Two Cow Politics

Political Philosophies Explained in Simple "Two Cow" Terms

There's one missing!! -- see bottom of page, DontchaHateItWhen

Socialism: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Stalinism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and shoots you for not meeting the quota.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes them and sells you the milk.

Bureaucracy: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and try to buy a bull. The bull monopoly won't have any of it though.

Corporatism: You have two cows. You sell one, force the other to produce the milk of four cows and then act surprised when it drops dead.

Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors tell you when to feed and milk them.

Youtube: Cat milking two cows video goes viral

Fox News: Big Dairy Scandal: The cow is not drinkable and the milk will not moo! – It's Obama's fault. Senate hearing planned. Stay tuned.

NBC News: New Berkeley research shows plutocrats get all the milk and make the rest clean up cow patties.

Imperialism: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow which was a gift from your government. Of course, you still get milk and beef since the small print on the 'gift' means your government gets to pull 10x the cows worth out of said foreign country.

British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government does nothing.

Some of the preceding are not quite accurate if you ask me. These are the corrected versions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes all the milk you produce and then gives you back as much as you can prove you need, which could possibly be more than you produced. The proof of need consists of a lot of complicated bureaucratic paperwork, but generally, the more you produce, the less you need.

Communism: The government has two cows. You are not allowed to own cows. And if you milk them without permission, you'll be shot.

Stalinism: same as Communism.

Fascism: You have the titles of ownership on two cows, but the government actually controls who can milk them, where they are kept, and who gets the milk. So you never see them.

Capitalism: You have two cows and you can do whatever you want with them because they're private property. But you better not let them graze on anybody else's private property.

Corporate: You have ten shares of a herd of cows, and your dividends are paid in milk. Last time you checked, the herd numbered at 1.8 heads per share. Last quarter the stock yielded 6.7 liters of milk per share. The stock was up 0.16 yesterday in heavy trading. Oh, and vote Cowboy Bob for board of directors.

Democracy: Your whole town owns a herd of cows, and you get to vote on milk distribution plans, but you need ten thousand signatures to get your milk distribution plan on the ballot, and for some reason the only plans you can vote for in each election are plans where you don't get any milk.

AntiTrust?: You have two cows and you can sort of do whatever you want with them, but if you refuse to sell the milk, you're hoarding, and if you charge too much for it, then you're gouging, and if you charge too little for it or give it away, you're competing unfairly, and if you charge the same as everybody else, you're colluding to fix prices.

MixedEconomy: You have two cows and the government takes 30% of their milk, and also tells you exactly how to milk them, and if you milk them incorrectly you are fined.

Again, must disagree.

Socialism: You own two cows. The government comes, milks the cows, gives you the milk you need, gives the rest to your neighbor and gives you his excess eggs. Neither of you starve.

True Communism: There is no "government". You are a member of an agricultural army that milks the two cows and cares for the chickens. Everyone gets eggs and milk.

Practiced Communism: The government takes away your cows and gives them to your neighbor. You receive your neighbors chickens. Both are less productive since you have no idea how to care for the others animals. The government takes all the products, and the original animals, shoots you and allows your family to starve.

Stalinism: The cows are shot, as they were members of a plot to overthrow the government.

Capitalism: You can own the cows, but only if you pay the company that altered their genetics and even then the price of your milk will be undercut by a large firm, requiring you to sell your cows and work for minimum wage, until the next economic down turn when you are made redundant.

Libertarian Capitalism: Same as above, except you don't care since you have cheap weed.

America: You have subsidies to help support you and the cows, but the tax code is so complex in order to receive these subsidies you must pay a lawyer more than you receive for the subsidies. In the end you discover that you can buy more milk if you sue McDonalds for not allowing your "support cow" in the restaurant.

Imperialism: You theoretically own two cows. You don't see the cows, since they are cared for by natives paid in coloured glass beads, but you receive more milk than if you cared for two cows yourself, so you assume they exist.

NATO: You own two cows in a minor country. The US decides you are unfairly competing with their cow owners, so the get a couple of their friends together and they bomb your country into oblivion. They then hand you money, and offer you the opportunity to move to the US, where they need experienced cow owners.

There's one missing!! (shifted from top of page)

European Law: You used to have two cows, but the EC has never agreed a definition of "cow" so you now have two Domesticated Mammals (Bovine) Female Production (Beef Products). Nowhere in the definition does it say "milk" so you are no allowed to sell milk, on pain of a huge fine. You can, however, get "Milk set-aside" for NOT milking them (even though you can't milk them) and all the milk you milk (but don't milk) can be poured away, so you get another subsidy for NOT adding to the European Milk Lake, and although you are free to export your cows to any other part of the European Economic Area, you need to prove your herd and every other herd for miles (sorry kilometers) around is and always has been free of BSE, swine vesicular disease and Plum Spot Mould but the moment you transport them into France a bunch of angry farmers sets fire to your truck. As the cows have been exported but not re-imported and since they have not been sold to any other EU Registered Business, you can continue to receive all the subsidies but there are 12 forms to complete each year. Then the area around your farm is re-designated Objective 2 (industrial) instead of Objective 5 (agricultural) so cows are no longer allowed but you can get a one-off payment in compensation provided you promise never to keep any more cows (which you aren't) or milk them (which you don't). Instead, you get a grant for a small factory which you don't build, get another subsidy for employing 10 people then a cash grant to pay their redundancy when you sack them the next day and because you're a new busoiness there's a free computer and a one-year course at the local tech. You choose Amnimal Husbandry because there's a strong possibility that next year the EC will decide there aren't enough cows in Europe so you'll get another grant for changing your industrial land back into farming land and all the same subsidies for NOT producing milk or beef. At the same time you decide to apply for set-aside subsidies NOT to grow bananas (which you couldn't even if you wanted to), lupins (because there's a lupin glut) or rape seed (because the EC Equal Oppportunities Commissioner is taking five years to decide whether the word "rape" is offensive to rape victims and thus the word cannot be used in any Common Agricultural Policy document, therefore Rape seed doesn't, officially, exist). You do, however, grow plums, but can't sell them to the local jam factory because officially they are a vegetable not a fruit and there is no definition of "jam" which the Greeks will accept. Instead, you get paid to eat them yourself. However, you make the mistake of recording the crop in Pounds instead of Kilograms and the fine puts you out of business. So you shoot yourself, and the EC is happy that there is one less farmer to worry about.

Another one missing! ANARCHISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor hits you over the head with a brick, steals your cows, then shoots them for fun. You later discover that he is a Nazi.

This seems more accurate to me.

Imperialism - You have two cows. A foreign government takes your cows, milks them, and then returns them to you after thinking about it for a while. - AndreVan

British Imperialism - You and your neighbor each have one cow. The Brits invade, give your cow to your neighbor, and your neighbor's to you. You and your neighbor will not stop arguing over the cows, as each wants their own cow back but is unwilling to relinquish their new cow. The Brits decide all the arguing isn't worth their time and leave the two of you to argue into eternity.

Taken from another page.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

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 neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

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

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: 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".

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheeps' brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

BUREAUCRACY: 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 cows.

ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

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 Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shui is bad.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

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

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering,intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. {Isn't that called "Harmocracy"?}

JAPANESE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.

CategoryJoke, CategoryRant (for obvious political overtones)