The Gull and The Goats
Once upon a time, a gull landed on a manger in front of a herd of goats. "Brothers and sisters," the gull squawked, "you live as slaves! The farmer tells you are there are wolves beyond your fence and you clump up cowardly on the land within that fence. The farmer tells you this straw, this grass, is food and you eat it. Surely I tell you, the farmer tells you these things because if you left the pasture he knows what you have forgotten, that you will take wing to the water, catch fish and prosper! Because if you flew over the ocean, as is your birthright, you would see his daughters rise from the depths on a clam shell!"
"The bird makes sense," muttered a nanny and returned to eating her tuna can.
Moral: Men will lie to hide even fictional truths.
JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY, n. A theory of government by which yeoman farmers undertake the vices of aristocrats.
13 comments:
I've always thought "Financiers, bankers and industrialists make cities the cesspools of corruption, and should be avoided."
And We will accept (in America, purchase) the lie. Sigh.
A theory of government by which yeoman farmers (Jefferson was, or at least styled himself as, a yeoman farmer) undertake the vices of aristocrats (y'mean, like Sally Hemings?)
I would have reached a completely different lesson myself but that's just a fox without mirror. :)
Do share, Ariel - We're all just dying to know which completely different lesson the fox without mirror reached!
Good fable.
*What we are never changes. We can, however, change what we do. I'm gonna stop eating tuna cans immediately.
*(factured Gil Grissom, CSI)
Doug, as a former yeoman farmer I do like those vices.
Some fictional truths are true, others are false. Most, no one cares, especially rabble rousers, agitators, and activists.
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That silly Jonathon Seagull beleived him!
Love the fable.
Undertake the vices, but still don't have the power, not that they should, but that's another fable.
Anonymous, the one about canned freedom. No fake prophet can top it!
This certainly is a "Fable for Children." I am now so sleepy I must retire!
Good night, all.
wow that is reel live make belive. i herd that pigs can fliy to.
Karen, I've mostly worked for farmers, healers and entrepreneurs of whom I hold the same opinion.
Amoeba, that would be one example, you bet.
Ariel, plenty of grapes, though.
Good question, anonymous. Foxes give the best morals, I find.
TLP, you're obviously not a goat.
Jim, every yeoman farmer I ever knew enjoyed those vices. Activists, agitators and rabble-rousers as well. And to second Karen's comment from yesterday, you're going poet on us.
Icy, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is one of the best books in English to leave unread.
True, Coop. That's another fable.
Ariel, who is freer than a fox without a mirror?
Good morning, Karen.
Also true, boy.
Jeffersonian democracy is opposed to more popular versions which guarantee a tin can in every pasture.
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