Mauiwowee
14-04-2005, 06:20
This is also posted in International Incidents. Thought I might get a few more replies in the General thread so I'm re-posting it
Ok, this is a thread that presents a simplistic, humorous, but somewhat accurate view of different political/economic/social models. I'm including in the list some Earth V nations as well (where I do most of my RP's). This is called "The Two Cows" approach - some of you, maybe all of you, have heard of or read some of this. Additional suggestions for inclusion are fine - In fact feel free to describe your nation or someone elses (but no mean spirited stuff, this is all in fun) ;)
********************************************************
GOVERNMENT/POLITICAL MODELS
1. Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all get as much milk as you need.
2. Communism -- African: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives you spoiled milk. You take the spoiled milk, mix it with blood and urine from your other cow, make booze and get drunk. You give the other cow away as a dowery gift.
3. Communism -- Cambodian: You have two cows. The government shoots you.
4. Communism -- Chinese Cultural Revolution: You have two cows. The government declares they are "pigs", and launches a campaign to convince you to donate them "voluntarily" to provide meat for workers in the city. The government then declares that people don't need pigs to make pork. Quoting the correct phrases from your little red book, you and your neighbors try to create pork from sheer willpower. Your local party leader reports that you have exceeded all expectations. You and your neighbors starve.
A) Communism -- Modern Chinese #1: You don't have any cows. The government sets up a joint venture with McDonald’s, copies its techniques and opens a line of counterfeit restaurants selling pork burgers.
B) Communism -- Modern Chinese #2: You have two cows. You take care of them. The government takes all the milk but you steal some of it back (before someone else does) and sell it on the black market in Hong Kong. The government commends your efforts to improve the local economy, takes your cows and sells them to McDonald’s.
5. Communism -- Cuban: Fidel Castro has two cows. They are F1's, a cross between the Cebu cow and the Holstein cow. Only one cow, "White Udder," works. When she dies she is stuffed and placed in a museum by Castro, "The Dictator of the Cows," where "future generations could admire her magnificent udders." You have not seen milk since 1965.
A) Communism: -- Cuban #1: You have two cows. Fidel imports hay, at a reduced cost, from Russia to feed them, charges you full price for the hay, takes the milk, gives it to his best buddies and rewards you for your milk production with a box of cigars.
B) Communism – Cuban #2: You have two cows, they sail to Miami.
6. Communism -- North Korean: You have two cows. The government takes them and sells them on the international black market for weapons grade uranium. You nearly starve. The government then offers the world not to nuke it if the international community provides aid for its starving citizens.
7. Communism – Soviet: You have two cows. The government puts them in a barn with everyone elses cows, pays chicken farmers to care for them and sends you to a gulag for not buying as much milk as regulations say you need.
8. Pure Socialism: The government has two cows. It pays you a fair wage to care for them and sells you the milk for a fair price.
9. Socialism – “Nanny State:” You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your cowless neighbor. You both care for them and get all the milk the government says you need from your respective cows. The government buys the excess at a government established fair market price and distributes it freely to the poor.
10. Socialism – EU style: You have two cows. You go on strike because the government doesn’t pay you enough to milk them. The government pays you strike wages, hires striking railroad workers to milk the cows and gives striking postal workers the milk at reduced cost.
11. Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors vote on what to do with the milk.
12. Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors elect a leader who tells you what to do with the milk.
13. Democracy – British: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains. They go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
14. Democracy – Floridian: You have two cows, one black and one white. The voters are asked to name which one they prefer. Some who prefer the white cow vote for the black cow. Some vote for both. Some don't vote at all. Some vote for their favorite but their votes are declared invalid. Some can't figure out how to vote in the first place. You learn what a “chad” is. White cow supporters declare that all those who didn’t vote or who voted for both or who couldn’t figure out how to vote really meant to vote for the white cow. After several weeks, outsiders come in and decide the black cow is your favorite.
15. Democracy – South African: You have two cows. One is hijacked and the government redistributes the other one, in pieces, to previously disadvantaged fellow citizens. You live on the milk you stashed away during the apartheid years.
16. Democracy – Canadian: The government gives your two cows to natives with treaty status and subsidizes your milk production attempts.
17. Democracy -- United States #1: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate". You never get your cows.
A) Democracy – United States #2: You have two cows that your parents gave you. The government takes one of them for inheritance taxes. Your job provides you with 1 new cow every month, but once a year, the government takes away 6 of them. The other 6 die within a year due to over milking. For some reason, everybody around you seems to have more cows than you. Eventually you retire and the government provides you with half a cow every month so you don’t starve. Each month you choose whether to eat your ½ cow or sell it to buy the medicine you need to stay alive.
