Monday, April 18, 2011

Academic Socialism

"We want to redistribute some of your GPA..." "The 4.0 is kind of excessive..."

"It's not fair."

Gawd, I love the hypocrisy shown in videos like this one.

6 comments:

socalmike said...

An oldie, but a goodie, and appropriate to this post:

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 was for distribution of all wealth.

She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, which she expressed openly. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs.

Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor she felt that for years her father had obviously harbored an evil, even selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

He stopped her and asked her point blank, how she was doing in school. She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she studied all the time and never had 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 of spending all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your good friend Mary doing?"

She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "She barely has a 2.0 GPA," adding, "and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies." "But Mary is so very popular on campus, college for her is a blast, she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over."

Her father then asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's Office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0." He continued, "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 wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without And Mary has done little or nothing, she played while I worked real hard!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Mr. W said...

that's so funny. I do something like this every year in my class and every year the reaction is the same...don't touch my points I earned them.

http://kwendland73.blogspot.com/2010/12/inside-four-walls-lesson-in-socialism.html

mrelliott said...

Loved it!! Shows the utter injustice with the whole "redistribute" idea.

By the by, redistributing GPA points was never an issue at my former high school. But, counselors were known to "round up" GPA's on things like scholarship applications.

Scott McCall said...

I can definately see what they're trying to show. But I'm going to be devil's advocate for a second:

Is the analogy really the same? They're talking about taking the 4.0 GPA, and GIVING points to people with lower GPAs. Applying that to taxes, that like saying we're taking money from Steve Jobs, and GIVING it to the poor (I'm not including welfare or crap like that).

And even then, the money from the rich doesn't go to the poor. It all goes to the same federal system. Whereas with the GPAs, everyone would have their GPA taken away (at different percentages) and it would have to go to the school system or something like that.

I don't quite see the analogy fitting perfectly. Please, enlighten me.

Darren said...

Fine, call it "academic welfare". We'll skim some GPA points off of everyone, and redistribute them based on need. The analogy fits good enough for me.

scott mccall said...

Ok, if you're referring to welfare.....i highly agree with you. But then again....i think welfare is a scam to begin with. there are way too many things wrong with welfare and i think it should be time limited or abolished. people need to be forced to get jobs.

lucky for me, i work on a college campus so my paycheck isn't taxed (for social security and welfare) during the school year.