some of you might like this... others well...

[Juiced87Notch]

"clipped from another forum"

Subject: The Ant and the Grasshopper

1) The Ant and the Grasshopper (Old version)
2) The Ant and the Grasshopper (Modern version)

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 he's 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 he's 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, 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.

Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings 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 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.

 

[fast99cobra]

I like it

 

[Bobbys97R]

government house. I hate it so much why should you even try if the goverment is giving you a house and food fah-k em welfare should only be given for small periods of time.

 

[tarch]

haha lovely

 

[denialdave]

Stupid

So the moral of the "modern version" is?

Let me guess...

All people who get assistance from the "government" are:

A) losers
B) To stupid and lazy to "maintain their housing"
C) Drug addicts
D) Destroyers of otherwise "peaceful neighborhoods"

Our society as a whole gets no cost benefit from people getting health care, food, housing, education, and job training?

Whats cheaper (to the tax payer), giving someone a good education, health care, and sometimes a hand up?
Or paying for increased crime prevention (more cops, higher home owner/car insurance), incarcerating that person, emergency room care, etc., etc., etc?

Of course if you look at what corporate welfare costs the average working American compared to what welfare recipients cost the average American, it will make you puke. We have given away the farm!

"In 1994, AFDC and food stamps combined cost $38.2 billion. The same year direct subsidies to corporations cost $50.9 billion. Tax breaks worth an additional $53.3 billion were also given to corporations. In other words, the total cost of corporate welfare was $104.3 billion." ---Noam Chomsky: "Corporate Welfare in the U.S." 1998

Those numbers are old. I suspect today, for every billion going to food stamps and welfare, corporations get about 3 billion. This of course may change as more people hit the welfare rolls as our "new economy" puts more people (in America) out of jobs.

 

[Juiced87Notch]

So the moral of the "modern version" is?

Let me guess...

All people who get assistance from the "government" are:

A) losers
B) To stupid and lazy to "maintain their housing"
C) Drug addicts
D) Destroyers of otherwise "peaceful neighborhoods"

Our society as a whole gets no cost benefit from people getting health care, food, housing, education, and job training?

Whats cheaper (to the tax payer), giving someone a good education, health care, and sometimes a hand up?
Or paying for increased crime prevention (more cops, higher home owner/car insurance), incarcerating that person, emergency room care, etc., etc., etc?

Of course if you look at what corporate welfare costs the average working American compared to what welfare recipients cost the average American, it will make you puke. We have given away the farm!

"In 1994, AFDC and food stamps combined cost $38.2 billion. The same year direct subsidies to corporations cost $50.9 billion. Tax breaks worth an additional $53.3 billion were also given to corporations. In other words, the total cost of corporate welfare was $104.3 billion." ---Noam Chomsky: "Corporate Welfare in the U.S." 1998

Those numbers are old. I suspect today, for every billion going to food stamps and welfare, corporations get about 3 billion. This of course may change as more people hit the welfare rolls as our "new economy" puts more people (in America) out of jobs.

valid points... but you missed the boat. If someone works for what they have, they should have it... if someone sits around and does nothing... because they choose to, they should get nothing, why? because they didnt earn it. if your disabled or in some other way unable to work for your keep, thats one thing, but if you choose to sit on your ass and do nothing. If someone thinks that the guy working for his keep should share it with them... well lets put it this way, You should be taken out back and shot, you are worthless... your life has no meaning so do the rest of us a favor and go swallow a bullet. btw lazy people looking for a free rid piss me off... can ya tell