3:48 PM Grasshopper Entitlements...
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER 2008
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 while watching MTV
and jumping on passing bandwagons...
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.
Hillary and Barack go on national television bashing one another
but then turn all of a sudden agreeing that the plight of the grasshopper
is the fault of George Bush.
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.
Obama gets his 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 grass hopper 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.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be very careful how you vote in 2008
i enjoy your blog more and more each day (:
Spoken like a true ant!
;-)
Well Pastor Steve,
I had a choice.. I could've stayed in southside Oroville where most of my peers still remain on drugs, no discipline, stealing from one another and aborting babies... those are the facts.. Although I have compassion over them and anyone else in their position.. this isn't Nazi Germany.. this isn't Casto's Cuba. They and many like them have the same background as I. They too can break away, but they choose not to.. Off the sweat of their backs? how about off the sweat of my back... And I make under 1,000 a month.... hopfully not for too much longer.. You don't see me rubbing my legs together screeching ENTITLEMENTS! Perspective Pastor Steve.... We all need perspective....
I am with you on the perspective thing...
Choice is an important piece of the puzzle. We need to emphasize personal responsibility, of that, there is no debate from me!
But don't you find it at least somewhat disturbing that most people who come from where you come from don't choose success? While most of the people who were raised in privilege do choose success?
Is that some strange coincidence?
Or is it that the playing field isn't level?
Personal responsibility, yes!
But sometimes the silver-spoon, harvard educated, hand-picked for second-in-command to CEO/Daddy telling the child who grew up with a father who spent half her life in prison, the other half having sex with her, a mother on drugs, and dodging bullets at the local shooting gallery (aka High School), that she needs to "take some personal initiative," and "be responsible," gets a little thin!
(Sorry if I'm a little cynical!)
I guess I feel like "personal responsibility" is what grasshoppers should tell themselves. Ants should be the ones talking about how much they have been given by the community, and how they can give back!
It's not about being "successful" it's about taking ownership in yourself. We can't keep piling up excuses to why we can't move out of torments in our lives, like being poor. There is amazing testimony all over the world of people that are full perseverance... They have chosen to take matters into their own hands instead of casting blame on others around them.We have to help the poor... But, what is happening today is a shift back to a social gospel, even a form of Social Darwinism. Keeping the less fortunate still the least and never loving them enough to make them the most . We are harboring the poor, rather than lifting them up out of the hole and teaching them the ways to keep themselves out of it. We can't give the poor excuses, but at the same time we have to be willing to see the lack of discipline in the majority. The minority of the poor exists of psychological issues, depression from oppression etc. If we can speak to that instead of designing a "hand out" like our welfare systems. Obama's fantasy policies and full context of scripture of repentance and love.. I believe we can make a greater impact than ever before...