Victory of the Parasites?

A lot of commentary out there on John Hinderaker's latest piece, where he is a bit stunned at how close the polling is for the 2012 election, given the naked truth about how poorly the nation is faring under Barack Obama's governing philosophy.

He postulates:

I am afraid the problem in this year’s race is economic self-interest: we are perilously close to the point where 50% of our population cares more about the money it gets (or expects to get) from government than about the well-being of the nation as a whole.

Mr. Hinderaker is right.  When 47% of the population are parasites, all it takes is some guilty suburbanites and confused college students to tip the scales against the host permanently.

I remain optimistic that Mitt's gonna win - big - but I am not naive enough to rule out The Hindenraker Scenario.

What happens, however, when the parasites overtake the host and grab control of the body?  For a time there is feasting, as all defenses are down and gouging is enabled at a higher degree than ever before.

Of course, the host, now weakened by the insatiable appetites of the parasitic swarm devouring him, no longer can produce enough to feed their growing numbers and the increased demand on his body.

So the host dies.

With all ability to create sustenance for themselves long since bred out, the parasites die out as well, almost immediately afterwards.

Alas, parasites cannot see all the way to logical conclusion of their social economy.  It would require them to think...and parasites don't do that.


Further reading/viewing:


The Wikipedia definition is biological, but the social analogies are clearly present:

Parasitism is a type of non mutual relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host....
...parasites are generally much smaller than their host; both are special cases of consumer-resource interactions. Parasites show a high degree of specialization, and reproduce at a faster rate than their hosts...
Parasitism is differentiated from the parasitoid relationship, though not sharply, by the fact that parasitoids generally kill or sterilise their hosts.

Parasites reduce host fitness in many ways, ranging from general or specialized pathology, such as parasitic castration and impairment of secondary sex characteristics, to the modification of host behaviour. Parasites increase their fitness by exploiting hosts for resources necessary for the parasite's survival, e.g. food, water, heat, habitat, and genetic dispersion...


Or perhaps better explained by East Germany's favorite cat and mouse team, Worker and Parasite:




Rumor has it this video drew big cheers last week at the DNC...