A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words, redistribution of wealth.A young conservative has run with the idea and interviewed potential taxpaying college students at Berkeley if they would contribute their GPA to their less grade endowed classmates.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.'
Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!'
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the conservative's philosophy.'
link to video and Fox News story
Oliver Darcy, a recent college graduate, proposes that students with good grades contribute their GPA to their academically sluggish friends. He argues that this is how the federal government takes wealth from the country’s high wage earners and distributes it to the low income earners.
“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with "Fox and Friends." “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”
Darcy, who films his encounters with teachers and fellow students, doesn’t have much luck selling this theory.
He said many students on college campuses support high taxes on the rich, but when put into relative terms, cringed at the thought of spreading around their academic wealth.
In a video posted on Exposingleftists.com, one student said, “If I do give GPA points to students that don’t deserve it, it isn’t fair, I work for what I have.”
Oliver also goes around campus asking whether students want to sign his petition to pay their share of the national debt – which amounts to nearly $47,000 per person.
This, too, brought mixed reaction, with one student saying the debt isn’t hers because she didn't contribute to it.
And here's the video in question:
link to video and comments on Exposing Leftists
Well, I dunno, I was a naive idealist at that age as well, and my conversion to the
And to be fair, I think we all know that Darcy chose the epicenter of liberal thinking and knew exactly what to expect. He was not disappointed for sure. Were I to do the same with universities in Kansas, I'd want to go to KU. If I went to K-State, I'd be more likely to find people who'd argue the premise of the question about redistributing GPA in the first place.
Nonetheless, it's an interesting view into a certain mindset.
H/T Ace
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5 comments:
Same old and tired mindset the world over.
I remember about 5-6 years ago, at the height of blogs explosion, when I was regularly stopping by at 2Blowhards, there was some tangent conversation with commenters. Few of them, self-proclaimed socialists and "bleeding hearts" were raving against those evil imperialistic neocons, rotten oil money and greedy capitalists who didn't want to share. So I asked where do they live and what they do. Two said they live on Upper West Side of Manhattan (THE most expensive place), one was "in the movies", another - a social studies professor "with independent means". So I told them they should start redistributing wealth with their own example and give up their $6000 a month apartments, move to a ghetto neighborhood and distribute the difference in rent among their neighbors, regularly.
They were appalled. They called me too simplistic, primitive, rude, a neocon agitator; they questioned the wisdom of State Department of allowing me entry into this country, &&&. One of their replies I remembered verbatim: "My money is mine because there is nothing wrong in earning good money with good deeds!"
OT: Jeffro, have you heard of this?
It's good to hear from a preacher claiming to be from Kansas who isn't stinkin' Fred Phelps and family.
Hmmm. Not sure that GPA analogy is really apt. Unless you are talking about taking dollars directly from people who worked hard for them and giving them directly, as a cash transaction, into the hands of people who are just lazing about.
But what about your tax dollars that go to programs for abused, at risk children -- programs that may make the difference between them growing up to be productive taxpaying members of society or lawbreakers who strain the legal and jail systems, thereby costing us taxpayers more? Surely these kids aren't needing the services because they are lazy, such as your fictitious student's partying friend.
What about money that goes for public education? As someone whose family has had three successful start-up businesses (all built with blood sweat and tears) an educated populace certainly is to the benefit of my businesses: providing me with a qualified employee pool and a productive, earning customer pool that can afford my services/goods.
What about health and immunization programs that keep every member of society from creating a health hazard (tuberculosis and other diseases we thought we had beat are making a come-back.)
As long as there is oversight to make sure our tax dollars are going to things that help our society be more productive, safer and conducive to creating businesses (such as good infrastructure, etc.), taxation is merely the price we pay to keep our society in good repair.
I realize we're on different sides of this issue -- but maybe not. I think we're both mainly looking for accountability and responsibility with our tax dollars. And I don't think either of us would be completely against a small incremental rate difference for those who could afford it -- certainly nothing like the tax rates that existed under Eisenhower, but maybe those that existed under Clinton, when the economy was roaring. Again with that accountability and responsibility in the use of our tax dollars, which is the area where I think we would come together, my friend.
