The Legend of the Idiots(Charles E.J. Moulton) The Legend of the Idiots

By Charles E.J. Moulton

Once upon a time there was a little boy. He wondered what the world was like and so, naturally, he asked his helpful Dad to tell him about it.

"Son," his father said, "come over here and I'll tell you about the world. Everyone in the world, they're all idiots, everyone except us."

"Really?" the boy asked, surprised. "Tell me!"

"Yes," the father exclaimed. "I will. Take the Germans, for instance, they wear lederhosen all the time, eat sauerkraut and they all tell cynical and evil jokes. Or the French, they all wear berets, have long moustaches and eat snails. The Irish, they're all drunk on Whiskey all of the time and speak non-understandable English, in Afghanistan, they're all terrorists, hard rockers are all evil people who hate Christians, gay people sleep around, Mexicans are all lazy people who eat spicy foods and in China everyone wears red."

"Red?" the boy asked.

"Yes, red. They're all communists, you see."

"Ah," the boy nodded. "Tell me more, Dad. You know so much."

"That's what I am here for," the father went on to say. "Well, the jews are all greedy, besides having killed Jesus, the Scottish people stock away their money in their kilts and the vegetarians, they're the worst."

"Why, Dad? Tell me!"

"They are all thin and disillusioned, walking around all day nibbling on carrots."

"Okay. What about us, Dad?"

"We're great!"

"Whew," the son exclaimed, "that's quite a lot to digest. I have to lay down. Thanks, Dad!"

Well, the boy went on to finish school and study and travel the world, deciding to examine his father's words.

First, he went to Germany, but he found nobody in lederhosen, no folks eating sauerkraut and lots of friendly open people.

"Well, my Dad can't know everything, can he?"

Next stop: France.
Funnily enough, he found no snails there, only a few men wearing moustaches, but almost no people wearing berets.

"Weird," the boy wondered. "I wonder why my father told me that ..."

He now travelled to Ireland and found lots of sober people who spoke beautiful English.

"This is getting weirder and weirder," the boy croaked. "Why did my father lie to me?"

In Afghanistan, he found hard working merchants and loads of carpenters, but no terrorists. In Mexico, some people didn't even like spicy foods. Many citizens worked harder and longer than he ever had. In China, no one he found there wore red. The jews had obviously not killed Jesus, there were just as many or as few greedy Jews or Scotsmen as in any other place in the world and there were certainly no coins in the kilts of the Scotsmen. Then he heard about shock rocker named Alice Cooper who was a Christian, the Christian hardrock band Stryper who sang about God and gay people who stayed faithful to one partner all of their lives.

"Okay," the boy whispered, "let's find out about the vegetarians. Maybe my Dad was right about them."

This would prove to be interesting.
As the boy sat enjoying his XXL-Angus-steak with a baked potato and garlic butter, he read about vegetarians, surfing the net on his smartphone. 89 % of vegetarians had been carnivore once, only to become vegetarians out of empathy.

"Empathy? For what? Meat is a product we buy in the supermarket, right?"

He then read that meat came from murdered animals, that 5 billion animals, almost the equivalent of the world's entire human population, were killed every single year to be processed for food. Not only that, the animals were harmed, used, abused, mistreated, beat up, their lives shortened, they were ripped to pieces in front of their mothers and fathers and hung up on spikes, cut up and stuck into burgers.

The boy put away his smartphone, reminding himself what everyone had told him was right, defending his habits.

"Vitamin B12, we need that, meat gives us that."

But then googled that, too, reading that soy beans have more B12 than meat does and that the biggest creatures of the world had been vegetarians. The gorilla, the brontosaurus and the elephant.

"But humans have always eaten meat, right?"

No, he found out, that's why human beings had built weapons in order to kill. If we were of the ape family, we originally vegetarians like our cousins the gorillas and chimpanzees, he reminded himself.

"Do people hunt and kill their own animals today?" the boy wondered. "No, they go to Walmart, buying murdered animals other people killed for them. People have become lazy cowards."

Okay, but what about the vegetarians themselves. They must be super thin and so angry. Was his father right there, at least?

He interviewed many vegetarians, seeking in veggie forums, and found quite a few round and very happy people amongst them. They were totally creative with sauces, spices, potatoes, cheeses and the like. And yes, it was hard to find a thin and disillusioned vegetarian. In fact, the most deliciously filling meals of his life were vegetarian.

The boy marched up to his father, angrily, wanting to complain that his father had lied to him. But then he saw his Dad watch soccer, drinking whiskey, eating a spicy steak, screaming unfriendly cynical jokes at the TV-screen, wearing a red beret, holding on to his wallet, acting like a terrorist, exclaiming:
"Jesus Christ, you idiots, kick the frigging ball!"

"Who are you screaming at, Dad?" the boy asked.

"Our team, the soccer team of our country, they're all idiots."

"I thought we were the only great people on the planet, Dad," the boy wondered.

"Hah," the father screamed. "Bullshit."

"Have you ever been out of this country, Dad? Really tried to find out what the world REALLY is like?"

The father looked at the boy as if a UFO had just landed on the top of his head. Someone from the other team kicked the ball into the goal on TV and his father threw his own red beret on the floor, gulping down his whiskey and screaming: "Idiots!"

"I guess there are idiots here, too, huh?" the boy sighed.

"What are you talking about, son?"

"I'm going to have supper in a vegetarian restaurant," the boy smiled and waved, pointing at his father's plate. "Bon appetit! Enjoy your B12! Just remember that every second that passes by 317 animals are being slaughtered in the U.S. alone, that makes 10 billion a year ... by factories that refuse inspection. Does a nation with 240 million people need to eat a hundred times as much meat as its population?"

The boy left his father baffled in his seat, not touching his steak again, but throwing it away.

The French girl the boy brought home to his parents house the following month had specialized on Chinese art. She was a Jewish-Afghan girl, an expert vegetarian cook, not at all thin but a very happy round vegetarian.

You can imagine the conversation at the dinner table that evening, can't you? Quite odd.

Many years later, their first son became a ballet dancer. And no, he was not gay, but a family father. Things are not always what they seem.

What do we learn from this legend of the idiots? That it is a legend, no more. There is no idiocy, just a lack of information. Stop being ignorant. Inform yourself. Among others about the meat industry, the factory farming mafia that refuses inspection, about the 317 animals that are brutally murdered every second for our enjoyment. 150 billion slaughtered animals worldwide yearly. Would you murder an animal? No? Why should you pay someone else to do that? You don't? Didn't you buy meat at the supermarket just now?

Never take any breath for granted.
Your days on this planet are counted.
Take care of yourself and others, animals and humans. Ignoring to care is the greatest sin.

Tolerate anyone who is different from yourself. You are different, as well. And inform yourself before you complain about other people's habits. Don't always believe what you read in the press. Were you there to see when it happened? Don't always believe what you have heard other people's habits might be from someone who hasn't met them, either.

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