They Just Don’t Get It
One of the first things on the Florida legislature’s agenda is to put off the automatic increase in the unemployment insurance premium that kicked in when the unemployment rate went above 10%. Since they don’t ever want to be accused of raising taxes, the Republicans insert “triggers” into bills, automatic increases that don’t require a vote. Being Republicans, they never imagined that the trigger would actually be pulled.
They have the trigger backwards, but they will never understand why. Republicans have never understood the concept of storing up during good times, so you have the resources you need during bad times. If there is extra revenue in a year, they either spend it or cut another tax. They don’t understand that the fiscally conservative thing to do would be to put it in the “rainy day fund”, so that when hard times hit, they don’t have to make drastic cuts or increase “fees”.
Everyone is probably familiar with the fable, attributed to Aesop, of The Ant and the Grasshopper. Republicans claim to be “Ants”, but that’s absurd on its face. Ants are social creatures who work for the good of their community, while Grasshoppers are only concerned with themselves. Ants are concerned with the future, while Grasshoppers can’t see beyond the current quarter. Ants go about the business of life, while Grasshoppers jump around and make a lot noise. Ants build societies, while Grasshoppers build nothing.
12 comments
Careful Bryan the next thing you know people will be calling you a ‘socialist’, Goddess forbid. Caring about the ‘good of the many’ as opposed to the ‘good of the few’…I suppose you’ll have something to say about human caused climate change as well…
Thank you, Bryan.
I’ve been talking about those Rethug grasshoppers for years.
Grasshoppers!
S
Grasshoppers are only concerned with themselves. Ants are concerned with the future, while Grasshoppers can’t see beyond the current quarter. Ants go about the business of life, while Grasshoppers jump around and make a lot noise. Ants build societies, while Grasshoppers build nothing.
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As someone who has seen the other side, Fallenmonk, I have more than a passing fancy with civilization and society. Despite being a bit agoraphobic, I realize that the solitude I appreciate is only available because of society. You can’t be a hermit without a lot of support people today.
It is incredible to me, that as a true capitalist and fiscal conservative, my views are considered “socialist”. Real business people know that you have to have customers or you fail. Subsistence farmers are the only people in a position to be mostly independent, but they are dependent on others for tools and raw materials not on their land.
A society that values the proceeds of gambling, even when they call it investment, more than the proceeds of labor, can not prosper. The few may think they are rich, but they have become more dependent as they don’t know how to do anything useful. They know how to waste resources, but are dependent on others to actually create those resources.
People forget that the three dominant religions in the Western World all condemn usury. The financial industry is considered an abomination, like shrimp or pork chops. All of the good Republican “Christians” seem to have forgotten that.
They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD.
Hosea 5:4 (KJB)
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
Isaiah 29:15 (KJB)
There are so many passages in the Bible (any Bible) that easily cover these hypocrites. It’s harder to find one that doesn’t. It makes me truly hope there is a God, if only so that all these hypocrites will finally pay and pay big. 🙂
Grasshoppers… indeed!
If there is a Designer, I am more and more convinced that we are one of the projects that was canceled as lacking market appeal.
I once thought that we were akin to a ‘feasibility study’, or an early prototype. Obviously, the project has been long abandoned. It would be nice to think that from the failure learned that perhaps a much *better* version of us is *out there somewhere*. 🙂
The truly tragic thing is that if we were to abandon the whole failed concept of *religion* or *deities* etc and simply look after ourselves and work for the common good, we could probably make it. Obviously, there is some inherent design flaw within most of us (particularly those who much prefer to blame some invisible entity like a *demon* rather than taking ownership of their own weaknesses and failures) that prevents that from ever happening, so we are doomed to fail. And it’s our own fault. The *takers* are in charge, and the vast majority of the sheeple allow them to be. It’s apparently easier to be a slave and much harder to think and do what’s in ones own interest and right for everyone. As far as I have seen in my travels around this planet from one hellhole to another, being God-fearing and Worshipful and Hopeful is simple a direct path to pain and suffering since the bastards-in-charge encourage it so they can take advantage of the idiots who believe it. And I don’t just mean in the USA either.
I’d be very happy to be Worshipful, if I could see anything to be Worshipful about! Talk is cheap.
As far as I have ever seen, there are only two ways:
Either one must help oneself to be able to help others, or one must help others to be able to help oneself. Which of those options is chosen depends upon circumstances.
I find that most acts of public piety are just theater, and the people involved are more in tune with Pascal’s Wager, than actual belief. They have spent more time studying Machiavelli than Moses. Most will find their only conviction in the courts of law, not religion.
If there is a Designer, I am more and more convinced that we are one of the projects that was canceled as lacking market appeal.
well, maybe if we were talking about fire ants ….
.-= last blog ..Oh, look! Blogger loves me after all! =-.
You know, Kryten, the concept of “do unto others as you would have them do on to you” is fairly universal, no matter what other baggage gets tacked on, and if people would just hold that thought, we would all be better off. It’s the people who don’t want to give, but only receive, the Grasshoppers, who are the problem.
If the Republican states were cut off from the rest of the country, they would find out rather quickly that they can’t survive. They all take more than they give.
Hipparchia, even fire ants have more community spirit than Jim Bunning. They get things done and don’t expect other people to do the fighting.
These people apparently believe that “stuff” just appears out of thin air. If their hot water heater fails and they call a plumber, they don’t stop to think that just 100 years ago hot water was a luxury and that most people did without baths altogether for the cooler parts of the year because it was just too friggin’ cold. They don’t stop to think about the sheet metal roller press that rolled out the roll, the circular parts of the tank, and the sheet metal stamp that stamped the endcaps, or the welder who welded them together and the TIG torch that he used and the tank of argon gas that is the shielding gas for that torch and the complex distillation process that was used in a huge refrigeration plant to produce the argon that fills that tank of argon gas, or the separate factory making thermostats to turn the gas on and off to the burner made in another factory, or the truck that carried the tank to the plumbing supply store in their community, and the complex set of industries needed to produce this truck, or … well. They think it just appears on their doorstep, like magic, like abracadabra. They’re magical thinkers by nature, and the fact that the Republican Party has come completely disconnected from reality has a lot to do with the fact that our oligarchs themselves have, many of them, similarly become completely disconnected from reality, having no idea where their wealth comes from and confusing rent-seeking with profit.
WASFed, good and hard…
– Badtux the “Bend over!” Penguin
Jon Stewart must have heard you Bryan. 😉 Just for you (and anyone else with at least a single atom of sense):
March 2, 2010: Jim Bunning Is Just a Dick
“Jim Bunning didn’t block the extension of unemployment benefits as a principled stand against fiscal responsibility — he’s just a dick.”
Who says’ theres no truth in the Media? You just have to know where to look. 😉 “Seek, and ye shall find” 😈
Well… today’s Dilbert is eerily appropriate! 😐
😈
It’s like the electrical deregulation in California, when all of the power companies decided to sell their generating facilities and simply act as a billing system. When defecation hit the ventilation, people blamed the people sending the bills, not the corporation that was generating the electricity for out of control rate increases.
No one makes the connections because all the real work is outsourced. The guy who installs the cable doesn’t work for the cable company; the customer service number doesn’t go the people who made or sold the equipment you’re having a problem with. Everything is outsourced, so it is hard to trace real responsibility.
OTOH, the individual who I would use to sue makes the point that you sue the company you dealt with, and if they use contractors or outsourcing, they can sue to get the money awarded back.
Everyone wants to make money, they don’t want to make things.