B) Democracy – United States #3: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to pay the taxes. The government sends your tax money and one cow to a man in a foreign country that you’ve never heard of. The other cow is used to provide free milk for unemployed, unwed, crack-whore mothers of 6.
C) Democracy – United States #4: You have two cows. Your neighbors elect someone to tell you who gets the milk. Your neighbors buy Japanese milk that is of better quality and the government pays you a subsidy. You hire illegal aliens to milk your cows for you so you can compete with the Japanese. People are outraged for a week or so and then go back to televised sports. The government grants citizenship to your hired help.
18. 1984ism – You have two cows. The government takes them and arrests you for believing in milk. You love the government.
19. Pure Theocracy: You have two cows. You do with them whatever your government tells you the ruling religion has declared is the will of its god(s).
A) Theocracy – Southern Baptist: You have two cows. They’re not allowed to dance.
B) Theocracy – Catholic: You have two cows. You feel guilty for having cows and go to confession. Your parish priest tells you that having cows is not in and of itself a sin in the eyes of God, but if you are feeling guilty about it, perhaps you should free the cows and say ten Hail Marys.
C) Theocracy – Jewish: You have two cows. You get the U.N. to support you and take Palestinian land to graze them on.
D) Theocracy – Muslim Fanaticism: You have two cows. You strap bombs to their bodies and send them in to blow up things. You blame the great Satan, America, for the lack of cows by Muslims.
E) Theocracy – Muslimism (general): You have two cows. You give them to the families of those Muslims whose cows have exploded.
F) Theocracy – Hinduism: You have two cows. You worship them.
G) Theocracy – Methodistism: You have two cows. You worry if that is fair. You milk them anyway.
20. Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes them, drafts you and shoots your family.
21. Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and declares you never had cows to begin with. You are imprisoned.
22. Feudalism: Your Lord has two cows. You care for them. He takes the milk as rent for the house he lets you live in.
23. Monty Pythonism: You’re part of an autonomous collective which elects a sort of executive officer of the week who decides who gets the cows. You’re always on about being repressed and the violence inherent in the system. You worry about being “put away” because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at you.
24. United Nationsism: You have two cows. France and Russia veto you from milking them. The United States and Britain veto the cows from milking you. China abstains. The world sends you aid. The son of the U.N. General Secretary diverts that aid to his own pocket. You starve. The U.N. commissions an internal study of what went wrong.
25. Monarchy: You have two cows. You give half your milk to the king/queen who waves at you during a parade. Parliament takes the rest of the milk.
26. Pure Bureaucracy: You have two cows. The government regulates what you can feed them, when you can milk them and who can buy the milk. It then takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. It then gives the cow to your neighbor and requires you to fill out forms in triplicate accounting for 5 missing cows.
A) Bureaucracy -- United States: You have two cows. The government takes both, loses one while moving it to a farm in Puerto Rico and forgets to milk the other. You are then paid to not milk cows.
B) Bureaucracy -- European Union: You have two cows. The EU declares them to be fruit in order to conform to a rare Belgian custom of making Cow Jam (jam being required to have at least 45% fruit per EU regulations).
C) Bureaucracy -- British: You have two cows. One has mad cow disease. You get a vet to give the other one the "all clear", and then declare that the mad cow disease epidemic has been remedied.
D) Bureaucracy -- Indian: You have two cows, but, since your worship the cows and have declared them to be holy cows, you cannot tell them what to do, or milk them, or do anything useful with them. The cows however, have no such barriers and they fill your streets with shit. You starve, and the pacifist ruling monks are satisfied.
27. Anarchism: You have two cows. You keep the cows and steal your neighbors's bull. You ignore the government. Meanwhile, your neighbors try to steal the cows and kill you. The cows decide you have no right to do anything with their milk and leave to form their own society.
28. Pure Libertarianism: Go away. What I do with my cows is none of your business.
A) Libertarianism - American: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be "throwing their vote away."
B) Socialist Libertarianism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. Both of you let the cows do what they want.
29. American Democrats: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. You feel guilty about that. You sell the milk for as much as you can get and donate 10% of the net profits of the milk sales to a foundation which raises money for new age artists in New York City. You feel righteous.
30. American Republicans: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. So what, they should get a job.
31. Companionate-Conservatism: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. You hire your neighbors to care for the cows and get a government grant to subsidize their wages. You sell the milk to your workers for exactly what their take home pay is and pocket the profit. The government commends you for your jobs program for the working poor. You feel righteous.
32. Green Partyism: You have 2 cows. You make them wear methane absorption units on their butts.
ECONOMIC/BUSINESS MODELS
1. Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull and increase the size of your herd.
A) Capitalism - Canadian: You have two cows. The bank forecloses on both of them, shoots one, and throws away the milk. You shoot yourself.
