Native Americans (often referred to derogatorily as "Indians") never owned land. They saw themselves as caretakers and had the wisdom to respect others’ right to walk upon the land. If only the White Man had befriended them and left them in peace, he would have learned a lot from them and been better off for it.
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that: when you discover you are riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.
However, in our government, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger (and more expensive) whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging trips to other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase efficiency.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some live horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course....
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
If you don't understand the stupidity in this reasoning, you probably are happy with the way our tax money is being spent... and that would totally make you part of the problem!
[First posted 1 January 2012, reposted 24 February 2014 & 5 November 2015]
[Dead Horse story courtesy of Olivia de Haulleville]