Squirrels and Democracy

Squirrels live in a Darwinian world. The strong survive. They try to plunder each other's cache of nuts, or they try to gather their own nuts. Ether way, each squirrel is trying to survive, and trying to see that their genes are reproduced and survive. There are two ways to do this; plunder or gather your own nuts.

Squirrels are creative in gathering and protecting their nuts. They will pretend to bury a nut in order to throw off an onlooker who is waiting to plunder.

This is a harsh world squirrels live in. They are victims of each other's plunder and they are victims of predators. Some squirrels decided there was a better way. They decided to create a democracy for mutual protection, and they decided to prohibit plunder.

After the Squirrel Democratic Republic was created each squirrel could vote to elect a squirrel to represent them. The country was proud of the rights afforded to each squirrel. No longer would plunder be allowed.

The squirrel republic needed first to hire soldiers to protect the republic because they knew plunder was part of a squirrel's soul. The soldiers were the first to get a few nuts from those who gathered nuts.

A justice system was created to punish those who plundered. The judges also got a few nuts from those who gathered nuts.

Soon other squirrels formed their own republics, hired warrior squirrels, and the plunder began on a group basis.

Some squirrels decided it would be best if some of the nuts gathered would be shared with the less fortunate squirrels because some squirrels were not as swift and strong as other squirrels. The advocates for this system believed each squirrel would have a better chance of survival, thus strengthening the republic.

As winters passed it became apparent there were more squirrels in need of a share of the nuts gathered by the swift and strong. Each winter the supply of nuts gathered became less as the number of the swift and strong decreased. The weak seemed to thrive and reproduce. This meant the republic had to plunder other groups to get the required nuts for the republic.

The next winter was one of the worst in the republic's history. The supply of nuts was low because many squirrels had not gathered their usual large cache. The lack of nuts caused death and suffering among the squirrels.

The following spring, one squirrel candidate campaigned on a platform of taking a larger portion of nuts from the greedy squirrels and giving more nuts to those who did not have the ability to gather their own nuts.

The candidate also said he would provide more nuts for those capable of gathering nuts. He did not say how he would grow more nuts to gather.

He won the election, and continued the plunder.

Charles Tolleson, Squirrel Hunter