B) Capitalism - Enron style: You have two cows. You borrow 80% of the forward value of the two cows from your bank then buy another cow with 5% down and the rest financed by the seller on a note callable if your market cap goes below $20B at a rate 2 times prime. You now sell three cows to your publicly listed company, using Letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at a 2nd bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more and this transaction process is upheld by your independent auditor with no Balance Sheet provided. A press release announces that Enron as a major owner of cows will begin trading cows via the Internet site COW (Cows on Web). Meanwhile, the original two cows get mad cow disease and are destroyed by meat inspectors. The auditors are indicted for fraud. You declare bankruptcy and plead guilty to tax fraud and pay 2% of your income for the past 6 months as a fine and back taxes. You serve 6 months in a country club prison and retire to the Cayman Islands. Your investors get a ½ gallon of sour milk as a return on their investment.
C) Capitalism -- New Economy/E-Commerce: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull, which you use to breed, to the other cow. Then you create a website and start offering to export sperm from the bull to anyone and everyone, especially emerging markets, over the Internet. After a few weeks, your company completes its IPO on NASDAQ, and a few brokerage firms start coverage with a strong buy rating for this wonderful new Internet stock. Your stock zooms from the 10c per share initial offering price to $110, when you sell. The stock plummets back to 12c a few months later when the investors who bought it realize that your business has no earnings yet and never will, despite the Internet presence. Several law firms and the SEC bring various civil and criminal actions against the company, all of the officers and directors and (of course) you, under various fraud theories. You quickly settle the civil cases by selling the cow and the bull so the lawyers get paid, but you still have plenty stashed away. You plead nolo in the SEC case, and you are sentenced to 1 year in prison, of which you actually serve seven weeks. When you come out, you’re hired as the CEO of an E-Commerce consulting company.
D) Capitalism - George W. Bush: You have two cows. You sell stock in them. The government reduces the taxes you have to pay on the capital gains realized from the sale of the stock. You sell the milk for as much as the market will bear, you take the profit received from the sale of milk and the reduced tax burden and pay a dividend to your stock holders and invest the remainder in buying a bull to increase the size of your herd. The government announces it has saved the family farm.
E) Capitalism - John F. Kerry: You have two cows. You sell stock in them and sell the milk they produce for as much as the market will bear. The government raises taxes on the capital gains realized from the sale of the stock and also taxes your investors on the dividends they receive. Your profit margin plummets, you declare an end to dividends, the stock price in your cows plummet, you declare bankruptcy, sell the cows and get welfare benefits paid out of the increased taxes collected from your former stockholders. The government announces it has saved the family farm.
F) Capatilsm - Californian: You have two cows. You sell one of them, and buy a bull. The cow and bull have a great love life; you sell the movie rights to Hollywood. You go into real estate
D) Socialism - See Political systems above
E) Communism - See Political systems above
MISC.
1. Aristocracy: You have two cows. You sell both and buy one really big cow - with a pedigree.
2. Army -- United States: You have two cows. You don't ask. They don't tell.
3. Artist -- Visual: You have two cows. You suspend them in formaldehyde in glass display boxes. In London. Hanging from Tower Bridge.
4. Baathism: You have two cows. They compete in blaming everything on the Jews until the one with the higher milk revenues grows a mustache and starts gassing you. When it attacks your neighbor, the world just pushes it back to your feedlot and says killing it would violate your sovereignty.
5. Centralism: You have two cows. They are in the middle of the field with 100,000,000 other cows.
6. Conservativism: You have two cows. You freeze the milk, embalm the cows and charge people to look at them.
7. Corporation, American: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
8. Corporation, Brazilian: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.
9. Corporation, French: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
10. Corporation, German: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
11. Corporation, Indian: You have two cows. You worship them.
12. Corporation, Italian: You have two cows but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.
13. Corporation, Japanese: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
14. Corporation, Mexican: You think you have two cows, but you don't know what a cow looks like. You take a nap.
15. Corporation, Russian: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
16. Corporation, Swiss: You have 5000 cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge for storing them for others and refuse to divulge who they belong to.
17. Counterculture: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You have got to have some of this milk.
18. Dada: You have two cows. Elephant.
19. Deconstructionism: You have two cows, or is it that two cows have you?
20. Despotism -- Modern: You have two cows. The government steals your cows and shoots you, but in interests of pleasing the global community, name you as a "Militant Rebel Insurgent", call their government an "Enlightened Centralised Executive", and ask for UN peacekeeping troops to come and separate the radical separationist cow-owners from normal people.
21. Dyslexianism: You have two woks.
22. Environmentalism #1: You have two cows. Government regulations require your cows to wear protective headgear so they do not allow bacteria to die and illegalise the killing of parasites by aggravated cows.
