The Parable of Defenestration

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, why do so many more people support The Affordable Care Act than support Obamacare?”

Josh spoke thus:

A bird was being sentenced.

“I sentence this bird to death,” one child said.

“But the bird didn’t do anything,” a second child said.

“The bird took seed,” the first child said, “I told the bird not to take seed.”

“But it’s a bird,” the second child said, “It doesn’t know it’s not supposed to take seed.”

“It should have known not to take seed,” the first child said, “I don’t allow any birds to take seed.”

“But you just captured this bird yesterday,” the second child said, “How was it to know that you don’t allow any birds to take seed?”

“I captured it exactly because it was taking seed,” the first child said, “Every seed a bird takes is a seed we don’t harvest.  Every seed we don’t harvest, we can’t take to the miller to be ground into flour.  And every seed we don’t have the miller grind into flour we can’t take to market.  And every seed we can’t take to market, we can’t sell at market.”

“A bird doesn’t know about market,” the second child said, “A bird doesn’t know about flour.  A bird doesn’t know about the miller.  A bird doesn’t know about the harvest.  A bird is a bird.”

“And a bird takes seed,” the first child said, “We’re supposed to chase the birds away, so they don’t eat our seeds.”

“We’re supposed to chase the birds away, not capture them,” the second child said.

“If we chase them away, they come back,” the first child said, “If we capture them, they can’t come back.”

“Can’t you sell the birds at market?” the second child asked, “In all my books, birds are sold in markets.  People buy song birds. If we sold the bird at market, then the bird wouldn’t eat our seed, and we could make some more money, and the bird wouldn’t die.”

“Your books are making you soft in the head,” the first child said, “All those happy endings aren’t like real life.  In real life, birds eat our seed, so birds have to die.”

“Well I read about a punishment in one of my books,” the second child said, “A punishment you never heard of.”

“What’s that?” the first child said, “You have to tell me, I’m the judge.”

“If I tell you what it is, can I do it?” the second child asked.

“Tell me what it is, and I’ll let you know,” the first child said.

“It’s defenestration,” the second child said, “Can I do it?”

“I like the sound of it.  It sounds very legal.  How do you do it?” the first child asked.

“I have to show you,” the second child said, “Can I do it?”

“Okay, but I have to make it official,” the first child said.  The first child picked up the birdcage and spoke in a stern voice, saying to the bird inside, “I sentence you to defenestration.”

The first child handed the birdcage to the second child.  The second child took the cage to the window and opened the cage door.  The child shook the cage, so that the bird was forced out the cage door and out through the window.  The bird tumbled a few feet, then flew away.

“What did you do?” the first child asked, “You let it go!”

“I threw it out the window,” the second child said, “That’s defenestration.”