WE are all one.
Nobody goes home alone.

I hate it when the mouse survives.

Of course, the analogy does not really work. We are NOT like mice - a pest in somebody else's house. We are not like chickens, pigs or cows either. Animals who are fed and kept to provide eggs, bacon and milk or beef to our owners.

In the normal course of our society mice drop like flies, and so do chickens, pigs and cows, although some cows live for years providing milk.

And, of course, 99.99999% of the time, a mouse trap will just result in dead mice.

A nice happy ending.

I did a catch and release once. Mouse just had a rear leg in the trap, so I took it outside and let it go. Another time in a rural trailer I saw a mouse with a few babies on its back. I could have stomped it right there as it was not very quick in that condition, but I just could not kill those little babies, even though logically they were gonna make lice some day. Ultimately the trailer sat for years as a home for mostly mice anyway. I think I was not living there at the time.

Of course, the analogy does not really work. We are NOT like mice - a pest in somebody else's house. We are not like chickens, pigs or cows either. Animals who are fed and kept to provide eggs, bacon and milk or beef to our owners.

For one thing, the chicken and hog, unlike an ox or horse in the old days is not really working for the farmer. Just being fed. These days, the cow is not working either.

I think you give too much credit to some "monied people". They don't own this house - we do. Although it depends on how you define "monied". The top 10%, after all, DO make more money than the rest of us. But there's still quite a bit of life for the rest of us, most of whom are NOT working for minimum wage.

The mouse, in this analogy, really IS a pest. It does nothing for the farmer, not even work for minimum wage. It just steals, destroys, and craps all over the place. It really deserves a trap.

Don't compare me to something like that. Potter at least had some respect for George Bailey. And if the farmer is the government ...

The animals don't need to "work" for the farmer. Their being a food source is the same as being a revenue source.

The mouse was an analogy to the "they came for the least of us" allegory, only this was in the form of a fable. I am sure you understand that.

is an Atreides I want to kill!

I mean a mouse.

But wait, Muad d'ib IS a mouse. So ha.

I cannot get over the hill of actually wanting the mouse dead. I've had too much trouble with mice in my life, and I have killed dozens, sometimes quite brutally.

Plus, I do not see where there is a real issue here. Who, exactly, is "the least of us" in our larger picture. Muslims? Refugees? Immigrants?

Better to talk about the actual issue and leave the mice and the chickens out of it.

that you brutally kill mice, tells a lot about you.

that you have never had mice in your house.

Congrats.

I regularly have mice in my house. My cats bring them in and release them, and I rescue what I can, but if they get under appliances, I just have to wait till a cat catches them.

I happen to love mice and rats and all little animals. I've had pet mice, rats, gerbils, and hamsters, gerbils and rabbits. Now I have a wild tree frog living in my kitchen.

Just not into killing things. Except mosquitoes and ticks.

The whole story is outrageous. Never heard of this happening ever.

... when you don't like the lesson of the analogy, become literal.

Republicans do exactly the same thing.

Prove that outrageousness.

WTF happened to the snake in this story? Its actions directly played a part in all those things happening.

Why didn't the farmer kill the snake for its meat instead of the crow. He already had it in a trap. So did the snake survive, end up killing the farmer, eat the mouse, and live happily ever after? If so, bravo on that ingenious plan of getting caught in a mouse trap at night and turning it into a positive. That snake is going places.

of people have managed to get past such superficialities to understand the point of such teaching fables.

Oh, and BTW, animals don't actually talk, either.

Allegory seems to be too much for some people.
Or rather, the thinking that it requires.

We are doomed.

a) the mouse has NO basic right to not be trapped

b) the animals cannot vote on a new farmer

c) the animals are going to be slaughtered at some point anyway - it is just a matter of time

d) clearly a mouse has the first risk at a mouse trap, the story simply creates a very, very improbable way that MY issue should be considered important even by people who, unlike ME, do NOT have skin in the game. So who is gonna use it? Can you use it to get me interested in your issue, or is it just as logical for me to use it to get you interest in my issue?

e) the story does not tie in to ANY issue. What are we supposed to be talking about here? A farmer who is trying to take away the right to keep and bear arms? Or a farmer who is trying to take away abortion rights? Or a farmer who is trying to increase taxes?

Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, from Charlie Wilson's War.

except the guy said "How do you know?"

And I think the story ended with the army.

After I read it I said to myself "ha, that was a funny story" and a little voice replied "How do you know?"

Ruskin said something like that, although I do not have the exact quote. Something like "we do not know what the consequences of our actions are, but we DO know the difference between a just and an unjust act, and that in the long run the consequences of a just act will be better than those of an unjust act."

My best to you and yours.

He was such a great actor. I still have a few VHS tapes I can't play but don't want to part with because they were so good and one is Hoffman in Flawless. Robbin Williams and Hoffman hit me the same way. They were just really nice people who were too sad and couldn't handle it. One of the other tapes I have is Dead Poet Society.

That's the second one today.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027473017

you and yours!

The mouse is a symbol of the Romney-designation "useless eaters": the elderly, disabled, mentally ill, disfigured, despised, unemployed. The mouse trap is the equivalent of destroying the "safety net": the basic minimums of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The purpose of fables was to be clearly talking about stuff people didn't want to talk about, in a "code" that anyone could crack.

Thank you, kentuck. The Force is strong in this one!

...and a hair on a wart...

...and a wart on a frog...

...and a frog on a knot...

...and a knot on a log...

...and a log in a hole...

...and a hole in the bottom of the sea.