This little world we live in
Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on August 21st, 2009 by Dennis D. Hayes
Let’s face it… Parasites Suck!! It’s frightening to think that they have been around for so long they may never go away. And in this Little World We Live In, it is my fear that we have for too long overlooked what might have to happen in order to be rid of ‘em. Parasites that is!
To illustrate what it is I have been thinking about, I will attempt to present a variation on an old theme and story, a rather traditional premise best described as the story of… The Ant and the Grasshopper. Imagine just an ant, and just a grasshopper. Trapped as it were, two Tsunami survivors left for dead on some remote and uncharted island.
Well, the ant knew immediately that he would need to make provisions for the future. In fact, according to the atmospheric pressure sensed by the myriad microscopic hairs of his body, the ant had no doubt that there would be a harsh and cold winter to come.
Good neighbor that he was, the ant invited the grasshopper to join him in the preparations for winter. The grasshopper however, declined. He was surrounded by plenty of food. In these warm months he could simply eat through the kernel of the grain and live off the fat of the land. Still, the grasshopper never missed the chance to provide unsolicited advice to the ant, telling him that what he was doing was somehow wrong or was not being accomplished in the best manner.
Yet the grasshopper himself never did get prepared. So when that fateful day arrived, and arrive it did- in full fury, he found himself whining at the ant’s door, begging to be let in.
Here the grasshopper now stood, laying guilt at the feet of the ant and saying, “You owe me an act of sacrifice, if for no other reason than this, that despite our outward appearance, neither one of us can claim he is anything less than an insect!”
But the ant was adamant! I cannot! To allow myself to be manipulated out of guilt, even for the sake of all bugdom is wrong. How does “Live and Let Live” imply that just living your life can be in-and-of itself harmful to others? It does not! How does living my life make me responsible for yours? In reply the grasshopper only moaned, “Live and Let Live you say? Live and Let Die, you mean!”
“Why could you not have even attempted to be productive?” answered the ant. If only for the good of yourself, let alone for the benefit of others. Though it would surely mean hardship from less food, less space, and less privacy, your efforts to provide most likely could have benefited us both. In this respect I most certainly would have been obliged morally to share. Am I mistaken to point out the wrongness of parasitism? Shouldn’t one live according to his abilities instead of his disabilities? Shouldn’t one be responsible for its own self-preservation?
Sensing the ants resolve the grasshopper answered, “As a matter of fact I did take measures to guarantee my self-preservation. I discovered a book describing a primitive but effective form of poison-dart manufacture. I even managed to become proficient in its usage! With this knowledge and the plain fact that I have noticed you must visit the fresh-water spring in order to replenish your supply, I have kept self-preservation foremost in my mind. For you see, if necessary I will wait until you need more water, and then when you go to get some, I will surely kill you! Unless… you let me in!
Sound vaguely familiar? Is this story so very different from our current state of affairs? Doesn’t the ant (the producer) end up getting coerced into providing for the grasshopper? Through guilt, envy, penalty, or threat of death? Isn’t the grasshopper representative of the parasitic bureaucrat, any number of religious leaders, and the old-fashioned non-producer?
Which brings me to my great fear.
Let’s just suppose for a minute that the grasshopper ends up killing the ant.
This would result in only two choices left for the grasshopper. He could, at the end of the ant’s provisions, and as a consequence of his immoral and irrational actions, simply give up and die. Or he would have to learn to produce the way the ant did. In other words the parasite, if he kills the producer, will perish, unless he becomes a producer. My great fear is that the parasites of this Little World We Live In will see the aforementioned scenario as the only recourse that will ever be available to them, and sadly that the producers of this Little World We Live In will fail to realize that there is and must always be other ways to overcome the parasites… ways that do not depend on first killing the host.
Pacificus
Originally published in Liberty For All March 17, 2001.
