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THE ENTREPRENEURS

    Once it was suggested that runaway populations of entrepreneurs be culled.
    Alone or in small groups, entrepreneurs could be cuddly, much like innocuous Easter bunnies running loose on the White House lawn. Cradling one for the cameras, a president could josh with reporters and seek to inspire a nation with down-home praise for the “amazin’ success a’ these spunky littl’ critters.”
    Indeed, few questioned the warm feelings brought on by the sight of the leader of the free world stroking the ears of an entrepreneur or two. In times of national uneasiness or even deep worry about the future, nothing had quite the effect of a reminder that all would be well if the public at large made more effort to emulate the stunning results that came of giving entrepreneurs free range to do what nature had so generously endowed them to do.
    To encourage this powerful entrepreneurial drive, restrictions once thought necessary to guard against possible untoward effects of overbreeding were either relaxed or revoked altogether. Community prizes were awarded for the most prolific entrepreneur or simply the biggest. There might even be incentives offered to turn lettuce patches into mega-warrens and raise entrepreneurs by the thousands in the back yard.
    All of which was fine so long as the country could absorb their multiplying numbers. When certain regions proved unable to do so, however, consequences of Malthusian proportion were quick to follow. Crowded cheek by jowl, this otherwise self-contented species might turn vicious over the smallest bit of green stuff thrown their way. And when a select few were brought to the White House for the customary photo op, they could turn on their handlers and behave as if they were a law unto themselves, even going so far as to bite the hand of anyone not wearing protective gear.
    But the gravest concern arose over the challenge posed to the future health of large parts of the country by the unexpected, astonishing mounds of waste produced. Coast to coast, the abandonment of one safeguard after another had left little protection for many against being buried alive in entreprenure.
    As valleys filled with the stuff and plains and mountains disappeared and long stretches of coastline were changed beyond recognition, citizens began making their way, as best they could, to the nation’s capital to petition their government for relief. Surely there should be reasonable limits to this kind of thing, they submitted. Limits that recognized the danger of letting entrepreneurs run free whenever and wherever they wished.
    “Just can’t do,” was the reply. “Ya see, that ‘runnin’ free’ ya mention? It’s nothin’ but freedom isself, and freedom isself is the same as sayin’ ‘free enterprise,’ which is the same a sayin’ ‘democracy,’ and we all know what that means.”
    But should it mean entrepreneurs burrowing at will in the Rose Garden?”
    “Shucks, they gotta start somewhere, don’t they?”