23. Environmentalism #2: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
24. Existentialism: You have two cows. You declare "Hell is the cows".
25. Feminism: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
26. Frisbeetarianism: You have two cows. One of them flies up on the roof and gets stuck. You smoke a joint and hope the government provides cow ladders.
27. Idealism: You have two cows. You get married and your partner milks them.
28. Industrialism: You have two cows. You dissect them both, and figure out how to build a milk-factory instead.
29. Liberalism: You have two cows. You give away one cow and get the government to give you a new cow. Then you give them both away.
30. New Dealism: You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. The government insists there is a giant storage tank where all the milk goes.
31. New Zealandism: You have two sheep.
32. Nihilism: There are no cows. There never were. You have a cigarette and a cup of black coffee to ponder the cow-shaped hole in the universe.
33. Pacifism: You have two cows. They stampede you.
34. Perotism: You have two cows. You aren't allowed to sell the milk to Mexico.
35. Platonism: You have a reflection of two perfect cows. Their milk tastes like water. You look for two real cows to milk.
36. Plutocracism: You have two cows. Your richer neighbours get to take one of them and the other's milk because they are richer. In rebellion, you become richer and take three of their cows and the fourth's milk. This continues until the cows decide to invent the concept of "Cow-munism", band together, become richer than everyone, and take everything and its milk.
37. Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallocentric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
38. Protectionism: You have two cows. You can't buy a bull from another country.
39. Redistributionism: You have two cows. Everyone should have the same amount of cow. The government takes both cows, cuts them up, and spends more than the cows are worth giving everyone a little piece of cow.
40. Homer Simpsonism: You have two cows. Mmmm... Cows.
41. Socratic Methodism: How many cows do I have? Why?
42. Surrealism: You have two cows. The government paints one green and requires you to take harmonica lessons.
43. Survivorism: You have two cows. They get taken to a remote farm and go through different challenges to win the "immunity idol". Then they vote each other off and a "jury" of other cows pick one to win a million dollars. The winner eats the money and dies from internal paper cuts and the loser goes on to make millions from sponsors and ads.
44. Taoism: The cow that can be milked is not the true cow.
(Good thing you have two.)
45. The Matrix: There is only "The One" cow.
A) You have two cows. You milk them in slow motion.
B) You believe you have two cows. They turn out to be CGI graphics cows.
NS MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS
1. Deconstructivist: You have two cows, but some argue that numbering them privileges the phallologocentric logical paradigm of the hegemonic patriarchy. Other point out that the taxonomic designation "cows" is oppressive in and of itself. Still others protest that it is speciesist to harvest the milk in the first place. You starve to death and many approve of the positive ecological impact.
2. The Matrix: There are no cows, Neo.
3. The Mindset: You do not have two cows.
EARTH V
1. Mauiwowee: You have two cows. You drink their milk and eat donuts cause you have the munchees.
2. Norleans: You have two cows. You give 10% of their milk to Guido so he won't break your legs.
3. Sharina: You have two cows. The govenment puts them in a factory with milking machines and pays you to operate the machinery and then sells you the milk.
4. VirginIncursion: You have two cows. The government genetically engineers one to produce cheese and the other to make butter.
5. Fodmodmadtol: You have two cows. You're not sure what to do with them.
6. The Great Sixth Reich: You have two cows. The government takes them and gives you airline tickets.
7. Tenebricosis: You have two cows. The government takes them and gives them to Vineyard and drafts you for the army.
8. Vineyard: You have two cows. You get two more from Tenebricosis. The government drafts you for the army and kills the cows to feed you and Tenebricosis's army.
9. Whittier: You have two cows. You tell the world they are god's gift to bulls and invite people to bring their bulls over for a visit.
10. Warta-Endor: You have two cows. The government takes them and pays you a subsistence wage to care for them and sells the milk for a reasonable price.
11. Ato-Sara: You have two cows. They use kung-fu to keep you from milking them.
12. Yafor-2: You have two cows. The government takes them, pays you to care for them and sells the milk to Vineyard and Tenebricosis whose cows have inexplicably died.
13. Wirraway: You have two cows. They don't know where you are.
14. Great Romeo: You have two cows. You keep them in a parking lot and they produce no milk at all.
15. Karond Kar: You have two cows. You sell stock in them. When they dry up and won't produce milk, you kill them, sell the meat and make leather and sell stock in that as well.
16. Zuhair Malak: You have two cows. You wait for Vineyard to tell you if you should milk them or butcher them and in which order to do it.
17. Celack: You have two cows. Everyone else pretends they don't exist.
18. Juliopines: You have two cows. You're thankful no one has taken them from you yet. You get all the milk you can and look for greener pastures to graze them on.
