure, once in a blue moon, a very strong-willed, determined, unusually lucky member will persevere and skew the stats, but for the most part, the "grasshopper" offspring are all destined to remain in poverty. And in today's society, most of them are so depressed by this, they turn to mind-numbing substances just to deal with life.
ReplyDeleteWhat so many "ants" fail to realize is that the "grasshopper" culture is a completely different culture even though they live in the same country. Would you expect a Muslim, Hindu, or Christian to completely change their religion because the government told them it was the "right" thing to do? Probably not. This is not so different.
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ReplyDeleteSo, instead of begrudging the grasshoppers, perhaps the ants could stop for a minute to consider the root of the problem.
ReplyDeleteHere is where I end the allegory.
I am not a liberal--believe it or not. I am a full-blooded capitalist. A southern born, white, baptist.
Nonetheless, I am not so self-involved that I cannot see a huge problem that is right in front of my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we owe anyone anything. I do believe that, as decent human beings, we owe ourselves something, that being the decency to show mercy; to use our blessings and our resources to attack the problem before it escalates out of control (which is almost happening already).
I do not mean to bring race into this, but let's be honest, it is inescapable. Does anyone with an ounce of sense expect a people to rise up from the conditions that were present in 150 years? Really? Especially when the system has stopped being against them for about 50 years?
I find it so hard to comprehend that anyone could really be so cold-hearted as to think that these people are, by nature, lazy.
I work at a Title I school in the Mississippi Delta, so I see all of this first-hand. I teach children whose only meal each day is the government provided one at school. Don't their parents get food-stamps, you ask? They sure do, and they sell them for drugs, hair-cuts, or poker games. Are you telling me that these innocent children deserve to starve because the parents (that they did not choose to begin with) messed up?
And do not even get me started on the "public education" system. NCLB? Really. Tell them to come down to Mississippi and see how wrong they are. I see kids "left behind" on a daily basis. We cannot keep decent teachers, so our kids are leaving 10th grade (few make it to graduation because they need to work to take care of their kids--yes THEIR kids) with about a 4th grade education. Don't believe me, look at our test scores. Are these kids not capable? That isn't it either. Many of them show the potential to be very advanced if given some motivation. I try my best, and so do the handful of other teachers who actually care. But it isn't enough.
Instead of cruelty; instead of hand-outs; instead of turning a blind eye; we need to develop programs to get to the root of the problem. We need more programs for the young children in the areas that produce large amounts of "grasshoppers" (forgive the regression). These programs need to be specific, however. With-in the schools would be ideal. Having "big brothers and sisters" doesn't do any good when the parents won't bring the kids to sign up. Understand?
Instead of cruelty; instead of hand-outs; instead of turning a blind eye; we need to develop programs to get to the root of the problem. We need more programs for the young children in the areas that produce large amounts of "grasshoppers" (forgive the regression). These programs need to be specific, however. With-in the schools would be ideal. Having "big brothers and sisters" doesn't do any good when the parents won't bring the kids to sign up. Understand?
Well, I doubt I have changed anyone's mind here, but hopefully I have planted a seed of concern. I can only pray that the Lord places it on the hearts of those decent Americans, the ones who make me proud to call this land, My Home.