MINI MERICA

Think of this like the TV show "Lost." A plane crashed on an island with 100 people aboard; all survive. No one finds them for years .They quickly realize they will have to bring some organization to their little community if they are to make it for the long run.

The lucky 100 analyze their skills and carefully break into two distinct groups. The "Providers" and the "Administrators." The Providers provide. They hunt, make and distribute what the groups needs to survive. The Administrators administer. They take over the work the Providers are too busy providing to do. They cut walking paths between various groupings, they carry messages and knowledge from one group of Providers to another, and they oversee security for the groups.

Since the Administrators produce nothing, they have nothing. In order for the Providers to be able to do what they do best, they pay a portion of their gains to the Administrators for the Administrator's services. They usually pay in Elk burgers--a percentage of their hunt. Those successful hunters pay more than those who are unskilled or down right lazy. As it works out about 43% of the Providers, while absorbing the bulk of the Administrators time and burgers, pay no burgers at all.

The unproductive Administrators, because no one ever set a limit on their assisting in an unproductive capacity, have been "serving" the Providers for years. Over those years they have slowly chipped away at what should be the exclusive rights of the productive Providers. Before long the unproductive Administrators were telling the productive Providers where and when they could hunt, and what weapons they could use. They also raised the burger count required from the productive Providers to give to the unproductive Administrators so the unproductive Administrators, after they have taken their share, could give the remainder to the non productive Providers.

Since there were so many non productive Providers now able to sit around all day telling stories, making babies and eating the rewards of others' hard work, the unproductive Administrators found it necessary to redistribute the burgers and require more from the 10% of productive Providers who the unproductive Administrators determined were living high off the Elk, as it were. The productive Providers then began to wonder why they were busting their humps when they could just tell stories and do that baby making thing, and be almost as well off?

The unproductive Administrators were able to get away with this seeming unfair distribution because the non productive Providers very much related to the unproductive Administrators (who also lived off the the 57% of the productive Providers) and therefore backed every activity the unproductive Administrators proposed.

Since the 100 survivors followed the general religious population in the US, almost 80 were Christians, 2 were Jews, 2 were Atheist, 2 were Agnostic, 1 was Muslim and 13 had no religious ties at all. Our Muslim friend, we can call him Hussein, was devout and chose to follow Mohammed's teaching to the letter, so he began beheading Christians. There were plenty Christians and nobody was looking out for them anyway. The unproductive Administrators, having no real skills in anything, were not sure what to do. All they knew is they didn't want to seem heavy handed on such a minority, so they sent him a strongly worded letter asking him not to do it again. He did--down to 77 Christians.

The remaining 77 Christians wanted to put crosses by their shacks but the 2 Atheists complained-- so much for the crosses.

Out of the 97 remaining survivors, 4 were proud members of the LGBT community. The unproductive Administrators, again scared to death of offending ANY minority, gave the 4 pretty much anything they wanted.

There were also 3 people who when providing very menial help to the productive Providers after the hunt (burying the entrails, etc.), were paid one burger per hour. They complained, and since they were also a minority, (and who seems to have more power than a minority), the unproductive Administrators required the productive Providers give them 3 burgers per hour whether they were worth it or not. This was not too big of a deal for the productive Providers because they just developed an automated digging tool and fired all the low-skilled help and didn't have to hire anyone new. This didn't bother the fired workers either because the unproductive Administrators gave them 1 1/2 burgers (taken by law from the few remaining productive Providers) for 99 weeks.

You would really have to wonder how a society organized and performing like this could possibly survive--so do I.