Ok, this is a thread that presents a simplistic, humorous, but somewhat accurate view of different political/economic/social models. I'm including in the list some Earth V nations as well (where I do most of my RP's). This is called "The Two Cows" approach - some of you, maybe all of you, have heard of or read some of this. Additional suggestions for inclusion are fine - In fact feel free to describe your nation or someone elses (but no mean spirited stuff, this is all in fun) ;)
********************************************************
GOVERNMENT/POLITICAL MODELS
1. Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all get as much milk as you need.
2. Communism -- African: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives you spoiled milk. You take the spoiled milk, mix it with blood and urine from your other cow, make booze and get drunk. You give the other cow away as a dowery gift.
3. Communism -- Cambodian: You have two cows. The government shoots you.
4. Communism -- Chinese Cultural Revolution: You have two cows. The government declares they are "pigs", and launches a campaign to convince you to donate them "voluntarily" to provide meat for workers in the city. The government then declares that people don't need pigs to make pork. Quoting the correct phrases from your little red book, you and your neighbors try to create pork from sheer willpower. Your local party leader reports that you have exceeded all expectations. You and your neighbors starve.
A) Communism -- Modern Chinese #1: You don't have any cows. The government sets up a joint venture with McDonald’s, copies its techniques and opens a line of counterfeit restaurants selling pork burgers.
B) Communism -- Modern Chinese #2: You have two cows. You take care of them. The government takes all the milk but you steal some of it back (before someone else does) and sell it on the black market in Hong Kong. The government commends your efforts to improve the local economy, takes your cows and sells them to McDonald’s.
5. Communism -- Cuban: Fidel Castro has two cows. They are F1's, a cross between the Cebu cow and the Holstein cow. Only one cow, "White Udder," works. When she dies she is stuffed and placed in a museum by Castro, "The Dictator of the Cows," where "future generations could admire her magnificent udders." You have not seen milk since 1965.
A) Communism: -- Cuban #1: You have two cows. Fidel imports hay, at a reduced cost, from Russia to feed them, charges you full price for the hay, takes the milk, gives it to his best buddies and rewards you for your milk production with a box of cigars.
B) Communism – Cuban #2: You have two cows, they sail to Miami.
6. Communism -- North Korean: You have two cows. The government takes them and sells them on the international black market for weapons grade uranium. You nearly starve. The government then offers the world not to nuke it if the international community provides aid for its starving citizens.
7. Communism – Soviet: You have two cows. The government puts them in a barn with everyone elses cows, pays chicken farmers to care for them and sends you to a gulag for not buying as much milk as regulations say you need.
8. Pure Socialism: The government has two cows. It pays you a fair wage to care for them and sells you the milk for a fair price.
9. Socialism – “Nanny State:” You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your cowless neighbor. You both care for them and get all the milk the government says you need from your respective cows. The government buys the excess at a government established fair market price and distributes it freely to the poor.
10. Socialism – EU style: You have two cows. You go on strike because the government doesn’t pay you enough to milk them. The government pays you strike wages, hires striking railroad workers to milk the cows and gives striking postal workers the milk at reduced cost.
11. Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors vote on what to do with the milk.
12. Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors elect a leader who tells you what to do with the milk.
13. Democracy – British: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains. They go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
14. Democracy – Floridian: You have two cows, one black and one white. The voters are asked to name which one they prefer. Some who prefer the white cow vote for the black cow. Some vote for both. Some don't vote at all. Some vote for their favorite but their votes are declared invalid. Some can't figure out how to vote in the first place. You learn what a “chad” is. White cow supporters declare that all those who didn’t vote or who voted for both or who couldn’t figure out how to vote really meant to vote for the white cow. After several weeks, outsiders come in and decide the black cow is your favorite.
15. Democracy – South African: You have two cows. One is hijacked and the government redistributes the other one, in pieces, to previously disadvantaged fellow citizens. You live on the milk you stashed away during the apartheid years.
16. Democracy – Canadian: The government gives your two cows to natives with treaty status and subsidizes your milk production attempts.
17. Democracy -- United States #1: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate". You never get your cows.
A) Democracy – United States #2: You have two cows that your parents gave you. The government takes one of them for inheritance taxes. Your job provides you with 1 new cow every month, but once a year, the government takes away 6 of them. The other 6 die within a year due to over milking. For some reason, everybody around you seems to have more cows than you. Eventually you retire and the government provides you with half a cow every month so you don’t starve. Each month you choose whether to eat your ½ cow or sell it to buy the medicine you need to stay alive.
B) Democracy – United States #3: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to pay the taxes. The government sends your tax money and one cow to a man in a foreign country that you’ve never heard of. The other cow is used to provide free milk for unemployed, unwed, crack-whore mothers of 6.
