Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

I think Rudyard Kipling first wrote this one. Or was it Omar Khayyam? Anyhow. Just got this in the ol' e-mail.

quote:

---

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

CLASSIC 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.

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
play 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 less fortunate 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."

Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls 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 Clinton 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.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 4988

it is funny, in a dichotomous, blown out of proportion kind of way.

Is this, in a nutshell, how the fiscally conservative see the world?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

Basically.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 4988

I would agree with it if not for a number of factors.

- The playing field that is the job market is IMHO not level
- Working your ass off is not neccesarily a guarantee that you will do well financially.
- luck, location and friendships can play a big part in what opportunities you can get acces to.

I would sympathize 100% with the ant if putting in a hard days work was the only factor in making money.

It is a factor, and and an important one... but untill it becomes the only factor in the equation, I will continue to support the concept of redistributing wealth. I am open to discussing the who, how, how much, where and when..... But not the why.

but to each his own

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

Ok.

Then why has legislation aimed at evening things out merely given the "have-nots" advantages over the "haves?" It's like, instead of things being equal, it turns into just another culture war: White Privilege versus Affirmative Action in WWF GrudgeMatch.

And why should the fed step in to deal with luck, and location, and so forth? Generally the harder you work, the more luck you have; and location is entirely under your control if you want it to be; however, even if you believe that luck is not under your control, neither is skin color (Michael Jackson being an exception)--so if they can't legislate for "luck" how can they do so for race?

My mom's stepdad was in the Tuskeegee Airmen. He ended the war a Captain. It seems to me as if "hard work" counts for little if he was able to do that in the face of much stiffer racist opposition than today? In the words of Tommy Lee Jones..."That dog won't hunt, son."

Also, how do you go about identifying those who are guilty and in need of having their wealth redistributed? I mean, let's say I'm a wealthy black man--am I going to get my money ganked just like the rich white folks? What about poor white folks? Isn't it just as racist to make a redistribution policy based on race as it is to discriminate unfairly in hiring practices?

If I come up with any more questions I'll letcha know

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 4988

I am not knowledgable in the practical or legislative aspects of affirmative action. I am not a US resident and I come from a culture that is one of the most homogenous of the western world.

But I will try to give it a shot, just bear in mind that my experience with affirmative action as practiced in the US is non-existent. I can only discuss it from a theoretical perspective.

Affirmative action is in theory a reverse risk assesment. Insurance companies will asses the risk of insuring any given person according to which cohorte of within the health strata the given person belongs to. If you are grossly overweight, smoking, drinking and taking drugs, you are at higher risk of hospitalization than your average joe. The more you are at risk, the more expensive your insurance policy becomes

affirmative action is the same from a fiscal perspective. But higher risk => more help/opportunities. It is aid instead of punishment. It is presumed that some of this risk is caused by structural violence; the uneven playing field that you as a minority do not control. Affirmative action is one way of adressing the uneven playing field. It can be abused, as can any cultural construct. Abuse must be corrected, not used as an excuse to say that the playing field is honky-doory, and dismiss the motivation behind affirmative action as "commie BS" or other such nonsense (btw, not directed ar you squee )

and as for luck, I have to say that I don't like the idea of having randomness affect the fiscal payoffs of invested effort. Lottery is stupid, and so is the "get rich quick" hype. I have a hard time relating to why people glorify people who won a lottery. It is a perpetuation of the notion of fate. Fate IMHO is the antithesis of free will. My rejection is one motivated by my political and philosophical persuation, and not out of malice towards the "lucky".

But my initial response was not affirmative action based on race, but on fiscal background/structural potential for opportunity.

I am looking forward to the day when the "ashes to riches in 3 generations" becomes "ashes to riches in half a lifetime" and common.
Then and only then will affirmative action(or other strategy with similar purpose) need to be phased out.

EDIT: tag fix

Last edited by mudded on 08-01-2002 at 09:16 PM

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11771

Culture point for Mudded. Because I just figured out how.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 4988

point???

I have a post count similar to yours...
hmmmm

Rushes off to give some poor fool a point or two

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

I haven't run the stats myself, but I would not be suprised in the least to find at least a correlation (if not a significant relationship) between race and economic level.

That said, I have never seen anyone run the stats comparing success rates of different races in America.

But I have the feeling that the so-called "Beaners," ie migrant workers from mexico, are doing a much better job of "making it" than the blacks who have been here for so long. You could probably say the same thing about the prototypical Middle-Eastern cab drivers.

My mom's side of the family moved from West Virginia to Chicago and lived in the projects for about ten years (this was in the 50s, before the projects had a bad reputation). When they could afford it, they moved out into real housing and have been steadily getting better and better off ever since. That first generation had high school diplomas; their children went to college. My mom's half of the family, by the way, is black.

I think hard work does more to level the playing field than anything else.

And I think (as do most conservatives, I'd wager) that it therefore follows that those who are not successful are not working hard at it.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged