(pass it on)
A hornet stings you in the yard.
Step 1: Stir up the hornet's nest. That'll show 'em not to sting you!
Response: A whole bunch of hornets get angry and sting you.
Step 2: Import a head hornet, and train him to impose decent civilized values on the nest. Of course, all the other hornets will follow his lead.
Response:Angry hornets don't like the leader and continue to sting you repeatedly.
Step 3: Stick your head in the hornet's nest. Tell those hornets in no uncertain terms, that they better stop stinging you or else.
Response: You get stung repeatedly in the face.
Step 4: Stay the course. Stick your head deeper in the hornet's nest, and threaten your neighbor. It must be his hornets who are invading the nest and causing all the problems.
Response: Now the hornets are really angry. They start stinging you, each other, and anyone else who comes near the nest, repeatedly. Plus, your neighbor is pissed off.
Step 5: Bring up more reserves, to stick their heads in the hornet's nest.
Response: More and more people get stung. Your neighbors decide that maybe stirring up the hornet's nest wasn't such a great idea, after all.
Step 6: Ignoring your neighbors, initiate a surge in your attack on the hornet's nest. If you don't continually escalate your attack on the hornet's nest, the hornets will obviously use the nest as a base to attack you and your neighbors in your homes. It's the right thing to do, even if the whole neighborhood disagrees. Besides, if you stop stirring up the hornet's nest, then the price of pesticides will go down, and that would hurt the economy (not to mention your stock portfolio).
Response: Your neighbors start petitioning in the street, demanding that you stop stirring up the hornet's nest.
Step 7: Tough luck. It's self-evident that you have to stir up the hornet's nest forever, or else the hornets will attack your community at home. You're the decider, and you must decide how to protect everyone from the hornet's nest, for their own good.
Response: The hornets are really stinging the shit out of you.
Step 8: Double your budget for stirring up the hornet's nest. Nothing else matters, except stopping the hornets from attacking your homes (and passing tax breaks for the pesticide makers, so they can build better weapons to help you fight the hornets). Steal a bunch of money from your local school board, police department, and hospital, to pay for a further escalation. Your neighbors will surely understand that stirring up the hornet's nest is a much higher priority than tax-and-spend frills like education, health care and crime prevention.
Dedicated to the late Molly Ivins