The benefits of youth! See, when you’re young, there is no foul-you’re young! Only be becoming old do you gain the sufficient life knowledge to enable you to see things differently.
There is a certain truth in the old quote:
If you aren’t Liberal in your 20’s, you have no heart. If you aren’t conservative in your 40’s, you have no head.
With all that said, college kids get it, they just can’t believe it.
See, it’s not that somehow incentives don’t matter in the young, they do. It’s just that most folks lack the maturity to acknowledge that, and the harsh life lessons, that go with that when constructing a world view.
My favorite story regarding this matter is that old story of the Econ Professor, usually he teaches somewhere in Texas, who decided to teach his class the joys of the tender mercies of socialism:
That class had insisted that Socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “Okay. We will have an experiment in this class on Socialism.” All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged, and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. But as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less, and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D. No one was happy.
When the third test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name-calling all resulted in hard feelings, and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed to their great surprise, and the professor told them that Socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Such a simple and beautiful story, even if it’s urban legend.
But check THIS out. Real life example of how kids “get it” but simply can’t rectify their heart and head.
Hat Tip Scotty Starnes
I urge all of you to conduct the same interview on the campus of your choice.
I think you and this texan professor have conflated a number of strands here.
Liberalism is not socialism. Giving everyone the same grade is not socialism. Liberals don’t want everyone to be given the same grades, they want everyone to have an opportunity to excel to the extent they are capable of doing so.
That means that kids shouldn’t be denied access to the same quality of teaching, books, and technology just because they grew up in a poor neighborhood instead of a wealthy one.
Liberalism is not socialism.
We have long ago left the strict definition of “socialism”. We no longer mean the rigid definition of “state ownership of the means of production”. We now mean whatever it is that Europe has. That condition where it’s all right to confiscate the wealth of some and give it to others.
Whatever word you wanna use to describe the fact that somewhere near 50% of American’s pay no Federal tax I’ll use. But for now, I’ll use Socialism.
Liberals don’t want everyone to be given the same grades, they want everyone to have an opportunity to excel to the extent they are capable of doing so.
I don’t believe this is true. I think that Liberals want equal results, not equal opportunity.
I don’t know anyone on the left who wants to equalize outcomes or not reward incentives. In fact, European conservatives who hate socialists support much more in the case of social welfare programs than most Democrats support here. Socialism is dead and has been for quite awhile. The Democrats and Republicans are not that far apart ideologically. To call European conservatives “socialist” is so divorced from the real meaning of the term (and would get some conservative friends I have in Germany very upset — friends that do support Germans health care system and pension system to be sure — they are fiercely anti-socialist).
I do not know any liberal who wants equal results rather than equal opportunity. No one. Some pundits on the right try to make it seem that way in order to make it appear that the Democrats are naive fools who don’t understand economics. Some pundits on the left try to make it seem like Republicans are greedy fear mongers who think the masses are to be exploited. Yet really, they are far more alike than they are different.
I don’t know anyone on the left who wants to equalize outcomes
Scott, how do you then explain the fact that we transfer so much wealth from the rich to the less rich? I’m sure you’ve seen the stats that show nearly half of American’s pay no Federal income tax.
That is mind boggling. I don’t know that socialism is the most correct word, but income redistribution is awfully accurate.
or not reward incentives.
Explain 99 weeks of unemployment.
I do not know any liberal who wants equal results rather than equal opportunity.
Explain the death tax.
Explain the progressive tax system.
The fact is this, the Left see the “inequitable world” as a failure of the system. This is why the Left rails against unequal outcomes like “the rich are getting richer” and “the shrinking middle class” and “the rich are getting rich at the expense of the poor”.
The left may not “Want” to equalize outcomes but the policies they espouse do just that.