Once upon a time there was a fox. His name was Mac. While all foxes take pride in being sly, there is a point in Foxworld when a fox is no longer considered sly and becomes sneaky. Mac was sneaky. Whenever there was a disagreement among the foxes about what to do, Mac would tell each of the foxes that he was on their side, regardless of what side they were on.
For example, there had once been a Leader of Foxworld. This Leader stood out among the other foxes because he had a coat of bright orange. Mac was a friend of the Orange Fox. The Orange Fox loved being the Leader. He loved it so much that when the other foxes decided it was time for a change, he led a revolt against the foxes themselves. This was unheard of. It was so bad that after it failed, Mac turned against the Orange Fox. He said horrible things about him, calling him names that no Leader had ever been called before. He even called him a “liar.” Now, all foxes were liars, but none of them ever admitted it and certainly none ever spoke of other foxes that way.
But then, only a few days later, when it appeared that the Orange Fox could still do Mac some good, Mac changed his tune. He went to the den where the Orange Fox lived, a very elaborate den called, “Bizarre-A-Lago.” Mac made a staged point of showing that he was the Orange Fox’s friend again. No one ever knew where Mac really stood except that he always stood for himself.
It then came to pass that a position opened up in the fox leadership that Mac wanted to have. It was a powerful position. The fox in that position had great influence over deciding what the pack of foxes would do, where they would hunt, what farms they would invade. This fox even had the power to choose mates for foxes to reproduce with. Mac was really looking forward to being able to do that.
To get that job, Mac needed a majority of the foxes to agree that he could have it. Most of the foxes agreed and voted for him. It wasn’t that they liked Mac so much, it was just that the job was a such a pain in the ass that not many foxes wanted it. Remember, foxes are sly, not stupid.
But there was a problem. There were a few foxes who really didn’t like Mac, not one bit. These foxes didn’t really like anybody very much. They hated foxes that were different colors than they were; they hated foxes that came from different areas of the forest than they did, and so on – you get the point. They also had a lot of other stupid ideas – they believed that cows were kidnapping young foxes and holding them hostage in the basement of a butcher shop. They believed that certain trees were wired and sending videos of them to other forests. They were crazy. They called themselves the “Freedom Foxes.”
The Freedom Foxes kept insisting that Mac give them things in order to get their votes. First, they demanded that Mac set aside certain gardens only for them to invade. Mac agreed. Still the Freedom Foxes withheld their votes. They had more demands. This time, because of their hatred of different color foxes, they wanted all foxes to be dyed one color – orange like the Orange Fox, an idol of their’s. Mac agreed again. But still the Freedom Foxes were unsatisfied.
Meanwhile, the foxes had no leader until this stalemate was resolved. They started getting angry at the Freedom Foxes. The Freedom Foxes reveled in this. You see, because they were so crazy, no one ever really paid much attention to them. Now, though, because Mac needed their votes, everyone was paying attention to them. They didn’t want this to end and so they kept adding more and more demands. It didn’t matter that Mac kept giving them what they wanted. The demands weren’t really what they wanted. They just wanted the attention.
Then, in the midst of all the chaos that the Freedom Foxes were creating, all of Foxworld started to hear what sounded like the thundering of hooves. This was the worst sound that could ever be heard in Foxworld. It was the sound of a fox hunt. If Foxworld had settled their problems, it would have had its trained lookouts able to recognize when the hunts were coming. Then the foxes would be able to safely hide away. Because of the chaos, though, no lookouts had been set up. The hunters were now too close to give the foxes a chance to escape. They were sitting ducks, or, actually, sitting foxes. It turned out to be a hunting holocaust – every fox’s worst nightmare. They were wiped out.
MORAL: “The fox condemns the trap, not himself.” William Blake.
We were right 