Random Rant

As a rule, I don't respond to comments on other websites forums,although I usually read the 4 or 5 posted comments on the CBC.ca news site, if only to reassure myself that the majority of posters have too much time on their hands and far too little information.But today I read this post by one KLM409 and it got me to thinking just how wrong his little parable is.Here's his post:

What a load of crap. If anyone could look at things objectively, if they could strip away all the emotions, politics, history, and whacky religious beliefs, and bring it down to a level everyone understands, here's what we'd be left with:

There's a big guy who lives on the corner, he's a bit of a bully but he doesn't do much unless provoked. Every day on the way to school this little guy goes up to the big guy and kicks him in the leg. This goes on for a year until one day the big guy turns around and beats the snot out of the little guy.

Moral of the story: don't kick the bigger guy. I mean, come on, a five-year-old knows better than that.


This is how the parable should go:


There was a big guy, who once upon a time had been just another little guy, homeless, beaten and abused and he moved into the house where another little guy lived.The former little guy felt pretty comfortable and started throwing his weight around.The big guy told the little guy that had been living in the house prior to his arrival that he could stay in the house but only in certain rooms.The little guy wasn't allowed to use the orchard, the tree swing or the deep end of the pool and was given a little strip of the sandbox to play in. The parents who lived in the house felt that the big guy really deserved these perks, after all, he'd had a really tough time of it and they felt a little guilty that they hadn't done anything in the past.Mom and Dad tried to explain to the neighbours that it was all good and that the little guy living there didn't have it so bad, even though he wasn't allowed to travel freely from downstairs to upstairs or have the same unlimited access to what was in the fridge or the toolshed.
Eventually the little guy got tired of having the big guy tell him what to do and when to do it and started to poke the big guy with a small twig.The big guy would tolerate this for a time and eventually go out to the shed and get the sledgehammer and beat the living shit out of the little guy, as well as cut off his access to the fridge and the medicine cabinet.Mom and Dad would beg the two to settle their differences, but neither one took the sledgehammer away from the big guy and only begrudgingly let the little guy have a package of Bandaids.And they all lived unhappily ever after.