the ant and the grasshopper - good read! - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

Rollin · 11-05-2003, 02:14

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 that the ant is a fool; he laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
MODERN AUSTRALIAN 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 that the ant is a fool; he laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. 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 like him are cold and starving.

The ABC and Channel 9 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper with cuts to a video showing the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food. Australians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer whilst others have plenty.

The Democrats, the Greens and Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The ABC, interrupting an Aboriginal cultural festival special from North Queensland with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome". Bob Brown rants in an interview with Jana Wendt that the ant got rich off the backs of grasshoppers and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the summer and the ALF quickly passes it through the Senate.

The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to Asia and starts a successful agribiz company. TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food although Spring is still months away. In the meantime the government-owned house he occupies, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed and Kim Beasley is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10 million.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose and the Sydney Morning Herald blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders praised by the government for enriching Australia's multicultural diversity) that promptly terrorise the community.

Who says we don't live in a democracy?

/its such a pity that the above is true!

Casper · 11-05-2003, 02:22

Scary that it's so true

Chad_XF · 11-05-2003, 23:51

yeah pricks giving money to those certian people that are always drunk, living in homes west houses, stealling my stuff and driving beat up or new commies. if you guys get what Im on about, its just not fair

ford.boy · 11-06-2003, 00:03

Yes it's true, yes the high ups are too scared / couldn't give a damn, and thus don't do a thing about it.

Cancerman · 11-06-2003, 00:29

The social security system in this country never ceases to amaze me.
If u don't work, the government gives u money.
If u don't have anywhere to live, the government gives u a house.
If u can't afford to goto school, the government pays ur school fees (and even pays some people just to show up in class).
If u don't have a job, the government finds u a job.

If u do work hard and make lots of money, the government takes damn near half of it, and gives it to people who don't.

All those brave men we sacrificed killing Communists in the stinking jungle, only to have the lefty bastards voted into their own parliament. Just goes to show democracy only works if everyone votes the way I tell them to.