The New School Nazis: It's Your Actions that Define You

Aesop’s Fables—Updated

The Dog in the Manger

A Dog looking out for its afternoon nap jumped into the Manger of an Ox and lay there cozily upon the straw. But soon the Ox, returning from a day’s hard work, came up to the Manger and wanted to eat some of the straw. The Dog in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox gave up and went away, and the dog went back to sleep.

Moral: Aggression wins possession.

***


The Wise Man and the Fools

At a planning conference there was a Lecturer who greatly impressed the attendees with his slide show of Form-Based Code Planning. He finished off with a vision for the County that was so breathtaking that the spectators stood up and applauded. But a Citizen who stood at the back shouted: "Call that sales pitch a plan! Nothing like it. You give me till tomorrow and I’ll show you what that plan is really based on." The audience laughed, but next day, sure enough, the Citizen appeared on the stage, and putting his presentation on the screen, so undercut the Lecturer’s “vision” that the attendees cat-called and booed to make him stop. "You fools!" he cried, "See what you have been applauding," and pointed to the many flaws that were exposed by his logical analysis, but he was shouted off the stage.

Moral: Bureaucrats would rather commit to a boondoggle than be shown up as fools.

If the Citizen was truly wise he would have known that.

***


The People, the People, and the Government

After a dispute had arisen between two groups of people, one group came to some Politicians and asked for their help to legislate against the other group. The Politicians agreed, but said: "If you desire this legislation, you must permit us to place some restrictions on the rights of all citizens, so that we may pass these laws, and allow us to decide where and how this should be done so that we may keep everyone upon the path to a better society." The group agreed to the conditions, and the Politicians soon put these restrictions and laws in place. When with the aid of this legislation that group had won out against the other, they said to the Politicians: "Now, remove those restrictions and give us back our rights."

"Not so fast, friends," said the Politicians. "Now that we have these powers, we prefer to keep things as they are at present."

If you allow a government to abrogate rights for your own purposes, they will abrogate rights for theirs.

***


The Sun and the Wind

The Sun of Illumination and the Wind of Doctrine were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a citizen coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that citizen to shed his rights and beliefs shall be regarded as the stronger. I’ll begin."

So the Wind diminished and hid itself, and the Sun began to shine a persuasive illumination upon the citizen. But although he shined brighter and ever brighter, the citizen held up his rights and beliefs as a shield between them, till at last the Sun had to give up in despair.

Then the Wind came out and blew a relentless gale of denunciations upon the citizen, who was soon too battered and dazed to hold onto anything.

Moral: Force can be more useful than persuasion in establishing a Progressive State.

***


The Charity and its Gold

Once upon a time there was a Food Pantry Administrator who used to deposit all the grant money into a special bank account; and every week he used to log in and gloat over the balance. A thief, who was aware of this account, stole the password and emptied the account. When the Administrator next came to gloat over his balance, he found nothing but the empty account. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the volunteers came around him, and he told them how he used to log in to the account every week. "Did you ever take any of it out?" asked one of them.

"Of course not," said he, "I only logged in to look at the balance."

"Then log in again and look at the empty account," said the volunteer; "it will do the hungry just as much good."

Charitable gifts undisposed might as well not exist.

***


The Fox and the Grapes

One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with a snarl, saying: "I’ll teach him to put something I want out of reach."

The fox brought a suit against the owner, arguing that his not being able to reach the fruit was substantially limiting compared to an average person in the general population. He won the case.

The owner of the orchard was ordered to cut down the trees and train the vines to a height that the fox could reach. He went out of business.

Moral: You can use “fairness” laws to demand an unfair outcome.

***


The Man and the Mural

A woman and a man were discussing the relative positions of women and men in society. The woman contended that she and her sisters were more deserving than men by reason of their greater worth. "Come now with me," she cried, "and I will soon prove that I am right." So she took him into the public meeting hall and showed him a new mural depicting women’s greatness in all things.

"That is all very well," said the man, "but proves nothing, for it was a woman who painted that mural."

Moral: We can easily represent things as we wish them to be.