Snide Remarks #654 A Grimm View of Politics

The Three Little Pigs (Conservative Version)

Once upon a time there were three little pigs who wanted to own houses even though they had no reliable source of income, being pigs and all. The first pig took out a loan to buy a house made of straw. The second pig took out a loan to buy a house made of sticks. The third pig took out a loan to buy a house made of bricks. Everyone told them they should be careful about buying such expensive houses because they might not be able to keep up on the payments, but the pigs did it anyway. I’m not prejudiced or anything, but it’s a simple fact that pigs are notoriously reckless when it comes to personal responsibility.

Sure enough, these lazy, entitled pigs fell behind on their payments, and the bank that owned all three mortgages sent a collector around. The pigs called him the Big Bad Wolf, which was cruel because he was really just a dedicated employee doing his job — you know, his JOB?? Ever heard of one of those, pigs? (He really was a wolf, though.) The pigs thought it was unfair that they should be kicked out of their homes; after all, it was the scary old bank that tricked them into signing those documents! Why, the bank practically forced them!! In complete accordance with the law, the wolf knocked over the straw house and the stick house, but was prevented from fulfilling his duties at the brick house. So he pulled himself up by the bootstraps and got resourceful: he climbed down the chimney. (You heard me right: these “poor” pigs had a fireplace!!) Unfortunately, the three little pigs had a fire going at the moment, because they were cooking meth, and the wolf died, and the liberal media covered it up.

The Three Little Pigs (Liberal Version)

Once upon a time there were three little pigs who had been told all their lives that it was the American dream to own a home, and that all Americans were equally capable of achieving that dream. The pigs were young and naive and hadn’t yet realized that they’d been lied to by the capitalist system that’s set up to ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So they dutifully followed the socially prescribed method of taking out a mortgage from a corporation (which, ironically, has more rights in the eyes of the U.S. government than a person does, let alone a pig). The bank, seeing that the little pigs were inexperienced in matters of finance, took advantage of them by talking them into loans they didn’t understand and would never be able to repay, in the hopes that the pigs would default, which another part of the bank was betting they would.

Sure enough, those same banks ruined the economy, and the pigs lost their jobs. The people responsible for the economic disaster got bailouts from their Republican friends in Congress, but was there any help for the pigs? No sir. The bank sent the Big Bad Wolf to kick them out of their homes. This thug went so far as to literally blow two of the houses over. With the pigs inside! (Did the wolf get in trouble for nearly killing them? Of course not. He worked for the bank, which means he worked for corporate-owned America.) When the wolf came to the third house, the pigs stood up for their rights as citizens and demanded fairness and justice. A pig’s home is his castle, right? Isn’t that one of the central conservative doctrines?? Anyway, they defended themselves, and unfortunately the wolf died in the conflict, but who cares? One less fascist thug in the world.

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Conservative Version)

Once upon a time there was an unemployed lesbian who broke into a house owned by bears. She ate their food (and complained about it), broke their chair (ditto), and slept in their beds. Then, when the bears came home and chased her out, she had the nerve to sue them for harassment and distress, even though she was the criminal here. Can you believe that? And of course the activist judge awarded her the money. This country has gone insane, I tell you.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Liberal Version)

Once upon a time there was a girl named Goldilocks who lost her way in the woods and was desperately in need of food and shelter. As luck would have it, she happened upon a cottage. She intended to ask the occupants if they would be so kind as to let her use their phone and perhaps offer her a little something to eat, considering they were all living creatures who shared the sun and the moon and the stars and all that Mother Earth has to offer. Finding no one at home, Goldilocks entered the house anyway and ate a small bowl of food. Like Jean Valjean before her, she broke a minor law regarding property rights in favor of keeping a larger law concerning the inherent worth and dignity of all living souls. If the homeowners’ own daughter were lost in the woods, surely they would want her to do the same thing.

Well, not these homeowners. Turns out they were bears, three of them, weighing a combined total of 1,200 pounds, armed with sharp claws and teeth, and they chased Goldilocks out of the place with all kinds of self-righteous indignation. Oh, really big and tough, aren’t you, bears? Chasing an unarmed little girl out of your house because she had the nerve to be hungry and lost. Hey, you’ve got yours, so screw everybody else, right? You sicken me.

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Jack and the Beanstalk (Conservative Version)

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Jack whose uneducated, unmarried mother wouldn’t get a job because she felt like the world owed her everything. They lived in a one-room shack, though you can bet they still had a flatscreen TV. One day Jack’s mother finally decided to be proactive for once in her life and told Jack to take their cow into the village and sell it. This would bring some cash into the family’s finances and would also stimulate the local economy, both desirable actions during the Obama recession. Jack took the cow into town and traded it for a handful of beans that a merchant told him were magic. “The fair market value of this handful of magic beans is one cow,” the merchant said, and Jack couldn’t argue with that. When he returned home with the beans, Jack’s mother said, “I think you probably got ripped off. But there are bound to be trade-offs like that when you live in an unregulated market, and a market that isn’t unregulated is no better than socialism.” So Jack and his mother ate the beans and then starved to death, and now their shack is a Starbucks.

Jack and the Beanstalk (Liberal Version)

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Jack whose mother worked two jobs to put food on the table but still barely got by because of tax cuts for the wealthy, and the war in Iraq. They lived in a tiny shack that was still better than most people in India have, so they weren’t complaining. Things eventually got so bad that Jack’s mother told Jack to take their cow into the village and sell it. (They could not simply eat the cow because they were vegans.) Jack did as he was told, but a con artist suckered him into trading the cow for a handful of magic beans. Jack’s mother wrote a very angry blog post about the lack of regulation, pointing out that such things rarely happen in Canada or Denmark, and called for a boycott of all non-union sellers of beans and other legumes. Jon Stewart had a field day with it. Anyway, as luck would have it, the magic beans turned out to be hemp seeds, and Jack and his mother became marijuana farmers and legalization activists.

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Little Red Riding Hood (Conservative Version)

Once upon a time there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood who lived on the edge of a dark forest that was perfectly suitable for development but had been preserved by tree-huggers. One day her mother gave her a basket of goodies to take to her grandmother, who was very old and in poor health because of Obamacare. Grandmother lived on the other side of the forest — not in some government-run facility like a common leech, but in a quaint cottage that she paid for herself through years of hard work. Red Riding Hood’s mother said, “Hurry along to Grandmother’s house, and don’t stray from the path! The forest is dangerous!” The forest was in the “bad part of town,” if you know what I mean.

Little Red Riding Hood was skipping along the path when she encountered a wolf who looked at her very menacingly, the way illegal aliens do, and said, “¿A donde vas, chica?” Red Riding Hood replied, “You should speak English if you’re going to live in this country.” Then the wolf pushed her down, stole the basket of goodies, and used her social security number to get a job.

Little Red Riding Hood (Liberal Version)

Once upon a time there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood who lived in a diverse, non-gentrified neighborhood on the edge of a dark forest. Her grandmother lived on the other side of the forest, dying because of Republican Medicare cutbacks, and George W. Bush, and Fox News. Seeing that there was a need in the community, Red Riding Hood organized some of her fellow citizens to protest on the steps of City Hall about this unjust treatment of the elderly. On the way there, Red Riding Hood encountered a wolf who said that he’d just been to Grandmother’s house and had devoured her, so there was no need to continue with the protest. Red Riding Hood said it didn’t matter, now it was about the principle. Then everyone smoked weed and had gay marriage all night.