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Monday

Have you seen this?

My dad forwarded this to my E-mail. As a teacher, it makes perfect sense to me. But what are your thoughts? I'm interested in opening a discussion on this.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism would work and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan.”
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.
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 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and 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.
Could not be any simpler than that!

10 comments:

Raquel said...

I totally agree - this was a great experiment that the teacher chose to conduct. Socialism can be scary - this is EXACTLY what will happen to our country if we suddenly have socialist type health care. Not a great idea.

Lara said...

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!! "Equality" never equals prosperity for the country as a whole. This is what the Founding Fathers believed and so do I. If you are looking for a good read on the principles the Founding Fathers used to build our country and frame its Constitution check out The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen.

Unknown said...

Cleon Skousen... our generation is too young to remember his old controversies :)

I think that experiment is a a vast oversimplification of facts and is used, commonly in forwards, to scare people.

Not that I disagree (I'm totally not down with Obama's plans)... just not entirely with the method of delivery because I don't think people take the time to really explore why they don't like socialism. I mean, if we really break it down, it's closer to the law of consecration than we'd like to admit--however, we are not called to live that law at this time because we are not ready. It would never work right now, people are too lazy... in fact, I don't know many people I would want to consecrate with, from any religion or background! :) I think that as human beings we tend to think that we're pretty awesome, so how could it be possible that someone else would work as hard as we would? I think we all see ourselves as the person that's so responsible that we end up carrying the burden...

Alicia said...

It seems like they would be the same-consecration and socialism. But I think they are just the opposite. Very simply, consecration is voluntary and mediated by a loving God, whereas socialism, which has the potential to lead to communism, is enforced through government bureaucrats. Just think, if you participate in the temple, do you leave with a good feeling in your heart that inspires you to volunteer to share your time and talents? Or do you leave with a gut-wrenching feeling that someone is "watching" you and controlling your every move? Vastly different.

Unknown said...

Touters of socialism SAY that they are motivated by helping people... it's just that it doesn't actually happen that way...

Raquel said...

Law of Consecration and Socialism are very close, Alicia is right, its the manner at which the law is "enforced". If done in a loving way with everyone in the same understanding, it would work. Right now as it is, I fear it would not work. When people are ready for the Law of Consecration, God will see to it. Before then, we need to do keep doing the best we can. Be aware of what is going on in our country and with the lawmakers.

Alicia said...

I agree. I think that most people have good intentions but government enforced consecration just won't work because what will the motivation and reward/punishment be when God is not the mediator? So...you can't enforce it basically, it's too hard so then you have to lower the standards and then it just brings everyone down to the lowest common denominator. With consecration on the other hand, your reward is an "increase" temporaliy and spiritually, and because it's voluntary, those who participate in it to the fullest can really propsper and bring everyone to the highest denominator...now I'm getting into things which I don't know very much about so I'll be quiet now. Ha!

Jessica Reid said...

Love it and totally agree. Did this really happen?

spudette said...

I agree with Courtney that this is way too simple. National & world economies can rarely be explained in a short story. Also, it assumes that if you work hard you will be rich. That's not always the case. There are plenty of hard working people out there who are poor. There are also plenty of lazy people who are very wealthy, simply because they were lucky enough to be born into the right family. There's just more to it than that.

Alicia said...

I don't think the experiment was meant to "solve everything," only to point out that if you get input for no output, then the value of the input decreases. Thomas Paine said of the American Revolution: "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." I believe that. Anything worth while takes a little effort to obtain. We're not talking about rich people vs. poor people and how hard they work. We're talking about putting value on something. What's the incentive for my husband to put himself through 4 yrs. of medical school to then go out an make the same salary as a public school teacher? You won't get good doctors into the field if government gets it's nationalized healthcare, just like we have schools filled today with unmotivated teachers. I was a high school teacher for 5 years so I'm not just being judgemental there on teachers-I know we have some slacker teachers. Why? Because they can't be fired because they are unionized and government pays them the same no matter how high their education, rather than giving them incentive to specialize.