C) Democracy – United States #4: You have two cows. Your neighbors elect someone to tell you who gets the milk. Your neighbors buy Japanese milk that is of better quality and the government pays you a subsidy. You hire illegal aliens to milk your cows for you so you can compete with the Japanese. People are outraged for a week or so and then go back to televised sports. The government grants citizenship to your hired help.
18. 1984ism – You have two cows. The government takes them and arrests you for believing in milk. You love the government.
19. Pure Theocracy: You have two cows. You do with them whatever your government tells you the ruling religion has declared is the will of its god(s).
A) Theocracy – Southern Baptist: You have two cows. They’re not allowed to dance.
B) Theocracy – Catholic: You have two cows. You feel guilty for having cows and go to confession. Your parish priest tells you that having cows is not in and of itself a sin in the eyes of God, but if you are feeling guilty about it, perhaps you should free the cows and say ten Hail Marys.
C) Theocracy – Jewish: You have two cows. You get the U.N. to support you and take Palestinian land to graze them on.
D) Theocracy – Muslim Fanaticism: You have two cows. You strap bombs to their bodies and send them in to blow up things. You blame the great Satan, America, for the lack of cows by Muslims.
E) Theocracy – Muslimism (general): You have two cows. You give them to the families of those Muslims whose cows have exploded.
F) Theocracy – Hinduism: You have two cows. You worship them.
G) Theocracy – Methodistism: You have two cows. You worry if that is fair. You milk them anyway.
20. Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes them, drafts you and shoots your family.
21. Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and declares you never had cows to begin with. You are imprisoned.
22. Feudalism: Your Lord has two cows. You care for them. He takes the milk as rent for the house he lets you live in.
23. Monty Pythonism: You’re part of an autonomous collective which elects a sort of executive officer of the week who decides who gets the cows. You’re always on about being repressed and the violence inherent in the system. You worry about being “put away” because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at you.
24. United Nationsism: You have two cows. France and Russia veto you from milking them. The United States and Britain veto the cows from milking you. China abstains. The world sends you aid. The son of the U.N. General Secretary diverts that aid to his own pocket. You starve. The U.N. commissions an internal study of what went wrong.
25. Monarchy: You have two cows. You give half your milk to the king/queen who waves at you during a parade. Parliament takes the rest of the milk.
26. Pure Bureaucracy: You have two cows. The government regulates what you can feed them, when you can milk them and who can buy the milk. It then takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. It then gives the cow to your neighbor and requires you to fill out forms in triplicate accounting for 5 missing cows.
A) Bureaucracy -- United States: You have two cows. The government takes both, loses one while moving it to a farm in Puerto Rico and forgets to milk the other. You are then paid to not milk cows.
B) Bureaucracy -- European Union: You have two cows. The EU declares them to be fruit in order to conform to a rare Belgian custom of making Cow Jam (jam being required to have at least 45% fruit per EU regulations).
C) Bureaucracy -- British: You have two cows. One has mad cow disease. You get a vet to give the other one the "all clear", and then declare that the mad cow disease epidemic has been remedied.
D) Bureaucracy -- Indian: You have two cows, but, since your worship the cows and have declared them to be holy cows, you cannot tell them what to do, or milk them, or do anything useful with them. The cows however, have no such barriers and they fill your streets with shit. You starve, and the pacifist ruling monks are satisfied.
27. Anarchism: You have two cows. You keep the cows and steal your neighbors's bull. You ignore the government. Meanwhile, your neighbors try to steal the cows and kill you. The cows decide you have no right to do anything with their milk and leave to form their own society.
28. Pure Libertarianism: Go away. What I do with my cows is none of your business.
A) Libertarianism - American: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be "throwing their vote away."
B) Socialist Libertarianism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. Both of you let the cows do what they want.
29. American Democrats: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. You feel guilty about that. You sell the milk for as much as you can get and donate 10% of the net profits of the milk sales to a foundation which raises money for new age artists in New York City. You feel righteous.
30. American Republicans: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. So what, they should get a job.
31. Companionate-Conservatism: You have two cows. Your neighbors have none. You hire your neighbors to care for the cows and get a government grant to subsidize their wages. You sell the milk to your workers for exactly what their take home pay is and pocket the profit. The government commends you for your jobs program for the working poor. You feel righteous.
32. Green Partyism: You have 2 cows. You make them wear methane absorption units on their butts.
ECONOMIC/BUSINESS MODELS
1. Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull and increase the size of your herd.
A) Capitalism - Canadian: You have two cows. The bank forecloses on both of them, shoots one, and throws away the milk. You shoot yourself.