Lisa, you know as well as I do that when one paints with a broad brush, there are a lot of things that get covered up. There are many things that I am for, and there are many things I am not. I've talked to conservative minded kids who've gone to college and had to hide their lights under a basket, so to speak, to avoid confrontation with those who control their grades about their political affiliations. Anecdotes don't make evidence, and that works both ways. You might be getting a high quality educated workforce, but when companies are having a hard time hiring qualified graduates because their level of practical job knowledge has diminished - I'm not citing sources, but this is news easily found - those sort of trends alarm me.
It seems to me that California has become a sort of Petri dish for trying to fix all of society's ills and make it some sort of paradise of equals. The problem with that is becoming very evident in that all that has a price, it's coming due, and y'all don't have the revenue. I'm all for states' rights, so what y'all do is fine, I'm not involved. Obviously, I'm gonna be strongly against Uncle Sam bailing y'all out if it comes to that.
I just don't think government is the answer to all ills. Government agencies generally have very poor rates of return on investments, and the obvious failures are never eliminated.
At some point we have to step back and say "Whoa! Let's pay for what we have first and then go on," rather than taking even more money from taxpayers. When half the population pays no taxes at all, I'd say we've reached that point. Besides, have you read how much income would be generated by the proposed plans to "soak it to the rich?" It wouldn't even begin to pay the bills coming due. So a "small incremental rate difference" is no solution as long as spending grows exponentially. And while we're at it, increasing taxes in a recession isn't exactly bright, either, as far as I'm concerned. Taxing corporations more just has them passing on the costs to their customers, namely us. When we talk about the "insane" profits the oil industry makes, consider that their margin on a gallon of gas is a cent or three, compared to the combined government taxes approaching sixty five cents. And just a poke at "your guy" Obama - the corporate profits the oil industry enjoys isn't even close to GE - a major Democrat fund source and a beneficiary of government funding for their green initiatives, including wind generators.
Well, I could go on and on, but that's not going to convince you. We'll be talking past each other in the future as well, I'm sure. But what the hell, I was in high school debate for four years and my skills are no doubt extremely rusty, so throw down anytime! I'll argue with ya!
Obviously don't want a throwdown as I want to be welcome back to read your excellent "on the road" posts. Just want to clarify two things:
First, I think you'd be surprised at what California is doing. First of all San Francisco -- yup, us uber liberals -- got rid of some very misguided programs several years ago, including one that literally did just hand out monthly cash payments to the homeless. While I'm sure some thought it would "foster dignity", of course, what it did was encourage lots of layabouts to come to San Francisco for their "free money". Interesting how when it got changed to the equivalent in shelter, food kitchen and healthcare vouchers, the layabouts disappeared, almost overnight. The people that are still availing themselves of the services seem to be good people down on their luck. And there are a lot out there who are just one medical bill or one bad break away from being on the streets. But the latest City statistics are showing that many of those people who need these emergency services are using them to survive a bad time, but then are boostrapping themselves back into the workforce. Nancy Pelosi, far from being the anti-business witch she's painted as in the rest of the country is extremely popular among Silicon Valley executives -- arguably one of the most hyper capitalistic groups in the country -- because she is finely attuned to the issues that these execs think are vital to keeping the area globally competitive and able to grow. So, far from thinking we have all the answers, we're still struggling to find the balance between keeping people safe, healthy and productive, working with the money at hand and keeping our private sector churning along.
Secondly, when I say "education", I'm not talking about getting every kid a PhD. Education should include lots of vocational training programs, apprenticeship programs, technical and mechanical institutes and retraining opportunities for people whose industries are not surviving. Again, citing Silicon Valley, just about all the old line founders of the industry will tell you that one of the main reasons the Bay Area got Silicon Valley and it didn't spring up in Keokuk Iowa was that California had made a huge commitment to education and, from the rocket scientists at Berkeley to the quality of people coming out of the training at community colleges and trade schools, the tech sector could fill their employment needs with an excellent fully trained workforce.
So it's a balance. And again, we're still fine tuning how to ensure that the public sector can take care of the things that feed the private sector, which in tern will create jobs and employed people who can pay back into the system. But even among the most liberal people I know out here, no one I'm hearing is saying Government needs to do everything. Again, I think we're a lot closer on these issues than you might at first think.
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