Naturally they get a bit dark in places. And some are apocryphal such as the lemmings one, but they do talk about how bad stuff can happen and it's rarely "fair".
And in short, the importance of liberty, of being free. Such as the one about the starved horses. Where a farmer is taken in on animal cruelty charges because he starved his animals in the hopes of being able to afford them at a later day:
The moral of the story: The guy who is starving you may sincerely be trying to feed you, but his best efforts might not be enough. In the end, if you are penned in, you can be killed by simple starvation and neglect, requiring no directly malign intention by your captors. Starvation just happens naturally when insufficient food is coming into the enclosure.
Or the related Crazy Cat Lady. Someone with too many animals to care for and refuses to let them go:
The moral of the story: Good intentions don’t mean squat if you trap other living beings inside an enclosure and then you can’t feed them in perpetuity. The holocaust that results is still on you. Expressed good intentions about your trapped population will not be accepted. “I was doing my best to help them” will ring as hollow a defense as “I was just following orders.” North Korea comes to mind as a very large enclosure.Malevolence is not required for oppression and destruction Though funny thing, the people that want to whole the whip, that want to make a "better" man tend to rather enjoy it.
And then after the parables it gets darker. Like what happens when the food distribution systems fail? The answer is grim. In short: stay out of an adjacent to any urban centers. Oh joy.
There's a related article on Civilizational Margin here.
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