Rabbits and A Tiger

By Toby Maloney

Many years ago I met a jolly and good natured fellow, and this despite his physical disabilities. He was good humoured and he also had an almost encyclopaedic memory, so he could quote you many wise and interesting things that had been said through the ages.

A more plausible and likeable fellow I have never met. I loved him dearly.

He came, I suppose, to believe that well known conception of the honest woodman: that you can fool all the people some of the time, some all the time, but not all for all the time. As a result he resolved to seek out from the folk around him what they thought, for he knew that they were not wrong, at least, not all the time.

So every Sunday, this almost religious tenet drove him into the market places. Here he asked important questions and noted the answers of all that would hesitate long enough to endure him.

Many such types who run questionnaires, or act as highly moral journalists in the service of our ever-vigilant media, have a normal line of questioning which runs to penetrating questions such as “Is it true that you murdered your Grandmother last week with a club for three shillings and sixpence?” If you say “No” the immediately rejoinder is “Then you deny that you murdered your Grandmother last week with a club for three shillings and sixpence do you?”

My friend, of course, would never have asked such questions.

However he was given at times to posing bland and hypothetical conundrums such as, for instance:

1. Do you think money grows on trees?

2. Do you sometimes suspect that some human agency may be creating it?

3. As the money supply increased by 10% last year, how is this possible if all means of creating it out of nothing are illegal?

4. If government creates any of it, why is it never listed as revenue in the Treasury’s Annual Budgets?

This sort of nonsense is of course completely reprehensible, and ought never to be asked, let alone answered. Yet somehow in spite of his appalling bad taste, one was tempted to forgive him.

Of course, Sunday after Sunday, he asked thousands upon thousands of questions about immigration, import duties, taxation, criminal law and the constitution. However, the ones which drew the most profound interest that he ever raised were (1) Do you like peanut butter sandwiches? (2) Would your dog bite if sufficiently provoked? & (3) Why did the Voter cross the road?

Now all this polling of “the will of the body politic” brought him to a high fervour. Poor Yorick! To him, if the prevailing view of 51% was that tomatoes should be taxed at 1.37%, it was as good as enshrined in legislation before sundown - that’s democracy, he’d say.

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He’d lived in a democracy all his life, he would declare, and he planned to die in one also, unless a better idea came along which he would immediately reject, of course, as impossible.

So he would collate the results of his consultations with public opinion, and hurry them off to the government, knowing that what the people think is eagerly anticipated and acted upon with resolution and expedition.

Now one day a gentleman with every appearance of respectability and sanity came to our Yorick and asked questions of him, instead. Firstly he asked:

1. “If it is possible for a Tiger to whisper into the ear of one politician, do you suppose it might be possible for him to also whisper into the ear of another?”

“I suppose it might,” said Yorick.

2. “Now if it were possible for a Tiger to make lots of money- (“You mean earn lots?” interjected Yorick. “No I mean make” replied the gentleman) “do you suppose that he may ladle a little into any ear into which he whispered?”

            “He could with the right funnel,” said Yorick.

3. “Now while the Tiger is whispering into one ear, do you suppose that with enough money and thought, he might hire perhaps 27 others to whisper many disparate and conflicting notions simultaneously into the other?”

            “He could,” said Yorick.

4. And may he perfume the air about him, and safely leave it to the clever people to smell the advantage of closely associating with the Tiger?

            “Absolutely,” said Yorick.

“Well then,” said the gentleman, “I admire your efforts towards democracy, and would like to assist you to see how effective you can really be. By answering just two questions, you can grow in this important wisdom. Will you do it?”

“Of course,” said Yorick.

“Then what say ye my good Yorick to these:

“How many rabbits does it take to kill a Tiger, or defeat him in combat?

“And secondly, what percentage of rabbits show a propensity to attack tigers?”

Surely there could not be more to politics than democratic ideals?

With the above thoughts in mind, we might consider the case of a tiger called Arabella. This tigress lives in the US and in 2020 spent $1.2 billion on “social causes”. It funds and is funded by a mixture of entities. These include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, Good Information, and the North Fund. Their social causes include supporting gun control, amnesty for illegal immigrants, fossil fuel bans, legalising marijuana, relaxing voting laws, taxpayer funded abortion and other noble efforts.1

While this tiger is known to be largely fed by George Soros, other donors include Hansjorg Wyss, Reid Hoffman and of course, the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation which has given $250 million since 2009. Their donations can remain anonymous if they wish.

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Those in the rabbit class, however, not having tax free foundations and sophisticated legal structures, can’t give more than $200 to a political party without their donations being recorded and published.

To rephrase the conundrum, how many openly given donations of $200 does it take to outdo $1.2 billion given anonymously? Six million is the answer, though the next question is “Can six million be found who will throw $200 each at a tiger?” And a further important consideration is that Arabella obviously knows her way around the top end of town, rather better than do six million amateur (if not witless) rabbits. 

The Tiger has to be seen as the odds-on favourite thus far. Because the animal which can create all money costlessly, own it, and employ it at will, has won all rounds hitherto. And furthermore, the propensity of six million rabbits to come hopping over the hill with malicious intent towards tigers, is yet to be observed.

Still, with the truth all things are possible, and perhaps the six million are just on the other side of the horizon?

1  A expose of Arabella {Video Below}

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