| Feudalism |
| Written by Simon Helps | |
| Saturday, 12 January 2008 | |
|
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk. BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: Your cows are cared for by former chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the rules say you should need. FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. PURE COMMUNISM: You share two cows with your neighbours. You and your neighbours bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need." Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation. RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You take care of them but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market. PERESTROIKA: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market. CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you. DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you. PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbour decides who gets the milk. REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk. BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. CAPITALISM: You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral. PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price, or your neighbours try to take the cows and kill you. ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. OLYMPICS-ISM: You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state-of-the-art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and saw its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million-dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant. LIMBAUGHISM: You used to have two cows. They may be dead; you don't know, because you can't smell them through the stench rising off your unwashed, 1,500-pound bulk. It's been six years since you could fit into the shower. You blame the entire situation on an evil government conspiracy, and click the remote to another talk show. X-FILES-ISM: Your two cows turn out to be the government. They milk YOU. You are saved by two generic bimbos, a female and a male with blow-dried hair, after (1) a car chase, involving UFOs, (2) a gunfight, and (3) a seance. The aliens get the advertising revenue after the Nielsens rise. |
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