(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Decision 2024 - Will America be ruled by loyal watchdogs or economic predators? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-11 Watchdog or Tyrannosaurus? Source: Wikimedia Commons While America’s right flank continues to diverge away from the mainstream, our left-center majority continues to grow… but why so slowly? The DK community should be developing analogies, fables, parables, and allegories as frequently as possible. Through the telling of such stories, we will attract the center-right voters who are done with Trumpism, but are still very skeptical of “the administrative state”. Consider a fable about a village and two visitors — a large watchdog and a larger tyrannosaurus — who wander into the town square. Both strangers talk to the townspeople and try to convince them to become followers and thereby adopt their different ideas. The tyrannosaurus says, “You don’t need any leaders. Leaders never care about the people. The people can take care of themselves without a leader.” The watchdog says, “Most of you are doing just fine with your farms and businesses. However, when you see a tyrannosaurus nearby, you need to be ready to protect your families and neighborhoods. They are always unpredictable and frequently ravenous.” The tyrannosaurus says, “See what I mean, the watchdog wants you waste a bunch of your money every month to pay him and his friends to be your sheriff , your judge , and your jailer . Don’t believe him. He’s just lazy and doesn’t want to do real work like the kind you do every day.” The watchdog says, “He’s right that I want all of you to pitch in a small amount of money to give wages to a few capable and loyal village employees. If no one pays these people, no one will be ready to protect the hard working villagers from strangers who are willing to lie, cheat, steal (and perhaps even to kill) so they can collect more and more things, and hold more and more power.” With that, the tyrannosaurus took a swipe at the watchdog using his sharp talons. He barely missed. The watchdog grabbed his rope and wrapped it around the legs of the tyrannosaurus so fast that the big lizard lost his balance and fell flat on his face, breaking his neck. The people voted to make the watchdog in charge and the watchdog invited the villagers to communicate regularly with his team members so they know what their money is being spent on. This group of people decided they would rather employ a loyal watchdog to reduce the risk of being cheated out of their money and property (and possibly their lives). They concluded it was just too risky to trust a radical tyrannosaurus, especially when you have a loyal watchdog around. THE END Postscript : The next day, a different tyrannosaurus wandered into the village and he started spouting off nonsense to anyone who would listen. He tried to convince the villagers they were in the middle of culture war — against the watchdog. TO BE CONTINUED... [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/11/2163438/-Decision-2024-Will-America-be-ruled-by-loyal-watchdogs-or-economic-predators Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/