Before I comment on the State of the Union Address, let me pass along a story someone sent. I've thought about this story for a long time. While I teach and live by the old version, I agree with the point the new version is trying to make.
The ANT and The GRASSHOPPER two versions:
Two Different Versions ... Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
( Both Ron and I remember our school teachers telling this story and insisting everyone be like the ants. My teacher used this story to point out to several students that if they didn't get their act together they would be like the grasshopper and never be successful.)
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
Occupy the Anthill stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the SEIU group singing, We shall overcome. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake, while he damns the ants. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush 43, President Bush 41, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackled, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2012.
When we watched the State of the Union, Ron and I were definitely not impressed. Ron thought it was more of the same and frankly boring. I had only one thought. "Mr. Obama is very quick to spend my money and with his nose in the air he loves to tell me what he thinks is right for my life. Unlike the American way his entire speech was not about inspiration, being a better American or working harder together. His speech smacked of "I don't care if you like my policy or not. I want it so I'm going to ram it down your throat." Oh yes, I will be very careful how I vote.
God loves you,
Debbie
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