That reliably right-wing card James Taranto, who does the Best of the Web blog for The Wall Street Journal web site, links to news about research indicating monkeys resent being treated unfairly and have an innate sense of fairness:
In a recent study, brown capuchin monkeys trained to exchange a granite token for a cucumber treat often refused the swap if they saw another monkey get a better payoff — a grape.
Instead, they often threw the token, refused to eat the piece of cucumber, or even gave it to the other capuchin after viewing the lopsided deal, said Emory University researcher Sarah Brosnan.
Good for them.
Taranto says this “suggests that monkeys are Democrats.” I suppose he thinks that’s a putdown. I think it’s a compliment.
So if a Democratic monkey gets angry about receiving unequal rewards for equal tasks, how would a Republican monkey react? Perhaps he would think, “Gosh, if those other monkeys are getting those delicious grapes, and I’m getting these lousy cucumbers, they must deserve grapes more than I do.”
