OT: Coffee Break IX

[Guest guest]

COWS AND GOVERNMENT

(Societies and their models)

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FEUDALISM:

You have two cows.

Your lord takes some of the milk.

 

FASCISM:

You have two cows.

The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells

you the milk.

 

PURE COMMUNISM:

You have two cows.

Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

 

APPLIED COMMUNISM:

You have two cows.

You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

 

DICTATORSHIP:

You have two cows.

The government takes both and shoots you.

 

SOUTH AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows.

The government takes both, shoots you and sends the cows to Zurich.

 

MILITARISM:

You have two cows.

The government takes both and drafts you into the army.

 

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows.

The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an

apartment.

 

PURE DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows.

All your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

 

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows.

Your neighbours pick someone who will tell you who gets the milk.

 

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:

The government promises to give you two cows, if you vote for it.

After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow

futures.

The press dubs the affair " Cowgate " , but supports the president.

The cow sues you for breach of contract.

Your legal bills exceed your annual income.

You settle out of court and declare bankruptcy.

 

BRITISH DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows.

You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad.

The government doesn't do anything.

 

EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY:

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.

 

After that 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 have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You retire on the income.

 

HONG KONG CAPITALISM:

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly-listed company, using letters

of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a

debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all

four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk

rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a

Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who

sells the right to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The

annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option

on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because of bad " feng

shui " .

 

TOTALITARIANISM:

You have two cows.

The government takes them and denies they ever existed.

Milk is banned.

 

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:

You are associated with (the concept of 'ownership' is a symbol of the

phallocentric, warmongering, intolerant past two differently aged (but

no less valuable to society) bovines of nonspecified gender. You are

torn by feelings of guilt, your psychotherapist recommends a treatment

center. You spend six weeks there, paid for by the community health

plan, and graduate into Guilty Anonymous.

 

COUNTERCULTURE:

Wow, dude, there's like...these two cows, man.

Uh, so, like, you have really got to do some of this milk, like, fer

shur, it's awsome, man.

 

SURREALISM:

You have two giraffes.

The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.