Politics

[peter k]

A quick and easy-to-understand guide to political idealogies.

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 and the government takes all the milk.

Dictatorship
You have two cows. The government takes them both and shoots you.

Nigerian Democracy
You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots you, and sends the cows to Switzerland.

Militarism
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

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. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

American Democracy
The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for them. After the election the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate". You get sued by the cow for breach of contract.

British Democracy
You have two cows. You feed them sheeps' 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 cow.

Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

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 Panemanian intermediary to a Caymen 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 states that the company owns eight cows with the option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because of bad Feng-Shui.

Lesbianism
You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

Totalitarianism
You have two cows. The government takes them both and deny they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Peter