B) Capitalism - Enron style: You have two cows. You borrow 80% of the forward value of the two cows from your bank then buy another cow with 5% down and the rest financed by the seller on a note callable if your market cap goes below $20B at a rate 2 times prime. You now sell three cows to your publicly listed company, using Letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at a 2nd bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more and this transaction process is upheld by your independent auditor with no Balance Sheet provided. A press release announces that Enron as a major owner of cows will begin trading cows via the Internet site COW (Cows on Web). Meanwhile, the original two cows get mad cow disease and are destroyed by meat inspectors. The auditors are indicted for fraud. You declare bankruptcy and plead guilty to tax fraud and pay 2% of your income for the past 6 months as a fine and back taxes. You serve 6 months in a country club prison and retire to the Cayman Islands. Your investors get a ½ gallon of sour milk as a return on their investment.
C) Capitalism -- New Economy/E-Commerce: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull, which you use to breed, to the other cow. Then you create a website and start offering to export sperm from the bull to anyone and everyone, especially emerging markets, over the Internet. After a few weeks, your company completes its IPO on NASDAQ, and a few brokerage firms start coverage with a strong buy rating for this wonderful new Internet stock. Your stock zooms from the 10c per share initial offering price to $110, when you sell. The stock plummets back to 12c a few months later when the investors who bought it realize that your business has no earnings yet and never will, despite the Internet presence. Several law firms and the SEC bring various civil and criminal actions against the company, all of the officers and directors and (of course) you, under various fraud theories. You quickly settle the civil cases by selling the cow and the bull so the lawyers get paid, but you still have plenty stashed away. You plead nolo in the SEC case, and you are sentenced to 1 year in prison, of which you actually serve seven weeks. When you come out, you’re hired as the CEO of an E-Commerce consulting company.
D) Capitalism - George W. Bush: You have two cows. You sell stock in them. The government reduces the taxes you have to pay on the capital gains realized from the sale of the stock. You sell the milk for as much as the market will bear, you take the profit received from the sale of milk and the reduced tax burden and pay a dividend to your stock holders and invest the remainder in buying a bull to increase the size of your herd. The government announces it has saved the family farm.
E) Capitalism - John F. Kerry: You have two cows. You sell stock in them and sell the milk they produce for as much as the market will bear. The government raises taxes on the capital gains realized from the sale of the stock and also taxes your investors on the dividends they receive. Your profit margin plummets, you declare an end to dividends, the stock price in your cows plummet, you declare bankruptcy, sell the cows and get welfare benefits paid out of the increased taxes collected from your former stockholders. The government announces it has saved the family farm.
F) Capatilsm - Californian: You have two cows. You sell one of them, and buy a bull. The cow and bull have a great love life; you sell the movie rights to Hollywood. You go into real estate
D) Socialism - See Political systems above
E) Communism - See Political systems above
MISC.
1. Aristocracy: You have two cows. You sell both and buy one really big cow - with a pedigree.
2. Army -- United States: You have two cows. You don't ask. They don't tell.
3. Artist -- Visual: You have two cows. You suspend them in formaldehyde in glass display boxes. In London. Hanging from Tower Bridge.
4. Baathism: You have two cows. They compete in blaming everything on the Jews until the one with the higher milk revenues grows a mustache and starts gassing you. When it attacks your neighbor, the world just pushes it back to your feedlot and says killing it would violate your sovereignty.
5. Centralism: You have two cows. They are in the middle of the field with 100,000,000 other cows.
6. Conservativism: You have two cows. You freeze the milk, embalm the cows and charge people to look at them.
7. Corporation, American: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
8. Corporation, Brazilian: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.
9. Corporation, French: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
10. Corporation, German: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
11. Corporation, Indian: You have two cows. You worship them.
12. Corporation, Italian: You have two cows but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.
13. Corporation, Japanese: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
14. Corporation, Mexican: You think you have two cows, but you don't know what a cow looks like. You take a nap.
15. Corporation, Russian: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
16. Corporation, Swiss: You have 5000 cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge for storing them for others and refuse to divulge who they belong to.
17. Counterculture: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You have got to have some of this milk.
18. Dada: You have two cows. Elephant.
19. Deconstructionism: You have two cows, or is it that two cows have you?
20. Despotism -- Modern: You have two cows. The government steals your cows and shoots you, but in interests of pleasing the global community, name you as a "Militant Rebel Insurgent", call their government an "Enlightened Centralised Executive", and ask for UN peacekeeping troops to come and separate the radical separationist cow-owners from normal people.
21. Dyslexianism: You have two woks.
22. Environmentalism #1: You have two cows. Government regulations require your cows to wear protective headgear so they do not allow bacteria to die and illegalise the killing of parasites by aggravated cows.
23. Environmentalism #2: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
24. Existentialism: You have two cows. You declare "Hell is the cows".
25. Feminism: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
26. Frisbeetarianism: You have two cows. One of them flies up on the roof and gets stuck. You smoke a joint and hope the government provides cow ladders.
27. Idealism: You have two cows. You get married and your partner milks them.
28. Industrialism: You have two cows. You dissect them both, and figure out how to build a milk-factory instead.
29. Liberalism: You have two cows. You give away one cow and get the government to give you a new cow. Then you give them both away.
30. New Dealism: You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. The government insists there is a giant storage tank where all the milk goes.
31. New Zealandism: You have two sheep.
32. Nihilism: There are no cows. There never were. You have a cigarette and a cup of black coffee to ponder the cow-shaped hole in the universe.
33. Pacifism: You have two cows. They stampede you.
34. Perotism: You have two cows. You aren't allowed to sell the milk to Mexico.
35. Platonism: You have a reflection of two perfect cows. Their milk tastes like water. You look for two real cows to milk.
36. Plutocracism: You have two cows. Your richer neighbours get to take one of them and the other's milk because they are richer. In rebellion, you become richer and take three of their cows and the fourth's milk. This continues until the cows decide to invent the concept of "Cow-munism", band together, become richer than everyone, and take everything and its milk.
37. Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallocentric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
38. Protectionism: You have two cows. You can't buy a bull from another country.
39. Redistributionism: You have two cows. Everyone should have the same amount of cow. The government takes both cows, cuts them up, and spends more than the cows are worth giving everyone a little piece of cow.
40. Homer Simpsonism: You have two cows. Mmmm... Cows.
41. Socratic Methodism: How many cows do I have? Why?
42. Surrealism: You have two cows. The government paints one green and requires you to take harmonica lessons.
43. Survivorism: You have two cows. They get taken to a remote farm and go through different challenges to win the "immunity idol". Then they vote each other off and a "jury" of other cows pick one to win a million dollars. The winner eats the money and dies from internal paper cuts and the loser goes on to make millions from sponsors and ads.
44. Taoism: The cow that can be milked is not the true cow.
(Good thing you have two.)
45. The Matrix: There is only "The One" cow.
A) You have two cows. You milk them in slow motion.
B) You believe you have two cows. They turn out to be CGI graphics cows.
NS MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS
1. Deconstructivist: You have two cows, but some argue that numbering them privileges the phallologocentric logical paradigm of the hegemonic patriarchy. Other point out that the taxonomic designation "cows" is oppressive in and of itself. Still others protest that it is speciesist to harvest the milk in the first place. You starve to death and many approve of the positive ecological impact.
2. The Matrix: There are no cows, Neo.
3. The Mindset: You do not have two cows.
EARTH V
1. Mauiwowee: You have two cows. You drink their milk and eat donuts cause you have the munchees.
2. Norleans: You have two cows. You give 10% of their milk to Guido so he won't break your legs.
3. Sharina: You have two cows. The govenment puts them in a factory with milking machines and pays you to operate the machinery and then sells you the milk.
4. VirginIncursion: You have two cows. The government genetically engineers one to produce cheese and the other to make butter.
5. Fodmodmadtol: You have two cows. You're not sure what to do with them.
6. The Great Sixth Reich: You have two cows. The government takes them and gives you airline tickets.
7. Tenebricosis: You have two cows. The government takes them and gives them to Vineyard and drafts you for the army.
8. Vineyard: You have two cows. You get two more from Tenebricosis. The government drafts you for the army and kills the cows to feed you and Tenebricosis's army.
9. Whittier: You have two cows. You tell the world they are god's gift to bulls and invite people to bring their bulls over for a visit.
10. Warta-Endor: You have two cows. The government takes them and pays you a subsistence wage to care for them and sells the milk for a reasonable price.
11. Ato-Sara: You have two cows. They use kung-fu to keep you from milking them.
12. Yafor-2: You have two cows. The government takes them, pays you to care for them and sells the milk to Vineyard and Tenebricosis whose cows have inexplicably died.
13. Wirraway: You have two cows. They don't know where you are.
14. Great Romeo: You have two cows. You keep them in a parking lot and they produce no milk at all.
15. Karond Kar: You have two cows. You sell stock in them. When they dry up and won't produce milk, you kill them, sell the meat and make leather and sell stock in that as well.
16. Zuhair Malak: You have two cows. You wait for Vineyard to tell you if you should milk them or butcher them and in which order to do it.
17. Celack: You have two cows. Everyone else pretends they don't exist.
18. Juliopines: You have two cows. You're thankful no one has taken them from you yet. You get all the milk you can and look for greener pastures to graze them on.